Warnings before we begin...

1. You cannot know yourself without reflections from others. If you are not trainable, coachable, or teachable, you will not step outside of your comfort zone and realize your real, true and beautiful self. You must be willing to try on new perspectives even though some will be uncomfortable. This applies to your strengths and your weaknesses.

2. If your perception of yourself is fixed and inflexible(that’s just the way I am)you cannot reinvent yourself. Consider others feedback can be the mirror to a new view of yourself. And this new perspective will help you shift your actions and results.

3. If you are not willing to discover new ways of thinking, feeling, acting and being, you will not shift your locus of experience. Consider you are more than you currently think you are…

4. If you don’t assign time and energy to take new actions each week, based on new insights, not much will change. And nothing will transform. Self actualization is not an accident. You will need to schedule time to do the work and follow through. And you will need to get support around the new consequences you experience.

5. If you are too important, too isolated in your power, to dynamic in your personality without compassion or lack a sense of humor, this process will be uncomfortable, then painful and in the end you will quit without getting much value. You will have some knowledge, but without much new power. You need to be willing to not know how the future will occur to discover and realize yourself and your future in a new way.

6. If you are meek or falsely humble, you will be victimized by the learning process or your failure to take action on new awareness. Awareness without action attached is almost useless. Consider you are already greater than you know and powerful in ways you can’t yet understand.

7. If you have the need to make jokes, trivialize yourself and life and not take anything seriously, this will be a short-lived experience. Becoming yourself is serious business. There is fun and laughter along the way, but you need to bring your focused self to the process to have success. You need to be able to focus and bring your full attention and power to your next thought, feeling and action to get the results you say you want.

8. If you ‘know it all’ and are coming to get more information so you can ‘talk a better game’, this is not for you. You can’t fake being present. You can’t pretend peace and calm. You are not your mind or your feelings. There is a being and self realization underneath your personality. Do you want to discover that unique place inside of you?

9. This is an integrative journey. It will include your heart, body, mind and spirit. It will require you to evolve and become fit in each area. It will become a new lifestyle. You will have to let go of some behaviors and take on new ones. Excellence is in you. Do you want to practice and experience your authentic power and the life that goes with it?

10. You will need to raise your emotional intelligence to go along with the new power and possibility. If you do not do this, you will find yourself creating familiar people, circumstances and things to react to so you can feel comfortable and use you usual coping mechanisms. This will leave you feeling right again, but also stuck right here. Again. You will need to gain greater facility with your emotions to remain open as you meet the challenges of your reinvented self and future. You will need to manage and minimize some feelings, but also feel and fully express others.

11. You will need to give the gift of trust shortly after you begin to assure the speed, depth and power of your unique process. You will need to your teacher, guide, consultant, trainer and mentor. You can withhold trust and make someone earn your trust, but this will slow the process to a crawl as you make sure you aren’t hurt, dominated or abandoned.. You will know early on if I am who I say I am. You will see I live what I teach. And you can choose from there. Either way is ok.

12. Fundamental mistrust of yourself, others, your life and the universe will drop away in this process. If you cling to any of it for too long, you risk triggering yourself and creating a disagreement within yourself, with me or people around you. You get to be scared, but you want to allow yourself to be reassured. This is your path. Only you can take the steps along it. Each week, I will open the door, but you must step through it. Neither me nor the universe will do the work for you. And that’s the true adventure of life.

Cold Hands and Next Steps

I have been in the cold plunge three minutes each day for the past thirteen months. When I am integrated in my heart, body, mind and spirit, the time passes quickly and effortlessly. When any part of me is off, the water is cold and the time goes slowly. And it hurts.

I have my head and hands out of the water. My hands grasp the side of the cold plunge. My eyes are focused on nature outside the window. My mind is focused on counting to twenty seconds, nine times, to equal three minutes total. My breath is focused and regular.

My friend Joshua went to the gym with me the other day and noticed my hands were out of the cold water. “Put your hands in the water, it’s a more healthy experience for you,” he suggested.

When I put my hands in the water, it was like my very first day in the cold plunge. It was shockingly frigid and painful. But only for my hands. Odd. The rest of my body was fine, but my hands were shouting at me to take them out of the water. “Too cold! Too much! We want OUT!” they said.

It has been a week of practice. I will keep my hands in the water until they get used to it like the rest of my body. What I notice is this is like anything new and challenging. It is uncomfortable and perhaps even painful at the start. Part of me wants to quit and be comfortable again. Part of me wants to play it safe and stay with what I know. But the invitation to evolve is right there. Again. I get to choose to move forward or stay where I am. Moving forward will have me thinking and feeling many things. Some positive and some resistant.

So I keep my hands in the cold plunge, and I take the next steps in my life.

Breaking Dysfunctional Patterns

Breaking Dysfunctional Patterns

My wife made an observation a couple years ago. I always seem to have a bully in my life. That was not my day-to-day experience, but sure enough, she was right. And it has been going on throughout my entire life. How could I miss it? And why did it keep happening? And how could I end it, once and for all?

What Is Success Really?

I've been mentoring, training, and consulting with successful people for thirty years. I've been supporting them to access Joy, Knowledge, Empowerment, Liberation, Love and Appreciation. All of these people have some things in common. They are bright, hardworking, caring, high EQ, honest, persistent, funny and aware. There are also some common things missing in their lives and careers; life wide authenticity, self esteem grounded in core values, confidence in dealing with people from all walks of life, true intimacy, real power, peace of mind, security and stability, play and recharge, reciprocal love, calm, healthy choices on a consistent basis, expecting excellence from themselves and others(vs. perfection).

How To Choose A Mentor

How To Choose A Mentor

So you are thinking about hiring a mentor. Good for you! Successful people have mentors, trainers, and consultants. We can’t see our blind spots. We have difficulty measuring and critiquing our own performance in a straight and compassionate way. We are either too easy or too hard on ourselves, neither of which is helpful. So how do you select the right coach for you?

The Challenge of Focusing Your Brilliance

The Challenge of Focusing Your Brilliance

Sometimes, your brain is not your friend. Many times it has you vs you having it. It's in control in a way that does not serve you. It overthinks. It creates drama and chaos where none existed before. It worries. It gets jealous. It creates lust. It gets bored. It triggers reactive emotional states. The list goes on and on.

How To Be In A Healthy Relationship When You’ve Never Seen A Healthy Relationship

Where did you get your relationship to love? Was it watching healthy people love and care for each other? Was it being present when loving communication was practiced? Was it seeing two people be responsible for their experience of themselves and another person and relating from there? Was it listening to people being in a relationship from a place of honor and integrity and modeling that for you? Was it observing a relationship in breakdown and reaction and then feeling what it is like to come back to being in a full, whole, safe and sane relationship?

Managing My Emotions

Managing My Emotions

Ever seen a successful zombie? A person with a lot of money, fame and power, but very little vitality, energy or expression? They have killed most or all of their emotions on the path to their success. Does that look like a bargain you would make? Wouldn't you want to be able to experience the passion, joy, love, enthusiasm, appreciation and all the other emotions that go with natural success? I would!

How Come I Keep Getting Sucked Into BUSY!?

How Come I Keep Getting Sucked Into BUSY!?

I was 8 years old and I LOVED sugar. My step mother must have gotten tired of me asking for treats all the time. "Tell you what. You can have the whole grasshopper pie," she said one morning. What the what? She set the pie in front of me and gave me a fork. I kept waiting for her to take it away from me as I ate it. I almost ate the whole thing. I got up from the table with a big smile on my face. Soon after I got a bad feeling. Grasshopper pie is made of cream, jello and oreo cookie crust. Lots of sugar. Too much sugar for an 8 year old. The next 12 hours were quite uncomfortable.

How To Find Your Niche… Or Not.

Should you work with a specific group of people? Or leave it open to all people? If you ask me who I work with, I would say three types of people. I work with executives, entrepreneurs after their first round of funding(so they can afford the coaching), and people who are in transition from corporate to entrepreneurship, vice versa or into retirement and a focus on community service.

I Chose Work Over My Son...

Desiree knocked at the cottage door. Odd, because usually she left me to do my calls undisturbed until I came in at evening. "Come in," I said, wondering if there was something wrong. "I just wanted to let you know I want you to have breakfast each morning with me and Morgan, OK?" What? I had been an entrepreneur for fifteen years. I worked my own hours, took vacations every three months and made money for us. Wasn't that enough? My calls with my clients back East and in Europe had me on the phone at 5AM. Breakfast? That was just going to interrupt my flow!

How to Vacation (COVID Edition)

Here is what a healthy work cycle looks like (day/week or year)…

What's the Difference Between Individual and Group Mentoring?

Whatever you are up to in life, support can make the difference between success and just being average. But support is often looked at as a sign of weakness. Based on our society, you should be able to do it yourself! Though this is not true, it's one of many challenges on the way to success.

Let's look at the costs and payoffs of these two mentoring modalities…

Now What?

This is such a confusing time! What is really going on? What is true? Who is speaking in a way I can hear and rely on? What is next? How much can I count on? What the heck is NEXT?

Want vs. Commitment

Have you ever desired something, gotten it, and then watched yourself quickly lose interest until you wanted something else? What is the key to desiring something, getting it, and enjoying it?