Yesterday, Australia celebrated World Teachers Day.

So big shout out to all the teachers in the world.

And that is you {first_name}!

We’re all students to someone and teachers to others.

Can’t escape it.

Here is the beautiful part, the most profound classroom you’ve ever been in in life is . . . wait for it. . .

Here’s a clue or two:

You can’t buy tickets to it. The teachers are never the same. And it’s right under your nose.

Wanna take a guess?

It’s your everyday life.

Say what?!

I mean, imagine: every day you’re blessed (and sometimes cursed) with moments to teach you more about yourself, what your mission is (and sometimes what it is not).

Life blows every other meditation, seminar, guru etc I can think of right outta the water.

Because it’s relentless. It never ends. And the lessons just keep on coming.

My most recent lesson was painful.

I started training again with more enthusiasm and more goal oriented. I was focused on stepping up in that area of life as it has wavered. I know how important it is for my body, mind and soul, and especially for my business when I exercise, I feel alive.

Day 6 into training, I’m sore in every muscle group, and it huuuuurts so good (sing it with me {first_name}).

My intuition, thank you very much, was saying “slow down,” “take a break” and “rest.”

But did I listen to my teacher?

Nuh.

I forced on with more vigor than before.

And what happens, I’m in the middle of a set of burpees (that’s where you go from push up to jumping and back again). It’s my most hated activity, but I do it anyway.

Midway in my jumping in the air, there was my intuition again saying “Slow”.

I landed and I nearly cried out loud. I strain my quad, the first time ever in my life.

Dust myself off the floor, I hobble back to my apartment with my tail between my legs.

I’d just set a goal, I was working, and working hard to achieve it. All I wanted was to kick some goals.

But my body was teaching me a lesson.

1. Listen to my body
2. Follow and intuition
3. The importance of resting

That’s my lesson for today. (Thanks body).

Your teachers are everywhere. Your clients teach you things you’re not working on. Your finances teach you to be more accountable. Your business shows you the places you require growing.

You’re lesson will be different. Maybe it is to speak up more, ask for what you want. Maybe it is to stop saying yes to things you don’t want to do and more to what aligns with you. Maybe it is to stop serving a client, start serving different ones.

Borrowed from some wise thinker, “the difference between school and life. In school, you are taught a lesson, and then you get a test. In life, you are continually given a test, that teaches you a lesson.”

So why is no one teaching this stuff?

Because everyone has a different life lesson. No two people are here to learn the same thing, they don’t have the same purpose or path to walk.

What is taught is the mindset to make you adaptable to the ever changing landscape.

Let’s face it, sometimes you’re enrolled in the school of hard knocks. Your business is struggling, you’re lacking energy, you’re struggling to show up in doing what you love. You’re supposed to be leading your team, and they rely on you, but you struggle to even show up for yourself.

And then. . . bam. . . You’re slammed again with another lesson.

It all gets a bit too much (***deep sigh, you’re ready to wag school for the day).

In these moments, ask yourself “what’s the lesson here.”

Extract the message and add meaning to the mayhem.

You’ll feel lighter, more present, and purposeful.

Now, I’m listening to my body and my soul, and it’s calling for a casual stroll through the bush paths close to home. I might just whistle as I walk.

Curious to know {first_name}, what’s the life lesson you’re in today?

With gratitude,

 

Leadership Coach & Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on one & group coaching available

Helping leaders to level up using a transformational mindset work.

PS. Come join the Maximum Growth Academy for your opportunity to learn and apply quality questions every week.

PPS – thinking of wanting a daily life lesson the Maximum Growth Walkshop. Dates for 2022 have been set. Just a small group of us. Guaranteed soul-moving conversations and a depth of introspection intensified by being in nature. Plus many life lessons learned. What do you think? Would you be down for that? If you’re thinking “um, that sounds perfect”, then click here so you can be on the “I’m a keen bean list.”

Let’s get a little lighter this week, because every leader needs some laughter and love sometimes.

I can’t wait to make party bags for my daughter, Bonnie’s next birthday party.

For the adults I mean. Because nobody needs more *dry heaves* banana lollies. Or those fake teeth chewies. Ew. There ain’t enough Demartini Methods in the world to dissolve that childhood trauma.

No, I’m thinking kickass YouTube video recommendations and essential oil samplers for the North Shore yummy mummies (if you’re not a Sydney-sider, they’re the posh ladies in your neighbourhood who practically sleep in athletic *ahem* athleisure wear and smell like vanilla cake frosting.)

But Bonnie’s next birthday isn’t for 6. Whole. Months. Ugh. Too long.

So instead I’m making a (digital) party bag for you this week.

And to make this weekend more festive than “naughty mums” at a 3 year old’s birthday, I’m sending you a Masterclass highlights (‘cause there were some great ones) and some take-home goodies.

Added bonus: this party bag won’t make you feel like you have to hit the gym on Monday… and it’s eco friendly! I can practically hear the sea turtles thanking you for digging into this already.

So, what’s in your Insights & Inspiration party bag this week? Let’s unwrap:

PARTY BAG TREAT #1

I hand-plucked these inspirations from the internet jungle for you. Certified biodynamic/organic. And they’ll keep you a safe distance from the brink of the YouTube rabbit hole. You’re welcome.

First up: The fastest way to ruin my mascara (after seeing our members breakthrough in our sessions) is to send me a story of underdog triumph. David and Goliath. Cancer survivors. People with disabilities doing stuff I could never. My favourite this week is this unusual America’s Got Talent show audition. Bring your oldest hoodie sleeve to dry your cheeks after. This one’s a wipeout gollywasher.

A YouTube channel worth devouring like a giant chocolate freckle: Soul Pancake. I especially recommend starting here, then here… and then keep going until you’re wading in a small lake of your own tears of gratitude.

On to the next layer of party bag treats:

PARTY BAG TREAT #2

Essential Knowledge Upgrades! (they last longer than essential oils.)

“What are the psychosomatic causes of *insert your symptom/diagnosis here*?”

I can’t tell you how many people asked that on my Ask Me Anything Class. Illness really is a big distraction from living your purpose.

I get it. Being sick sucks (until you find the blessings of course). We all want to read the feedback our body is giving us like a dusty old Egyptian text that holds the secrets to the universe so we can heal ourselves with jedi mind tricks.

But {first_name}, it’s not the wisest question. Because no one has an infallible list of mind-body connections. Their answers may not fit your physiology and more importantly, it requires subordinating to a perceived authority. No bueno, peeps.

The higher quality question you want to ask is, “What does *insert symptom/diagnosis* mean to me?”

Once you’ve got your answers then you chip away at dissolving the emotional charges you discover. Like salted caramel chocolates: the best stuff is inside you. You tasty treat, you.

And that is your weekly wrap up from me, my dear {first_name}!

If this email were yoga, I’d probably say, “carry this energy with you into the week”. But I’ll leave that to the North Shore yummy mummies.

Go party like the sea turtles just elected you their president.

 

Leadership Coach & Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on one & group coaching available

Helping leaders to level up using transformational mindset work.

PS. Come join the Maximum Growth Academy for your opportunity to learn and apply quality questions every week.

P.P.S. People hate that ‘pre-Monday’, ‘don’t want the weekend to end’ feeling. If you know anyone who could use a pick-me-up (and c’mon, you definitely know people who get Monday blues)… be the party bag for their week and forward them this email.

This month was make your bed day (yes, an entire day devolved to a simple task).

Former Navy SEAL, Admiral William H. McRaven gave an inspiring 20-minute speech (a little one-sided but if you see beyond that, the message is transformative).

He shared the simple lessons that anyone can apply to their own life about how simple things, done repeatedly, can change your life, and perhaps change the world.

In his speech, McRaven recognizes everyone is different, but we all struggle as humans.

Think of it like this. We are all in the ocean. And at times, we can be in the middle of a massive storm, or a peaceful calm bay. Everyone has a different boat (ie, mindset). Some have a stand-up paddleboard, others have a tanker (and all the other variations in between).

Regardless, each boat handles the ocean differently.

• The tanker struggles in the calm bay to navigate the peace and quiet and it feels uncomfortable but stays strong in the storm.
• The stand-up paddleboard finds it impossible to handle the strength of the storm but breezes through the calm bay.

So how do you build a boat? Or more specifically, a mindset that can not be too comfortable in the bay and handle the storm?

Abraham Lincoln believed attitude is everything. Attitude isn’t something you are born with, it is something that you work at. And work repeatedly, day in, day out, week in week out and yes, year in year out.

In one of our previous blogs, we spoke about how a millionaire’s mindset destroys your financial future.

You might be surprised to know that many people who have earned millions of dollars during their entire working life end up spending all their money and have very little savings. Some have chosen a lifestyle now over savings for the future. (You can read the blog here).

To grow your finances to a million, it takes dedication every day to the tangible end goal by taking action and having the mindset to back that you are worthy of a million-dollar (and beyond) net worth.

A mindset that can’t handle the ups and downs of financial markets, or revenue if you own your own business, will be highly volatile, emotional, experiencing elation and depression by what is happening on the outside.

Essentially, the outer world, the outer weather and the waves of the ocean are controlling how you feel on the inside. These waves can keep you up thinking in the middle of the night from worrying about where your income is coming from, to being elated and overspending because of more money that you dream of flowing through your door.

So how do you build a mindset that can not be too comfortable in the up and handle the downs (not just financially but in every aspect of life)?

Here’s the secret, it’s the questions you ask yourself.

• When you’re up, you learn to bring yourself down by looking at what you didn’t do, what you missed, what you could have done more of, to balance your mind back to the centre.
• When you’re down, you learn to bring yourself up looking at what you did do, what you gained, what you had done, to balance your mind back to the centre.

You become like the little bubble level thing (It has so many names, a spirit level, a level, the instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical). This means no matter which way the leveller goes, you’re the little bubble finding the centre point.

When you know how to do this, you can brace for a massive storm, or not become too complacent in the calm ocean.

Investing in your mindset over and over and over and over again is vital. As you build your mindset, you don’t have to worry about what kind of boat you have, because you have the mindset to handle any unexpected challenge.

Mastering your inner world with quality questions, done repeatedly, can change your life, and perhaps change the world.

Plus, as you learn to master the questions in the process, you clear your baggage, you raise your ability to attract what you’d love, change your behaviour… and THAT levels you up, smashes through growth ceilings and much more.

It starts in your inner world.

I’d say it’s magic, but it’s really just brain science.

That is why making your bed is such a powerful way to start the day. You’re completing a task that will encourage you to do the next task, and then the next, and so on. It will give you a sense of accomplishment that you will want to continue to feel throughout the day.

And what happens if you integrate finding benefits to what you’d love to achieve that day while making your bed (or having a shower of power or any other daily routine).

Imagine what you can shift in your mind to set you up for an inspiring day.

It’s the small things, done repeatedly that help you build momentum and move forward.

Here’s to the little things in life, {first_name}.

 

Leadership Coach & Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on one & group coaching available

Helping leaders to level up using transformational mindset work.

PS. Come join the Maximum Growth Academy for your opportunity to learn and apply quality questions every week.

Is your mind running a million miles an hour? What is wrong with this email? Why is there such a big gap?

And the deeper question is, does the silence make you feel uncomfortable?

This one’s a no-brainer (pardon the pun). Let me explain.

Almost everyone had some version of “the past 18 months have been so full-on. I feel totally overwhelmed/numb/in my head about things. What do I do?”

Grateful you asked. Because I’ve spent YEARS getting overthinkers out of their head and into their heart. (Some of the biggest breakthroughs I have are with those kinds of clients.)

And in case you were wondering, yes – it’s easy to get ‘stuck’ spinning your wheels in indifference. Especially when it comes to doing the Demartini Method by yourself. So don’t fret – you’re in the perfect company 🙂

Overthinking is a loop of unproductive thoughts on replay.

One of the most obvious reasons you overthink is due to stress. Stress tends to have a profound effect on the brain. Cortisol can damage and kill brain cells in the hippocampus (which plays a major role in learning and memory).

Chronic over thinking can also alter brain functions by changing its structure and connectivity. You have changes in mood, changes in your digestive functioning, and more wrinkles than you might like.

Not to mention the stress on business, family, finances and life.

The first level of overthinking is a mild level and arises especially during a stressful period of life. You’re able to regulate your thoughts, and come back to centre on your own (or with a little extra training and guidance).

The second level of overthinking is a moderate level. You’re realistic, but can’t stabilize your emotions within a short period of time and, thus, have problems with overthinking. You receive feedback with your feelings and experience emotions such as anxiety. Stress shows in other ways such as insomnia, excessive food or alcohol intake. This is where you require help to get you back on track.

The third level of overthinking is a severe level of overthinking. People with a severe level of overthinking might experience falling out of reality. When there are so many obsessive thoughts that are organized in mental constructions which are unrealistic, creating a false reality that exists in your mind. Again, you require assisance to balance yourself.

What is common to all levels of overthinking is that it is unresolved perceptions and emotional changes and your overthinking is trying to resolve it (although sometimes, let’s face it, it’s doing the inverse).

No matter what you’re working through, you’ll pass through 3 stages:

1. Charge (and there are squillions of levels here)
2. Indifference
3. Love.

 

1. THE CHARGE

The charge is easily recognisable. Overthinking is creating the charge. It amplies it, louder and louder in your mind. You feel it in your body, it runs your mind. The bigger the emotional charge, the more consuming it is in the mind, and your life.

 

2. INDIFFERENCE

But there’s a fine line that catches people between indifference and love. (A favourite place for over-intellectualisers to stall and stay.)

When you reach indifference it can sometimes feel like the wind’s been taken out of your sails. You intellectually know that there are equal benefits and drawbacks to a person or dynamic, but you don’t FEEL it.

You’ve found benefits in the moment and are grateful but still think, “I still wish [insert dynamic] was different.” (For comparison, see how it feels different to: “Thank you. I love you. I’m grateful I got to experience this.” See that? One SEEMS balanced, but the other FEELS balanced.)

So I’m going to tell you something a little controversial: allow yourself to feel.

Whether it’s numb, or frustrated, or any other emotion. Let it be your signpost to what is still lingering in your perceptions. I call this “following the feeling”.

That means you can feel to know what to resolve and dissolve.

Because you can’t heal what you don’t feel.

You can ask yourself this quality question as a test: What’s still in the way of you loving this individual? (Or dynamic.)

Remember, you’re human and as long as you remain human, you’re going to feel things.

And feel things often.

The key is not to push them down or not feel or even use overthinking as a strategy not to feel, but to treat them as your teachers: there’s a lesson (and a gift) in every charge.

To not think through your problems but instead, every great breakthrough requires BOTH thinking AND feeling. So lean into it {first_name}.

 

3. LOVE

Then there is love.

Love is more deep and profound than you realise. The big empty space above represents love.

It’s spaceless, timeless, massless, it radiates. And no words can even get close to feeling the depth of what love is.

This experience of love, this depth of love is what you experience when you apply the Demartini Method to the content of your overthinking. You take your mind from uncertainty to certain, from scattered to present. To feel love and gratitude expands and warms your heart.

This means that no matter what you go through, you can grow through.

Anything you feel, such as sadness (depression, despair, hopelessness), anxiety (fear, worry, concern, nervousness, panic), anger (irritation, frustration, annoyance, rage), guilt and shame/embarrassment can be healed.

And then overthinking will just resolve itself.

If you have brain noise from the past 18 months and you’d love to resolve it, then meet me at 7pm AEST on Wednesday this coming week in class. Come and learn to apply some powerful questions to transform your thinking, to open up to a new, deeper and more profound love. Check out all the classes we run at Maximum Growth.

TELL ME MORE > >

In the meantime, sending you a big warm fuzzy hug (oh feel that yummy-ness).

 

Leadership Coach & Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on one & group coaching available

WARNING: This week’s Saturday Soul School edition is a very personal story about my brush with suicide. If you are dealing with suicidal thoughts and you need immediate support please reach out to official suicide prevention resources: Lifeline Australia / SupportLine UK / Suicide Prevention Line USA. And if you’re having a tough time and you want to work through it together, the doors to Maximum Growth are always open to you.

My heart dances inside my chest as I sit cross legged on the rocky edge of the cliff.

I’m alone, shivering.

The cold dawn wind cuts at my face. The night sky begins to break as the morning light peaks over the horizon.

A few eager walkers are about. Their shadows stroll by but I hide behind some shrubs, out of sight.

I can imagine the waves roiling against the rocks far below but I can’t see or even hear them.

It’s a long way down.

A fact that should push me back, away from the edge but lands as if I’d just thought, “oh, it’s Tuesday.”

I’d been skirting a mental ledge for months. And now here I am, quite literally, at the edge of a cliff, feeling my life wobble on a knife point.

I’m sunk in the heavy thoughts swirling in my head, drowning in my emotions, feeling all the painful experiences I had shut down and locked away. My emotions festering in the dark and silence, nameless and unknown, waiting to implode. Or maybe explode.

I’m here because of an accumulation of a lot of reasons, but it isn’t the stories that matter most, it’s how I was dealing with them.

The build up of unresolved challenges triggered a heap of repressed emotions to cascade down on me like a ton of bricks.

Waves of raw emotion came flooding over me the moment I tried to process how I was feeling. A flash of an insight, then pounded with another wave.

Ever been dumped by a rough swell at the beach? Struggle to the surface only to swallow seawater and sand before you’re pulled under again? Yeah, like that, but in your head. Over and over and over again.

Thoughts continued to rumble in my head like unforgiving waves, louder and louder, becoming stronger and stronger. I felt totally overwhelmed and out of my depth. I nearly drowned in my inner world. I struggled to dissolve the crap in my life on my own but the thought of asking for help didn’t even cross my mind.

So I waited on that ledge. Wondering if maybe, finally, it would be a nudge from the wind that took the decision out of my hands.

The police never said how they knew to look for me.

Was it the cameras on the light posts? A particularly observant morning walker? Divine providence?

Perhaps it was nothing more mystical than a routine sweep. Whatever it was, the next 8 hours changed me.

I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a strict protocol they have to follow when someone makes an attempt on their own life.

They make you leave the cliff and your car – for obvious reasons. Take you to the hospital, where they administer an official assessment.

Then, to be allowed home, you must be accompanied by a friend. Again, for obvious reasons.

So I had to lean on my network of people… except I was the one that people call.

And I was lost. Who do you call when you’re your own ICE contact?

That precise moment – looking at my phone, finger scrolling aimlessly up and down my phonebook – is when I finally and fully realised how important it is to have someone to lean on and guide you. (Not just to get you safely home, but for the months after too. All you have to do is reach out.)

Eventually I called my friend and surrogate mum, Lizzie who was there by my side in that moment and for the days, weeks and months to follow.

People often say, “you saved my life” but she literally did. Just by being a safe place for me to land.

That was 6 years ago, Wednesday.

I don’t have a ritual to mark the day, but I took a moment to write a thank you note to myself, for sticking with it. To the universe for having a plan for me far greater than I could ever have imagined. And for the people who loved me more than I ever imagined possible when I felt anything but worthy of it.

Because – as I’ve come to truly know – life’s too precious to take for granted.

Today’s a great day to remember that. Tomorrow, too.

I’ve reflected on my cliff edge moment a lot since then. Pondered how, why, what led me there.

And I wouldn’t be who I am today (and this wouldn’t be a Sunday Soul School email) without sharing the wisdom in my experience.

So, three takeaway lessons for you:

1. In my darkest moments I have learned the most about myself, about my life and makes me a better coach and human. And I wouldn’t change it for the world (but I have discovered other strategies to learn about myself without losing the light). “The seed germinates in the dark.”
2. Human beings depend on one another. You can’t manage your darkest moments all by yourself; no (hu)man is an island. As a student of human behaviour you may tend to go inward for answers. Sometimes they’re outside. So reach out.
3. And you’re never not going to be challenged, or challenged greatly, again. The real question is, “how do you gather the network of people who can help around you, so you can lean on them when you need them the most.” And don’t forget to ask for help. It’s a two way street.

So know this my friend: in moments of darkness, where you can’t see the forest for the trees, when life appears shattered, you can always reach out. Whether to a friend, a professional or me and the Maximum Growth Community. You’re not alone. We’re here to help you put the pieces back together again.

And if you ever need reminding of your magnificence, I’ll be the first to tell you.

Warm fuzzy squeezes,

 

Leadership Coach & Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on One & Group Coaching Available

PS – I know this was a heavy email. But it’s too important to not share. You deserve to know that no matter how you feel, you don’t have to face anything alone. There’s a whole community here for you, even when you’re lost in the depths of the darkest corner of your mind. After all, were it not for the fierce love and belief of my friends in me, you’d not be reading this today.

{first_name}. A monologue in half an act:

One facilitator, trembling in her pencil skirt,

In fair Australia where we lay our scene,

With sheer will did break from nigh obscurity

And get clients who pay her fee.

Ok, torturous rendition of Shakespeare aside (you’re welcome, btw), I was the poster child for Impostor Syndrome when I started out.

No matter which way you slice it nor what you do for work, thinking “who am I to do this? Why would anyone listen to me?” bites us all at least once.

“But Tanya, you were the first Master Certified facilitator in Australia and you managed and trained the facilitators for years and you presented the 12 month follow up program to The Breakthrough Experience…”

You charmer. Trust me, my put togetherness now is not how it always was.

Allow me to demonstrate:

Transport yourself to 12(ish) years ago. Back to the Wild Wild West of the personal development industry (giddyup!)

Life coaches were being taken to court.

There was a giant fuss about accreditation.

Selling info products was still a relatively new thing at this point, too. (So you couldn’t just whip up an online thing and launch it.)

The term “life coach” was new, too.

“Sorry you’re a what? Like my son’s basketball coach but for my life? Oh, I just remembered I have to feed my cat. Later. *whispers* whacko.”

(Which was fair. Life coaches were everywhere. And most of them got into it because it was their way to heal themselves, not because they wanted to truly serve others. Hence the industry trainwreck.)

Marketing yourself was scary AF.

You had to fight tooth and nail for every shred of self-certainty and belief. Never knowing if that shred was going to be ripped from your heart by a Herald article or another coach’s (probably well intentioned, but stupid) actions.

It was all one giant experiment. One where the parameters changed daily, because the market did.

We tried to figure out what worked and didn’t to get clients… and prove we could truly help people.

I attended and hosted hundreds of seminars & webinars (on GoToWebinar. Yes, I’m that old)…

…spent thousands on shouty, annoying advertising

…networked like a mofo (which always felt contrived at best, dirty at worst)

…And watched the big seminar promotion companies swallow the little guys whole… and then watched their live event ‘pitchfest’ model crumble.

(Remember that? Ew.)

As if the environment wasn’t shaky enough, I was straight-outta-the-training new to facilitating and learning my craft.

Barely had any experience. No Facebook group. No brand recognition.

Oh and the cherry on top?

Other students had been not only studying but facilitating with the Demartini Method for 15 years already by the time I came on the scene.

(Big fish, small pond.)

Who the hell was I to waltz in and start claiming I could do this stuff? Shouldn’t I have joined the back of the queue? Waited my turn? Deferred to seniority?

(Any of this self-talk sounding familiar?)

All this to say:

If self-doubt and fear could nourish starving children I could’ve cured world hunger in like, a week. Two, tops.

So the $1million BHAQ (Big Hairy Audacious Question), {first_name}, was:

How do you become a trusted authority in the middle of this shitshow? And more importantly, get paid for it? Especially when you’ve not even had a chance to prove you can really do it… to yourself?

Fast forward to today and well, clearly things turned out pretty great.

I get to consult with leaders of companies, communities, and I get to work with the incredible Maximum Growth community every day (that’s you, {first_name}. Look sharp!)

Most importantly though, I’ve been doing this gig long enough now I can dodge impostor syndrome.

But it takes work.

I knew that if I just kept showing up, starting conversations, embracing the cost of growing my craft and my brand… to become truly worthy of my dream payday (and career)… that it would happen.

And you know what?

It was scrappy for a few years.

Like those street urchins fighting over a stolen loaf in Oliver Twist.

You’d get a client for one session, and then they’d ghost you. Or you’d host a cracking workshop and no one would buy coaching afterwards. You’d charge bargain basement prices and get drabs, not hordes (even though you were offering your absolute best stuff, which the gurus charged 10x your fee for.)

All of which is like refined sugar for Impostor Voice in your head.

But trying, failing and persisting – that’s how you become known for the thing you love.

(As long as you show up authentically and decide to take responsibility.)

Even more importantly, it’s how you myelinate the ‘certainty pathways’ in your head. Proving to yourself you can be and do and have all the things you want. (And say, buh-bye to Impostor Syndrome.)

Reaching out, talking to mentors and potential clients, keeping your eyes peeled for insights, sharing yours… consistently sharpening your craft on the whetstone of you.

That gives you credibility and poise well before you earn the Master Certification (or equivalent in your industry) and clients who don’t even blink at your pricetag.

If I could give you just one impostor-syndrome busting, client-attracting secret no matter if you’re a facilitator, plumber, real estate agent or still figuring out your next step, (I have more, but this email is looooong already) it would be this:

Serve with what you have right now.

Constantly develop your skills. If not on your clients, on yourself. Because you are your best client. Make mistakes and learn from them. ‘Fail’ a lot. Reach out to others who look like they’re where you want to be and where possible, pay them for their time. Makes their wisdom stick better.

That’s how every single ‘try-fail-learn’ cycle becomes an evolution for you.

And with that evolution comes growth in not only your skills, but your certainty. (And your worth.)

Thankfully, it also avoids the rather morbid fate that two star-crossed lovers endured. (Bonus points if you got that my opening monologue was lifted from Romeo + Juliet 😉

No homework today.

Go out and shine your light.

Love,

 

Leadership Coach & Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator

BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on One and Group Coaching Available

Do you remember when you were a kid and you learned to ride a bike?

For me, I was at the top of the hill on Mills St, Hampton in Melbourne. I’m on my pink bike, with tassels hanging from the handle bars, multicolored wheel spoke beads that rattled as I rode, fixed with training wheels, my Dad behind me, and off we went using momentum to get me moving.

Riding our bikes was a family favorite. My brother, Dad and I would venture off down Beach road with million dollar mansions on one side and the bay on the other each weekend. I’d jump on my bike, pedal as fast, my training wheels banging side to side as I pushed harder down.

Everyone started with training wheels (you nod in agreement). No one stopped to question is this the best way to learn how to ride a bike?

When it came to take off the training wheels, this is where I became undone. I had learned how to pedal fast, but not how to balance and ride a bike.

Pedalling is the easy part, anyone can sit on a seat and push down on a pedal (or down and up if you’re a pro strapped into your pedal). It’s the balancing that is the challenge.

Imagine it like a baby learning to walk, but you aided it instead of letting it learn to stand and balance, and take its steps on it’s own. The baby fell down more times than you can count, but they eventually learned to walk.

And one of the skills you learn when riding a bike is that you steer by leaning, and not by turning the handlebars. Training wheels create in the brain tha reverse of this as you’d not be learning at all, and form habits which aren;t helpful for the skill of riding a bike. You then have to unlearn this once the training wheels come off.

So some lessons so far;

• Sometimes what we think is supporting us, is actually holding us back from achieving our goals.
• Sometimes learning the easy way leads to hard work in unlearning the skill.

Fast forward to today, and training wheels are going out and balance bikes are in (it’s a bike without pedals). This way, they can progress from a balanced bike to pedaling and learn the skills required to actually ride a bike.

Why did it take decades for someone to come up with this simple idea? The new study, led by researchers from the University of Virginia, might have the answer: When wanting to make something more effective, it’s a human tendency to add rather than subtract.

You can geek out on all the results of the study here or watch the Youtube Less is more here. In a nutshell,Sixty-one percent of the people in the group who received the reminder made subtractive changes. The control group that didn’t get this reminder only made subtractive changes 41 percent of the time. Followup experiments show that people simply don’t think about subtracting when problem-solving. Thus, their default approach to problem-solving was to add to the initial model.

Maybe this thinking is the reason why some people struggle to work out how to resolve overburdened schedules, solve business challenges or simply how to teach your child to ride a bike. We find ourselves adding more meetings, more steps, more systems, more of something thinking ‘more’ will solve the problem.

Opting for complexity rather than simplification can be because of a sunk-cost bias, in which people continue investing in things for which time, money or effort has already been spent. And taking things away from what you’ve already invested in doesn’t make as much sense.

When we look for solutions, we look to add things on to upgrade them rather than asking what can be taken away.

With

 

Leadership Coach & Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on One and Group Coaching Available

“No.”

Say it. Go on. Say “no.”

Saying “no” can be difficult, but your business success is based on what you say no to, not what you say yes to and here’s why.

We think success is built on a saying “yes” to opportunities that come our way. We want to grow, take on new opportunities, say yes to deals, even if it seems daunting or uncertain.

Sometimes we even say “yes” out of a fear of turning down an opportunity even once sends a message that we’re not interested, we don’t want the work and we think it will stop getting additional chances or clients in the future.

You can’t serve everyone, nor would you want to either. Plus, your time is not infinite. There’s only so many clients you can see, content you can create, and life outside of work you have each week.

Saying yes can be an instant gratification hit, please others, feel good in the moment but does it lead you to where you’d love your life to be?

You may want to just go with the flow, keep others liking you, and be so accommodating that you lose sight of yourself.

In our business class this week, one of the members shared a story that I had to reshare with you (names excluded for privacy).

She’s been a practitioner for a long time so she’d had lots of practice saying yes to clients that she wanted to say no to. The day she knew she’d learnt this lesson was massive.

She’d said ‘no’ to ‘a seemingly ideal client’, because her intuition said so although she had no logical reason. And especially saying no meant less income which was a strain on a single income family and money being precious.

About 2 months later the client she’d said no to, had an incredibly traumatic experience that I would have been complicit in, that resulted in a death, court cases and the de-registration of practitioners.

She literally looked up at the stars and sent up a prayer of gratitude for listening to herself above all else. She thinks of this client literally every time she doubts her own intuition and says no to clients.

Gives you goosies hey {first_name}.

Saying no can be very powerful to grow your business because it’s what sets the standard of what you’d love your life to be. Saying no to others is saying yes to you.

Notice what you sacrifice when you say yes helps you be able to say “no.” Every yes, that is not a genuine ‘yes’ creates resentment within. You’ll find myself sacrificing you for them. And let’s face it, it generally comes to bite you in the bum eventually.

In an article on saying no in business by Forbes Magazine, they shared “Billionaire Warren Buffett, the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has a theory on this subject worth exploring: “The difference between successful people and really successful people,” he says, “is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” Bam!

Your business success is based on what you say no to, not what you say yes to but I can’t help but the thought deeper with you.

It’s tough to turn away a client, money, an offer or promotion, but it’s doing what is most aligned with you even if it means that people are mad or disappointed in you.

Then really it’s more than your ability or inability to say no or not.

The problem underneath the problem is this; how comfortable are you at handling other people’s negative emotions?

And how comfortable are you {first_name}?

Because if you can be with yourself, and handle the burning fire around you, you have mastered yourself.

Which means their emotions are their stuff, not yours. And their experience doesn’t influence your own.

I know a powerful question asking methodology called the Demartini Method that can help transform this dynamics,(click here if you’re curious in joining group coaching). No matter the emotion, nor how uncomfortable it is, there is a question to ask to dissolve your emotions or perceptions of theirs and have appreciation for them and yourself.

There is no need to feel guilty about saying no. (Check out this previous article, the hierarchy of charge (linguistic: annoyed vs F**KING HELL) on how to deal with emotions).

Don’t avoid saying no. Yep. Some people avoid the resistance they’ll get to keep the peace, not ruffle feathers, but you’re avoiding challenge. So how comfortable can you be with the uncomfortable?

No one likes to hear the words ‘no.’ But what if you saying no was freeing them to be served in a way that was more aligned with their outcomes and goals. Or made them more internally resourceful themselves. You might say no more often if you knew the blessings for them.

The thing is, you want to be investing your time (AKA, you only have 24 hour each day, so make them count kind of thinking) in what matters most to you.

Deeply consider what you say yes to, and question yourself. Often people say yes for the short term gain but forget what happens long term. For example, saying yes to clients but they don’t have the challenges you’d love to serve. Or saying yes to doing things with a new partner even though it’s not aligned with who you are long term.

And when there’s uncertainty in your decision, even if only for a moment, take more time to think about your answer or say no. You’ll be grateful that you did.

If it’s a no for now, or no forever, consider having a referral network of people who can send people to. I have a handful of facilitators, practitioners, coaches that I refer to when I know I’m not the best coach for them.

It happened just last week when another Demartini Method Facilitator called asking for me to work with her granddaughter. I instantly felt in my body and mind ‘no.’ I then asked myself, ‘Who do I know that could help her?” And in my little black book I scanned with my mind, I knew it was Silvana LaPegna, the coach who coaches me, and intuitive genius, and that in my body and mind it felt a solid ‘yes.’

A few days later, Silvana let me know the sessions went really well and she has a new perspective and framework to view life, which I know I wouldn’t have been able to give her with my expertise.

So my no, was the success for the client.

No, it’s two little letters, but sometimes extremely hard to say. Learn when and when not to say ‘no’ for the success of not only your business, but your clients.

Here’s my gold nugget of wisdom to take with you today, “I was a yes girl when I first started my business. Say yes, and figure it out later. It took me years to finally start saying no to things that would take me away from my purpose and path. Time is the most valuable thing you have so make sure you invest it wisely.”

With gratitude,

 

Counsellor Cross

Leadership Coach & Master Certified Demartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on One and Group Coaching Available