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I’m not sure what it’s like to go to post secondary and get a degree because I haven’t done it.

I’ve often wondered if you follow your path and use the degree if that helps your confidence in pursuing the thing.

Does the degree set you apart, and set you up enough that you can do the work without feeling like you are an imposter?

I’m not sure if it does, but it seems like it might.

What I do know is that if you just decide for yourself that you are going to show up in the world and call yourself a professional, then the shame tapes (as Brene Brown calls them) start playing.

“Who do you think you are?“. This one is a doozy, and I spend a large majority of my time talking myself into it.

“Who are you to do that”. Another doozy.

Other people might think these things about us… but we wouldn’t know because we rarely give them a chance to. We stop because we are saying it ourselves from the moment we have the idea.

The mental game is always the biggest hurdle. And it’s not just one hurdle, there are many.

I don’t want to live a life where I didn’t show up for it as hard as I could. But in the back of my mind, no matter how much I know, I’m always wondering… who am I to be doing this?

In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield talks about the gap between the life we want to live on the inside and the life we are living on the outside, he calls this gap the resistance.

He says it’s a universal toxin that all of us face.

I can tell you it kicked my hiney in a big way for a lot of my years simply because I didn’t know what it was, and it still does if I’m not paying attention.

It’s the force that pushes against you and keeps you small.

In the book he states it so well when he says, “it’s the painter who won’t paint, the writer who won’t write, and the entrepreneur who hasn’t started a business”.

For me it shows up in so many ways… the biggest way was by not putting myself out there and showing up for my life.   I can literally feel the brick wall in front of me and in my chest when I’m facing the resistance.

So I started little by little, making choices that would force me to try something even if I fail, to speak up even if I might say something wrong, and to share who I am even though I might be judged for it.   

Sometimes I’m shaking in my boots as I do it, and some of my preface has been painful to say the least, but my goal was to just do it.  Zig Zigler said,” anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until you can do it well” and I use his words to get me through.   

And you know what?   People can be so nice!   

Most people sit back and watch without saying a word, but there are some people consistently cheering me on as I step out into this scary world who I never would have dreamed would become my support…some of them I hadn’t even met yet because I was staying small.

This has been the most fulfilling and rewarding personal journey I have been on in years, or maybe ever, and I really can’t wait to see how the path reveals itself to me as I go.

Who is coming with me?  

P.S.  The picture I chose for this post is so much a depiction of what it was like for my mom to push me through my resistance throughout my life.   I am beyond thankful she kept me going until I could figure it out myself❤️

Fear of failure is such a widespread term it’s almost become cliche.

It’s not a fear I felt like I related to… but I know it’s very real for a lot of people.  Looking back, maybe I would have made better choices if I was afraid to fail.

I usually enjoy trying new things and experiencing life…if things don’t work out or “fail”,  there would be no harm done. 

I just realized the other day… I get freaked out by the consequences that come from failure.

For example…Try a new business idea and see if it works or not… no problem.  If it doesn’t work that’s ok, but the part that would hold me back is trying to rebuild from sunk and lost money.

My life experience in that department has been less than stellar because we never were able to rebuild, we just kept sinking.  

Another example…I didn’t view my marriage as a failure when we separated, but the aftermath/consequences were horrendous.  A new relationship to me would be fine, but choosing the wrong person means breaking up…and the consequences of the break up are a bit terrifying.

So it has left me wondering… does the fear of failure itself come from what other people will think?   Does the fear of failure come from a deep seated belief about yourself not being competent?   Or is everyone like me and fear the consequences of the failure?

I would love to hear your thoughts…

Have you thought about how you want to start the new year?

I love to do things with intention but I had never really thought about starting a new year with intention.

I was reading some Fung Shui over the last few days and she said it’s a good idea to have the energy in your home ready for a fresh start.

It’s best to have your whole house clean and clear of clutter, but if you don’t have time for that then to focus on the kitchen, front entrance, and bedrooms.

If you only have time for one space to be prepped, focus on the kitchen.

Clean, de clutter and prepping for the new year sets you up for a good start. She also mentioned it’s good to start with your supplies full. Have a full bowl of oranges, fill your soaps, pet food, fridge, and spice rack. Then soak in the feelings of abundance all around you as you start 2019.

I have 2 days to get my life together… I have to go.

When I started writing my blog over a year ago the part I loved so much about it was that I had a place to express myself.

I had finally found a space where I could be me without any outside influences.

I could wake up early in the morning and before anyone could get their thoughts onto me, and before the world pulled me in one direction or another, I had some time to just be with myself and write it down.

If someone didn’t like what I had said, or didn’t understand what I had wrote…it was too late, I had already shipped it into the world.

My blog taught me how to be the most unapologetic version of myself I had ever had the courage to be.

Lately, I have felt depressed and tired… conversations have been hard because my emotions keep choking me up, and I’ve had more tears stream down my face lately than I have in a long time.

Sometimes I know what triggers a shift in me, and sometimes I slowly start to notice things aren’t on track the same as they were.
This time was a slow derailment.

Sure life has had challenges lately, but I couldn’t attribute this shift in me to any one particular event.

Then it dawned on me.

I have been looking outside of myself for happiness and fulfillment.

This never works.

Nothing outside of us can ever fill us up.

At best it’s temporary and it always leaves us wanting more.

Wanting more stuff, wanting more food, or wanting someone else to love us more only keeps the focus away from our centre of being and disconnects us from our truth bit by bit, thread by thread, and piece by piece.  

This is how I’ve been feeling lately, and I couldn’t understand why I was wanting more than usual.  

When we deeply connect with ourselves, and we feed our soul with the attention it’s seeking, slowly all of the wanting disappears.

Writing is the best way for me to do that.

I watched a clip Jim Carey did about needing colour in his life, I could relate. (Watch it here)
It’s so important to stay connected with and express our true selves.

We are meant to create. 

We create art, we create connection, and we create our lives and our best work comes from expressing our most vulnerable and human selves… and that is also where we find the most colour in life.

Fulfillment always comes from within.

You have everything you need for complete peace and total happiness right now.”  – Wayne Dyer

You have the choice about how you see the world.

The story in your head is your story and you can change it if you want to.

There is balance, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

For everything horrible that happens there is always something good to be found. You can always find a silver lining.

And for everything good that happens there is always a spoiler.

Whichever side you see depends on what you’re looking for and the story you’re telling.

When you look for the silver linings and the good bits your energy expands snd you attract more of it towards you.

When you focus on the parts you aren’t comfortable with or that are challenging you, you draw more of that energy towards you.

The trick to this is not faking it. It doesn’t help to pretend all is good when it’s not. Sometimes you have to work to find the good. It’s always there, but you need to genuinely see it.

Just for today keep your eyes on the silver linings and the good bits. Be grateful foe them and lean right into them.

It’s worth it.

Several times over the last year I have talked about the online Marketing Seminar I took by Seth Godin.

I didn’t necessarily take it to learn Marketing, although I knew at the time that marketing is a skill anyone can benefit from, including myself. I enrolled because I wanted to learn from Seth Godin.

He’s a blogger, a marketer, an author, an entrepreneur, a freelancer, and a speaker. His list of accolades are long. He has a rich following, and every time I listen to him on a podcast I’m impressed with his clarity of thought. I have read several of his books and he inspires me. I wanted to dig into his framework, so I took the course.

In the midst of it I blogged about understanding myself as a consumer (here), I wrote about my insecurities that were coming up because I didn’t have any background in marketing concepts (here), I included it in a feature Friday and suggested you take a look at it also (here).

As the seminar started to wind down I wrote about how anxious I was about applying the knowledge (here).

I mentioned it again in this blog when I started to realized the power of engaging in a new experience and how much it changes us (this is a good one).

In the seminar, Seth encouraged us to form mastermind groups. I am in a group of 6 who meet online every week since, and the lessons have kept coming. I wrote about them in this blog

It takes me a while to process my experiences because change isn’t easy. As I was going about my days, I started to really see in a change in myself that I think was 90% sparked from what I had learned in the seminar and how I was applying it. I wrote about that here.

Over time I started to understand more clearly the way my underlying beliefs had held me back in the seminar, and how uncovering them and letting them go made such a profound impact, I wrote about those here.

I wrote about the marketing seminar once more in this blog when I talked about the value of feedback in our lives, and there is a future blog rolling around in my mind about giving good feedback, which was a skill I learned in the seminar.

The marketing seminar is 50 videos and designed in way that most of the learning comes from peer interaction and feedback in the message boards. If you read through the links to my blogs, you will see it had a pretty large impact on who I became last year.

Seth has opened up registration today for another round. If the seminar interests you, click here for his blog post today introducing it.

I loved it but it’s not for everyone and that’s ok.

You know what is for everyone?

• Enrolling in something.
• Learning something.
• Stretching yourself.
• Committing yourself to doing hard things and seeing them through to the end.
• Leaning into something or someone that interests you and seeing where it takes you.
• Showing up for life.
• Pushing through fear.
• Leaving your comfort zone.

These things are for everyone.

I found it with an online seminar on marketing… you may find it somewhere else.

I encourage you to find something.

You just never know where it might take you.

P.S. I am holding a 2 hour class in Airdrie on the evening of January 24. I hope you’ll join us, it will be a good place to start. The theme is self awareness and I hope to incorporate as many of these points into the evening as I can. You can sign up by clicking here.

I see the world through two different lenses.

One is our human lens. Where we suffer, judge others, criticize, condemn, become jealous, competitive, and controlling of each other.

This is the lens of constantly overcoming limitations, facing rules and laws, and trying to outsmart the system. Our problems seem big and sometimes insurmountable.

Our ego is heavily involved here as we separate ourselves from each other, and from our source, and we sweat the small stuff.

The other is our spirit lens. This is where have no limitations, our soul has a purpose larger than we can see and we are here to evolve.

There is no judgments as our paths are all the same and all about awakening and evolving spiritually. There isn’t anything in the human condition that is right or wrong, it all just is, and it’s all happening for reasons.

From this lens you observe your life from a birds eye view, where you know that all problems are small and seemingly insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe.

Life is eternal and what we are facing is simply a small drop in the ocean of time and space.

My spirit lens is the one that has pulled me through all of the storms and hard times in life.

The human lens is the reality we live with everyday.

Keeping the perspective between the two helps you remember that life is too important to be taken so seriously. Like they say, none of us are getting out of here alive.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s a good thing.

I saw a quote on twitter recently that went something like reading a book is the best way to get inside of someone’s head, even if that person is dead.

I wish I could remember who’s tweet it was so I could credit them, but I think it’s pretty brilliant.

So many of the great thinkers and leaders who came before us were generous enough to leave us breadcrumbs and learn what they learned.

I read a lot of non fiction because of this.

Since 2020 started I have read 3 biographies of business men. Phil Knights Shoe Dog, Robert Igers Ride of a Lifetime, and Marc Randolphs That Will Never Work.

Although I do have a favourite out of the bunch (Shoe Dog), they all share wisdom of their journeys through the years.

I wish everyone would do this.

Writing is a super power, you do not have to be a billionaire to do it.

Everyone has experiences and wisdom worth sharing. If you don’t share it, then you’re not allowing someone else the opportunity to learn what you have learned.

If only I could read about my Grandparents lives. I would understand so much more about who I am and where I came from.

And I would be able to make the best apple pie in the world.

It’s sad that so many people don’t value what they have learned enough to share it with others.

There is a lot of wisdom that has died with the person that held it.

If this hasn’t convinced you to write… what else can I say to you?

Inside the roles we play are all sorts of expectations which come from both sides of the equation. I expect my role to look like this, and you expect my role to be something different… and that goes both ways. For every 2 person interaction there are at least 4 sets of expectations to deal with, if you add a person you exponentially add more expectations. It gets complicated very quickly.

We assume roles all of the time.

We take on the role a friend, a spouse, or a parent and then we take on different roles within those relationships. Maybe we hire someone to perform a service or do a job and we each play a role in those relationships too.

Our lives are filled with the roles we play and the roles others take on.

I used to only focus on doing what everyone wanted me to do. The questions I asked myself were about what others would think. How can I do the best job possible? How can I please others? Who can I impress? How do I make sure I don’t break the rules and upset anyone?

I used to be afraid to ask for what I needed or communicate about what I expected because I didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. It was so bad that when we hired a young receptionist who would happily only write down 6 digits of a 7 digit phone number and give us the message. I didn’t ever say anything to her.

Then I learned about this beautiful thing called accountability.

When I started putting myself out into the world in ways that would keep me accountable to show up (a blog was born), it taught me about a different kind of role in my life. One where I was holding myself accountable to others that didn’t have an expectation of me. I had stepped up and said you can count on me to show up everyday and write something.

The more I became aware of how being accountable to others helped me to be better, the more I have become comfortable with holding others accountable too.

We are usually all on the same page because we want to do a good job of whatever we are doing. I don’t very often see someone set out to fail.

Not only is it ok to hold each other accountable, it’s necessary. When we kindly hold each other accountable to the roles we have taken on we are helping each other and all of the others who might not be speaking up or know better.

Seth Godin has written 18 books and he started his professional life in the book packaging business. A lot of what he knows he relates to bookstores, publishers, and being an author. He knows the business.

He’s not the only one to talk about how much reading a lot can change your life, almost everyone who has high expectations of their life and wants to be a top performer talks a lot about books and reading.

Seth says every book is an idea and it’s the cheapest way to get an education.

When you don’t write books, you don’t think of them this way. You think they are a story, or a slog, or good piece of information, but you don’t think of them as an idea, or an education,

Reading books that are non-fiction are hard.

If the book is a tool to get into a persons mind and understand their idea that is great, especially if they are an expert.

Anyone can write a book now because we are able to self publish. The perk to this is that the gate keeper is gone and we get to determine what we want to read. The downside is that anyone can write a book and it makes the really good books ideas a lot harder to find.

I used to think that I could compartmentalize life.

Most people would get my utmost respect and attention except for maybe one or two that I didn’t like.

I would generally love most people, unless they pushed my buttons and then I would withhold love from them.

I would typically invest myself into a job and put 110% effort towards it, except for the ones I didn’t want and then I might half ass my way through it.

I would maintain a certain standard for how I wanted to live, except for some areas.

It was a really bad habit.

I read an article a long time ago (I don’t have the link to it anymore), and it told me that if you accept things that bother you in one area of life, it leaks into other areas of life.

For example, if you have a crooked picture on the wall and it bothers you but you leave it the way it is even though you are bothered by it, your acceptance muscle of things that bother you atrophies.

In other words, when something bothers you in another area of your life, you can easily allow it because you haven’t kept that muscle strong by being consistent with disallowing things that pick at you.

So I applied it to my life.

This one little exercise has now morphed into consistency throughout my whole life, and allowed me to fine tune who I am and who I want to be.

When something isn’t lining up with my values, but I am still doing it, I can feel it deteriorating all areas of my life.

I still try to compartmentalize things without realizing it, but the discord becomes unbearable.

It was a small thing that made a huge difference in my life.

I’ve learned that if you care about it, it needs to be a standard that is upheld everywhere and always.

Living in scarcity causes us to over react. It constricts our ability to problem solve, and we don’t see opportunities that are right in front of us.

Scarcity shuts us down.

We think of abundance and scarcity in terms of finances. If you are rich you are abundant and if you are broke you are in scarcity.

That’s the most obvious way it shows up, but you can still have a scarcity program running with lots of money.

Your scarcity mentality might show up dealing with time by thinking you don’t have enough of it.

Maybe it shows up in ideas, you don’t think you’ll know how to solve the problem.

It might show up in resources, thinking you don’t have enough help or skills or relationships.

Living in abundance means that you know all of your needs are being met. And from this space anything is possible, without stress, frustrations, or meltdowns.

If you notice scarcity creeping in, work on your mindset. It will help you more than anything.

It doesn’t matter how badly you were treated….

It doesn’t matter how many times they’ve wronged you….

It doesn’t matter how much they stole from you, what they said to you, or how badly they betrayed you…

It doesn’t matter what that person did to you, you are the one who is responsible for how you feel.

And how you feel about them, and what they did to you will affect you in so ,many more ways than you can imagine.

I have felt hate. It’s not pretty.

I have felt blame. It’s also not pretty.

But I have learned that what that person did “to me” was not about me. It was about who they were.

You can always love someone’s spirit, but you don’t have to love their choices.

What they choose is really none of your business. It’s who they choose to be in this world. It’s not about you.

How you feel and how you show up is about you.

The more love you can find, the better you’ll be.

Can you love someone who’s done you wrong?

I think you can. And it’s better for you if you do.

When I decided to take my 2 year blog project on, I didn’t know what to expect, I just trusted Seth Godin when he said it was a good thing to do.

I love writing every day.

Not because it’s easy for me.  It’s not easy at all.

Not because I thought of myself as a writer or had a burning desire to write.

The most writing I did before was by text on my iPhone.

But I love the challenge it brings me.

Somedays I repeat things I’ve already written (without knowing it).

Somedays I literally have no idea how I’m going to find something intelligent to say (in the end I’m never sure if it was intelligent).

Somedays I have a plan to write about a certain subject, and once I get rolling it completely changes course part way through (and then I start over).  

Some days I write and write before I can collect my thoughts enough to share them (I can babble on about things that don’t matter forever).

Somedays my mom or my sister text me with spelling errors or incomplete sentences after I’ve hit publish (there have been some really bad ones, especially if I’m sick).

All of these somedays add up to a lot of days of hard.

But “hard” is a small price to pay because everyday I accomplish something meaningful before I start my day.

Everyday I have to collect and organize my thoughts before the craziness ensues.

Everyday I get to wake up and indulge myself in digging deep to find meaning in life, faith in humanity, and excavate within to sort out what it all means to me and my interpretation of it.

Everyday starts quietly with just me and my iPad.  Even my dog snores through the first drafts.

I get to write about things I believe in.  

I get to share my thoughts about my people, my perspectives, my life lessons, my goals, my fears, my struggles, my wins and losses, my lightbulb moments and the things that change my life.

My friend told me it’s quite remarkable that I publish a blog post everyday.

I literally had no idea about that.

What’s remarkable to me is the ways it’s changed my life and the gifts it keeps delivering.

It’s hard not to believe the stories we tell ourselves.

We have told them for so long and we have created our experiences to match.

Everything about them shows us they are real, and we work hard to keep them that way.

A friend of mine quit drinking 15 years ago.

When we sat down for coffee the other day, I asked if he had ever had a drink in those 15 years.

He said about 5 years ago, he was sneaking booze behind his girlfriends back when she went to visit family in another state.

You could see the shame written all over his face, as he talked about feeling controlled by the bottle.

I’ve heard this before multiple times.

In order for him to control his intake of alcohol, he has to abstain altogether.   

I’m not an expert in alcoholism, but it’s interesting to me that it comes down to control.

I’m not a drinker, but I’ve been under the influence before.

I have chose not to consume alcohol because I don’t like how it makes me feel. I’m proud of that choice for myself.

I don’t like what drinking does to people… it turns us into animals… but not the furry cute and cuddly type.  

We say things we wouldn’t normally say (if we can speak properly), we make poor choices we will likely (and in most cases hopefully) regret, and we are loud, obnoxious, and sometimes aggressive… but we sure think this is all funny at the time.

So there we are… both non-drinkers, both making the same choice in life.

He feels shame for his choice and I feel proud of mine… all because of the story we are telling ourselves.

That’s how powerful our narrative is.

Are you stuck in a story?

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” – Dr. Wayne Dyer

Remember when we were kids and we only had to worry about that one thing that was in front of us?

Or maybe we didn’t worry… we could just immerse ourselves. We were able to play hide and seek with our friends and that was our only concern.

I used to play on round bales and augers, or hop on my little white pony and meet the neighbours half way across the field for a picnic. We used to go camping and I would lose myself in the dancing flames of the fire, or playing in the rocks on the river.

I find it so much harder now because I am responsible for so much.

I play the role of Mom and Dad now that I’m a single parent. I am the taxi driver, the emotional support, the health and wellness advocate, the nurturer, the disciplinary person, the cook, the cleaner, and the breadwinner.

I love that I get to be their person, and the majority of the time it’s easy for me, the kids chip in and help a lot and we are an awesome little team.

In the background I always have these responsibilities weighing on every decision I make.

Here’s the thing…it appears to me like I’m doing it all because of the importance of my job and the ultimate responsibility lies with me. I am the one who the kids look to for all of these things, and society will point the finger at me if I let them down.

But I’m not alone.

We are never alone and it’s always important to take a look around at all of the ways we receive help when the burden of responsibility starts to get heavy.

Not only does the universe have our back, but so do all of our people.

A friend may take the kids to a trampoline park, a parent may give them a ride, a random person may give them a paying job, someone may buy you a coffee, the person at the pet store may carry a bag for you, a friend may help you talk, a co-worker may hold the door for you, and a chicken may keep you company while you have coffee on the deck (ok this one might not happen for everyone).

The point is, we are always getting help from others, and the Universe is always conspiring to help us go where we want to go.

So whatever the thing is that makes you feel alone, you can go ahead and tackle it because you are never alone… you just have to look outside of your tunnel vision.