Choose To Live By Your Choices, Not Chance

 

365 days a year LemonadeMakers posts a blog about something positive and potentially life changing.  I write about my own life, the struggles I’ve had and the struggles I am in the middle of.  I write about the beliefs I’ve come to adopt.  I write a lot about change and transformation.

“You and you alone make the decision as to how you view the experiences in your life and it’s important to know who you are; not to judge, not to focus on your flaws and imperfections, but to discover who you want to be and decide if you’re living by choice or chance” – Live Purposefully Now

It started with my nephews murder and my writing myself out of a dark time.  Right now we are all dealing with some aspect of the Covid-19 in our lives as well as the “normal” life lemons that show up for all of us.

“Choice is the most powerful tool we have.  Everything boils down to choice.  We exist in a field of infinite possibilities.  Every choice we make shuts an infinite number of doors and opens an infinite number of doors.  At any point we can change the direction of our lives by a simple choice.  It is all in our hands, our hearts, and our minds” – tinybuddha.com

LemonadeMakers just recently hit the milestone of 100,000 likes/follows on our page.  In connection with that milestone I asked for some comments about how LemonadeMakers has impacted your lives.  Some of you responded and it made us so happy to see that LemonadeMakers was able to have a positive impact for you.

Just three of the many comments received:

• “I started following this page . . ,  It brought hope, inspiration, power to have control of my life again.”
• “You have encouraged me on many levels. From story to questions, you have made me think and feel. I love that you are constantly improving and sharing the moments in life that seem vulnerable yet they strengthen you.”
• “I have drawn inspiration for the day from many of your posts and have tried to make several of them a habit of my daily practice . . , much to my personal joyfulness (and hopefully, others around me as well).”

“Every morning you have two choices:  Continue to sleep with dreams or, Wake up and chase your dreams.  The choice is yours . . ,”  – Unknown

“Life isn’t always easy.  I struggle day to day.  But I choose to live life to the fullest and keep reminding myself that I am stronger than anything that stands in my way”  – Tanya Masse

I have been thinking about how while we have reached this 100,000 milestone, most of the people who have become fans don’t see our posts.  On an average day less than 2,000 people see our posts reflected in their daily feed.  I get complaints from both friends, relatives, and fans that Facebook doesn’t show LemonadeMakers on their news feed.  LemonadeMakers wants to support you during the struggles of your daily life.  In order to support more positivity in your life, here is how you can make sure that Facebook is reflecting LemonadeMakers in your newsfeed.

• If you’re not seeing any LemonadeMaker posts, go to our page and leave likes and comments on a few recent posts.
• Next go to your Facebook page. I’m going to show you how to edit your news feed for your mobile phone, since that is the most common way LemonadeMakers read our posts.

To edit your News Feed preferences on your phone:

• Tap the 3 lines at bottom right corner of the Facebook app.
• Scroll down to Settings & Privacy.
• Tap Settings.
• Scroll way down to News Feed Settings.
• Tap News Feed Preferences.
• Tap Prioritize who you see first
• When you start to scroll down the icons for your friends, family etc. . , a search button will display
• You can simply touch the icon/face and a star button is attached to the photo.

(I suggest at this point you type in LemonadeMakers, because if you are like me you have hundreds of friends and pages you have liked over the years).  You are limited to 30 picks for prioritizing who you are seeing first.

Your selections aren’t ranked #1, #2, etc.   It is random how it comes up.

Notifications:  If you really don’t want to miss LemonadeMakers posts, you can get notified each time we post.

• Click on notifications settings
• Go down the Pages you follow
• You can turn on/off allow notifications
• You can turn on/off to receive it as a Push
• You can turn on/off to receive it as a Email
• You can turn on/off to receive it as a SMS

Please note that we do post more than one post a day, so if notifications annoy you, don’t activate this.

On the Facebook mobile application on the bottom right hand part of the screen is a little bell – if you click on the bell it takes you to all of your notifications.  You will see not only a LemonadeMakers notification, but any friend requests, birthdays and people who are asking you to like their pages.  That way you can find us really easy if you missed our posts when they popped up.

Hopefully this helps you stay connected with us.  Another way to stay connected is our monthly Zoom call.  Click in the box below to register.  We have a lot of fun conversation.  I bring some ideas and everyone has the opportunity to join in the conversation or to just sit back, relax and listen.

“It’s not circumstance.  It’s not chance.  It’s the choice we make that determines the destiny of life”  – RVM

 

Start Walking, Be Aware, Watch For Possibilities

“It is not the perfection of one’s life but the direction of a life that provides evidence of regeneration”  = John Macarthur

My mother had this habit of saying that she was working on “getting it all together”.  One day I found this cute little card and I had to buy it for her.  It had the picture of a tall filing cabinet with the drawers partially open.  There were files half way out of the cabinet with the papers spilling out of them.  In one of the filing cabinets was a mouse going through the files looking for something.  The caption read “I finally got it all together, but I forgot where I put it.”

“Happiness is not perfection.  It’s looking past imperfection and see the beauty of life” – Surbhi Bhosie

Your life will not be fully lived if you are waiting on getting “all of your ducks in a row.”  You have to begin where you are.  Like the momma duck you need to starting walking and have faith that the ducks will line up behind of you.  There is a joke about how when you finally got your ducks all in row, you’ll discover that they’re not even your ducks!  It isn’t about perfection.  It’s about creating something, anything that gets your closer to your dreams and goals.

Never Turn Away

It has been said, “If you want to get your ducks in a row, you must first get your head above water.”  We are living in a world that is becoming hard to recognize as anything normal.  If you work in sports, entertainment, retail, the restaurant industry, the travel industry – you may have lost your income.  You may still be employed but working from home with children driving you to distraction.  You may be caring for elderly parents terrified that they will get this virus.  In one week you have decided that being a couch potato and binging on T.V. isn’t as relaxing as it sounds.

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect, it simply means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections” – Iliketoquote.com

So with everything in your life going sideways or upside down, how do you find beauty in a world that feels like it is breaking apart?  By creating beauty in the world, wherever you find yourself.  There is an artist that did this magnificent beadwork on canvas, and then she tore it to explose of the beauty hidden underneath.  When you find yourself feeling broken, remember to look for the beauty in the brokeness.

“I realized that to be more alive I had to be less afraid.  So I did it.  I lost my fear and gained my whole life” – Mantraband.com

In mosaics there is great beauty by taking the broken pieces and creating a new piece of art.  It tells a story.  Instead of throwing away the broken things in your life, look for ways to incorporate them into a new meaning.  Don’t abandon your dreams and goals for 2020.  Just look for new creative ways to keep growing your comfort zone and reveal the beauty of hidden possibilities and potential.

Focus

“The road remains wide open while your dreams are alive, only fear can block the way” – Fratley

What is it that you are currently focusing on?  That is the direction you will find yourself heading.  Years ago I was driving home from work one night.  I saw that the car coming towards me had wandered into my lane.  I quickly steered my vehicle off onto the shoulder of the road.   The driver of the oncoming car continued crossing over into my direction.  I could not get out of his way and he hit the side of my vehicle on the drivers side just past the passenger door.  My vehicle was bouncing back and forth, from side to side.  For a moment I thought I was going to roll the vehicle over.

I was sitting in my car, trying to calm my heart down and he came running back to my car.  He kept repeating over and over how sorry he was.  Apparently he was looking at the concrete wall that had been built into the hillside of a new subdivision and was not paying attention to where he was steering.  When you look off to the side of the road, you will unconsciously steer in the direction that you are looking.  By the time he realized he was going to hit me it was too late.  He had not only left his lane, he had crossed completely through my lane and hit me off the road on the shoulder.

 

That is why focus is so important.  It is so easy to swing the pendulum from one side to the other and not be grounded in the present.   If you are too far to the right you might ask yourself:

What is running through your mind as the hamster wheel endlessly spins?  Is it negative mind talk or positive “I can do this” thoughts?  Have you basically already surrendered your life to fear and anxiety? Instead of listening to the minds endless list of “I can’t because thoughts”  what if you turned the sentence around to view it with curiosity – “how can I?”

• I can’t do this because . . . , change to: I wonder how I could do this?
• I can never get anything right . . , change to: I wonder why I think I can’t get anything right?  When did I start thinking that?
• I won’t ever be good enough . . , change to: What is my definition of “good enough”?  Where did I get that definition?  If my best friend or my child told me that sentence what would be my response back to them?  Why don’t I say that to myself?
• Someone will always be better than me . . . , Change to:  answer back  “so what?”  “Who cares?”  I am better than someone and someone else is better than me.

Just Go For It!

“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go” – Rumi

Right now there is a lot of things that you can’t control.  Right now there is a lot of unknowns about what is going to happen next.  The world is shifting and transforming right in front of you.  Instead of feeling like running around and screaming “the world is falling” what if you just got still?  If you just took a deep breath in and let it out slowly over and over until your mind quiets down?  What if you sat in the space of learning to live between effort and surrender?

Something important to remember is that before you try to balance anything, you need to make sure that you are on firm ground.  A steady foundation.  Ask yourself, what do I need to stay grounded, in touch, in love, connected and emotionally balanced in this moment?  You are not going to find it outside yourself.  Look within, to find it.

What if you just looked at what to let go of – all of the cursed unknowns in your life right this moment, and just surrendered them.  What if you got into the space of curiosity – of wonder  – of imagination?  What if you rethought/restructured what dream needs to take flight and just went for it right now?

Put your trust in your higher power.  Embrace change.  Embrace life.  Expand instead of contract.   There is tremendous power in your dreams.  Use it to take flight.   Start by recognizing your “super powers”, your talents and then find ways to serve others by using them.  Do great work even in trying times.

Turning a Corner

There is an old curse that people used to say, according to various fiction writers.  “May you live in interesting times.”  It was meant to imply that you would live in times of great change and unrest.  You might be wondering if you are today, this moment, living in interesting times.  If you are, how do you “aim true”?

In thinking about this I wonder if you are in fact living in a time of great shifting and upheaval.  Think of the change in a landscape after a volcano has blown its top.  We used to live outside of Seattle, WA and I remember going camping, hiking and fishing around Mt. Saint Helens.  When the mountain had its huge eruption, the landscape totally changed.  You would walk down the same path as before, only it wasn’t the same.  The eruption changed the landscape into something surreal.

Are you experiencing changes on a personal level, such as going to a grocery store with a list of items that you can’t find?  For those few items you do find, are you being limited by the store as to how many items you can purchase?

Turning A Corner In WW II

One of the things I love to do is get curious about patterns and shifts in life.  During WW II all of the men went off to war.  This left factories without workers and so many women were called upon to join the workforce to keep the machines running.  It was a time of great upheavals and shifts.  When the men came home they expected the women to go back home to the kitchen.  Women had stood in the place of their husbands or boyfriends and worked a fulfilling job for several years – as well as keeping care of the home and children.  Many of them didn’t want to go back home into their old roles as solely a wife or mother.  They felt that they could be more than that, and wanted it to continue.

Overnight it seemed that the roles of a man and woman had shifted.  They had turned a corner and it wasn’t possible to just go back to the way it was.  It’s taken a long time for those roles to continue shifting and solidifying into true equality.  It is still going on to some extent.

It feels like you may be about to have a similar experience of what happened to the workforce during WW II.  What if the result of this virus is that you are about to experience a “turning of the corner” moment, in multiple ways of how you used to live your life?

“Happiness is letting go of what you think your life is supposed to look like and celebrating it for everything that it is” – Unknown

Is This The End Of The World As We’ve Known It?

Malls have been slowly dying for the past 10 years or so.  Is this the end of malls?

Working from home has been moving one step forward, two back for a few years.  Where I work it wasn’t encouraged.  It was well tolerated for a few years, but lately they had decided they wouldn’t approve it for fulltime employees who wanted to shift from the office to home any longer.  Now of course for those states on lockdown everyone who can work from home is.  If this home lockdown truly continues for a couple of months, will businesses have turned a corner and begin abandoning commercial multistoried office buildings?  Will working from home become the “norm” of the future?

Has the virus killed ISP data caps?  Internet providers have been lifting the data caps due to everyone being at home and using the internet – both for work and entertainment.  Once you have given something away for free, it is very hard to put the genie back into the bottle.  It becomes a negative experience for your customers and they will go to someone who is still not capping their online connections.

What if we have just “turned the corner” for movie theaters?  You see Disney and several other companies releasing the movies to either buying the movie or streaming it and paying to view it.  If this was to continue there would be need to be a drastic change to how much it cost to make a movie in order for the industry to survive.  Would the mega dollars paid to the big stars go away?  Would movies become all computer generated, with voices being the only real part of the movie?

What about the million dollar contracts for sports stars if the big arenas were no longer deemed safe?

Once you start down the rabbit hole of wondering, there is no telling where you might end up.  The world is full of patterns.  The patterns continue until they transform, collapse or end.  When you are in the middle of a pattern that is in transition, it is really hard to recognize what is happening.  Even if you recognize that a pattern shift is being played out, it is really hard to determine where it is going.  It is impossible to guess how fast or slow the change will be, or how much it will impact you.  You just know that transformation is in motion.

If you go back to the caterpillar to butterfly analogy you are inside the chrysalis and you are still just goo.  Until you break free of the chrysalis you won’t know what it is that you have transformed into.  You won’t know the true impact on your life.  What corner(s) have you just turned that you can never go back from?  It is like one of those pictures that you can connect the dots on.  It is only after the transformation has been completed that you can see what you have transformed into.

How Do You Aim True?

I feel  like there is an elephant trying to go through a door and it has gotten itself stuck.  On the other side of the door is a brand new world to explore.  I can get glimpses to see that it is a new world.  I can’t however know how much of a change has actually occurred.

Will we all be working from home and will commercial real estate transform all of those buildings into housing?  What would that mean for your goals that you are aiming for in your life?

Will the majority of people order groceries and have home delivery?  Will grocery stores become more of a shipping facility than a store where you walk down the aisles and buy more than you planned on because of impulse buying? What would that mean for your goals that you are aiming for in your life?

Will drones become the future of deliveries?  Will self driving cars that self sanitize become the way of getting from point A to point B if you do have to leave home? What would that mean for your goals that you are aiming for in your life?

All questions and answers can be discussed and explored – but nothing will be truly known until the elephant clears the doorway.  Even then it will take time to fully realize that the corner has been completely turned.  Before you can see how much the new direction impacts your life.

What you have in this moment though is the ability to be curious.  To explore, not with a depressing attitude that the world is changing and you want it to remain the same.  But with a curiosity that says, “I wonder what happens next?”  “Do I aim high or low with my life goals and dreams?”

I  Wonder What Happens Next?

I firmly believe that there are going to be some great opportunities when we clear that doorway – when we turn that corner.  You can make guesses.  You can get curious and talk with others – but only from the perspective of good things are about to happen.  This isn’t said to try and make light of the health and economic devastations that are happening.  It is said to let you know that you don’t have to let fear take over your life.

You can’t control everything that is happening, or is about to happen.  You can take the recommended steps to protect the health of yourself and your family.  But once you have taken those steps – then go back into curiosity.  Go back into wonder.  Stay in the positive emotions of love, joy, happiness.  Tell fear that it is in quarantine.  Don’t let it out to take over your life.

Come and join our conversation on April 4th.  Let’s talk about whatever is showing up for you and how you can turn the corner on fear and change your relationship with it.  Let’s talk about your dreams and goals and how you can still be proactive in bringing them into reality.  This isn’t the time to go into retraction with your life.  It is instead the right time, to proactively take whatever positive steps you can to keep moving forward.  To keep expanding the love, joy, happiness, curiosity in your life.

Out of an Abundance of Caution

“Surround yourself with people that reflect who you want to be and how you want to feel, energies are contagious” – Rachel Wolchin

You are hearing these words a lot in todays media – “Out of an abundance of caution”.  It is almost always followed by something that is being cancelled or changing to an online streaming event.  The city of San Jose required that Tony Robbins cancel his upcoming event in March “Out of an abundance of caution”.  When you hear those words “out of an abundance of caution” how does it feel to the energy in your body?  Is is constrictive?  Restrictive?  Does it feel like the turtle pulling in his head and legs so that all you can see is a hard shell?

“Don’t adapt to the energy in the room.  Influence the energy in the room” – FabQuote.co

You have dreams, desires, and ambition for your life.  You have goals that you want to bring to fruition this week; this month; and this year.  When you live your life from that kind of positive energy, it attracts others who feel the same.  You experience movement, progress unlike the turtle who is motionless, hiding in his shell.  If you live your life from “an abundance of caution” what you will experience is being motionless, frozen in time and space.  It is important to surround yourself with people who not only live from a space of abundance, but an abundance that is expansive, not contractive.

“The more positive energy you have around you, the better you will feel about yourself” – Unknown

Words and music both have an energy that plays with your emotions.  I can listen to a sound track of almost any movie and immediately feel the emotions that they are creating.  If I have seen the movie I can see the scene itself.  Here is where someone was in danger – here is where they were really happy – here is where their heart was broken.  The words we hear also impact us emotionally.  Negative words will drain your energy and introduce fear into your spirit.  Fear itself is like a virus that will grow and take over your life if you are not aware of it being inside your energy field.  It contracts you just like that turtle to hide away.  To be safe.

“Stick with people who pull the magic out of you, not the madness” – Unknown

Instead be like the eagle.  When the storm breaks most birds fly to a safe tree branch to hide from the weather.  But not the eagle.  The eagle flies above the storm.  So be like an eagle and fly above the  madness you see happening around you.  Feel the positive energy of the eagle as you fly with it, above the madness of the storm and into the magic above it.  The magic happens when you attract other positive energy people around you, as you support each other reaching up into the heights.

Here is some good advice from Vex King to protect your positive energy:

• Avoid gossip and drama
• Let go of things you can’t control
• Avoid comparing yourself to others
• Keep your faith larger than your fears
• Don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right
• Don’t be afraid to spend some time alone
• Speak kindly to yourself and to other people
• Please yourself before trying to please others
• Stay away from people who drain your energy
• Ignore any opinions that don’t enhance your life

“Let me remind you:  Wherever your focus is directed that’s where your energy goes.  Whatever you allow in your space, you eventually become” – Overlyxclusive

So when the world goes mad, fly high above the madness.  Self direct your energy instead of letting it be manipulated by negative fearful people.  The media spreads the virus of fear, making everything “breaking news”.  Stop letting anyone else control your mind, your feelings, and emotions.  Remember what you focus on determines the reality that you are currently experiencing.  It is easy to let the negative mind take over with possible world ending scenarios that expand your fears until you can no longer think logically.  The secret is to focus on what builds up, not what tears down.

“She was unstoppable not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued despite them” – Beau Taplin

So match your own personal energy to that you want to attract in your life.  Positive thoughts change your experience of life.  Every smile, every loving word, every kind action are reflections of who you are.   So dream BIG, stay FOCUSED, work HARD, be KIND.

The Light Is In You

 

“Know what sparks the light in you, then use that light to illuminate the world” – Oprah

Inside of you is a box of matches.  Each of the matchsticks is a gift that you have to Illuminate the world with.  Striking the match enables you to bring light to some sort of darkness in the world.  The darkness is filled with all of the problems in society we face today.

Each time you light one of your matchsticks, you can see some small part of what is hiding in the darkness. Your light will always shine on something that you can help to change in the world.

If you are brave enough, you strike a match and get curious about the secrets that are hiding in the darkness. Inside of every one of society’s problems lies the seed of the answer to what must be changed.

Those seeds are germinated with your passion.  In order for change to happen, it requires that you strike a match, get curious, and get creative about how to illuminate the possibilities within the seeds.  Trust your heart and your calling will light the way.

“To be a star, you must walk your own path, shine your own light and don’t be afraid of the darkness, that’s when a star shines the brightest” – Joel Brown

In times of hardship the automatic reflex is to contract, when in fact you need to expand. You feel that life is shutting you out. That failure is condemning you. Life is unfair, so you wail and kick your feet in frustration. You just want to dig a hole and disappear into it forever. Yet this is the exact time you must open your hands to receive.

Receiving isn’t just allowing someone to help you.  It is also saying yes to yourself; to risk; to higher potential; to new adventures. Opening doors to new opportunities. Learning about yourself.  Life is all about understanding something you’ve known about your entire life – in a new way. Be willing to be a beginner again, for a whole new world of opportunities is just waiting for you.

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lit the flame within us” – Albert Schweitzer

Somedays it feels like you just can’t motivate yourself to get out of bed.  You’re exhausted from beating your head against the obstacles in your life.  There are dark shadows obscuring your ability to see what needs to be done.  You try to strike a new match to get clarity and nothing happens.  You try another match.  Then you try a new area to strike the match.

Sometimes you will need to your light to be rekindled from someone else’s light, and sometimes you can help to illuminate their light source.  That is the importance of being part of a tribe.  Connect to others who are shining their lights to change themselves and thereby change the world.

Instead of just being preoccupied with your problems, you open your heart to the adventures and obstacles of their journey, and your own journey becomes illuminated.

“Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock” –  James Baldwin

Steven Pressfield stated in “The Art of War”, that most of us have two lives; the lives we live and the lives we are capable of living.

Many times the worst danger you face is your own uncertainty that what the light is revealing is something that you can face and deal with. Curiosity may have opened the door, but what you find may still feel like it is going to kill you.

Truth will both refine you and define you. It measures you. It takes caution and understanding to know what to do with the truth of who you are.  To accept who you have been in the past.  To be in awe of who you are revealing yourself to be today.

Part of the search for understanding who you came here to be, is to understand that change is how you grow those seeds which will crush the obstacles in your path.  Spirit understands whatever adversity you face, is also an opportunity. That when you embrace change, change also embraces you.

“Illumination is nothing if you do not share it with anyone.  Illumination is about spreading light across entire nations.  It’s about wearing that crown that shines like the sun on your head, and getting other minds to synergize with yours” – Suzy Kassem

If you have a vision but no plan, then you have a pipe dream. If you have a vision and a focused plan but lack action, then you’ll have a lot of frustration.  This is because you won’t achieve momentum when some days you take action, and some days you don’t. It makes it impossible for you to know what’s working and what isn’t.

If you are not intentional about what you say yes to, and what you say no to, then every day will control you and nothing will get done.

That’s where illumination comes in.  That’s where striking your match comes in.  You need to learn how to keep your lamp lit.  You need to learn how to strike your matches and use those divine gifts with purpose to not only shift and change your world, but the entire world.  Find your spark and light up those matches!

Are You Pushing Your Limits?

“Bravery is not the absence of fear.  Bravery is feeling the fear, the doubt, the insecurity, and deciding that something else is more important”  – Mark Manson

Every year we commit ourselves to making changes in our lives.  We may or may not call them goals, or new years resolutions.  The thing is that we all change, whether it is on purpose or it just happens.  Those changes can happen in uncontrolled chaos, or from being committed to something vitally important.  Whether change happens to us or for us, it is up to us to make those decisions, day by day & moment by moment.

“I wish for the same thing I’ve hoped for since the beginning.  I wish for a life so brave, so unpredictable, so full of unexpected joys and unforgettable love that no box could possible contain all my memories.  Such a life won’t be perfect.  It’ll be something better.  It’ll be my own paradise”  – Patti Smith

I think that the one thing all of humanity can agree on, is wanting a happy life.  It may look different depending on our age, our sexual preference, our religion, our culture, our politics – but it is still desiring joy and happiness in our lives, and our families lives.  Each decision that we make in this regard comes from us following those things mentioned above.  The funny thing is, the personal definition of what constitutes all of those things  — may not be authentic to who we are at a soul level.  A lot of them come from following someone else’s value system.  Our parents, our teachers, our mentors or the society that we associate with.  As they say in Texas, “that dog don’t hunt”.

It’s not perfect, It’s a work in progress

“Finding the passion and purpose in your life is a trial-by-fire process.  You don’t simply wake up one day and become happy doing one thing forever and ever.  It’s a constant work-in-progress”  – Mark Manson

It’s kind of funny how we have this notion in our head that if we are able to make this one change or answer this one soul searching question about our life, that it will be a one and done thing.  That somehow one thing changing would make us happy forever.  There is no one-size-fits-all for anything in life.  This is because growth is a constantly changing who we are.  What makes us happy today in this moment is fleeting.  This is because in life, you literally cannot pass this way again.  Everything is changing and so this moment in time doesn’t last, it doesn’t repeat itself.  Progress is change.

“Passion will move men beyond themselves, beyond their shortcomings, beyond their failures” – Joseph Campbell

What I love about figuring out how to accomplish my desires is the concept of failure as an ending.  When you are on your way to someplace that you’ve never been before, even with a navigation system you sometimes end up on a dead end.  Just this past week I had a doctors visit and they had moved their office.  So I am following the directions on the navigation system in my car and I end up at a dead end.  Thankfully there were some security guards talking next to this gate to the high school who knew where I needed to go.

“Believe in yourself and all that you are.  Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle”  – Christian D Larson

Reaching a dead end, my journey to the doctors office had failed.  I didn’t just turn around and go back home.  I sought new directions.  It’s the same thing with whatever our current life goals are.  If you reach a road block, a dead end, the bridge is out – you shouldn’t just quit trying to get to where your passion is leading you.  You should try something else.  You should go in a new direction to the same destination.

New Directions required –

BE different to MAKE a DIFFERENCE

“If you desire to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world”  – Elaine Dalton

A big part of being able to make the changes in your life that you desire, is a healthy self esteem.  It is how you bring your life into soul alignment.  It is living a life in integrity to your soul’s purpose.  What your true values are deep inside of you.  Without going through a process of determining what belongs to your soul – and what was adopted from outside of you from an deep seated need to belong – you can’t make true lasting changes in your life.  You can make temporary changes from will power, but it will not result in the personal transformation that you desire.

“Don’t give in to your fears.  If you do you won’t be able to talk to your heart”  – Paulo Coelho

If you don’t want to continue falling back into old patterns and habits you need to learn a new way to facilitate your life changes.  To learn a process that helps you to spot the patterns as they begin again to interfere in your passions and desires for change.  As you increase your awareness, you will find those old patterns hold less power and control over your life.  They began from a desire to keep us safe.  But as you grow and change in life, those patterns become out-grown, outdated.  They need to be released.  That can only happen by your developing awareness of why you created them and how your subconscious is trying to avoid the risk of standing out and being different.

This year you have some dreams that you are working on. You have some goals that you are struggling with. It might be that you are ready to break out of your comfort zone. To go to that next level in your life. To realize your full potential in your job/career; your personal relationships; your health; financial or spiritual goals. Don’t let them go.

Do something different, join us on March 7th and find a new direction to fulfilling your dreams, goals and commitments.

Don’t Let Something Amazing Pass You By

“Sometimes, thing don’t go as planned.  Life doesn’t always go the way you hope it will.  You can’t plan everything.  Life takes you where it wants to – you’re pretty much just along for the ride!  Just breathe – Re-Evaluate – Step out of the box – Forgive – Be grateful.”  – Namala Lakesh

I believe in plans.  But I also believe in being flexible.  I believe in taking stock and making constant adjustments.  It’s like a sailboat.  You are subject to winds and currents, but with the rudder and sails, you have the ability to maneuver into the direction you want to go.  Which is why I love the way I plan out my month and year.  I make plans and then as life happens I see where I need to make adjustments.  To re-evaluate what is really most important in the current time and space to accomplish.  That’s why I am sharing this system with all of you.  It works!

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails.”  – Elizabeth Edwards

Sometimes things happen in the reverse order of your expectations.  The patience comes in because you automatically put expectations on the plans.  You visualize them out step by step, and then life happens.  You lose you job, the promised promotion and/or raise doesn’t materialize.  Someone close to you is faced with a critical medical diagnosis.  The money you had planned for vacation now has to go to put in new plumbing.  In short, life happens.  You need to adjust your sails.

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you.  If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up.  Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”  – Michael Jordan

Sometimes obstacles are like the monsters under the bed.  You hear a noise.  Your imagination runs wild.  Your heartbeat goes out of control.  Suddenly you are screaming.  And it was all in your head.  Other times they are legitimate.  I remember one of the contestants in America’s Got Talent had been a singer, then tragedy struck.  She went deaf from a medical condition.  She stopped singing and gave up her career.

“Our life doesn’t always turn out the way we planned, but sometimes that’s because what we planned wasn’t suppose to be our life.”  – Gdonell

Mandy said in an interview, “I made the mistake of associating my entire identity with one single dream, and when that dream died, I very much felt like I died. I became a husk of a person for awhile.”

“Life doesn’t always go according to plan.  Sometimes heading in a new direction can be scary until you realize you’re headed toward a new and exciting destination.”  – Susan Cole

Then she got an electric tuner and spent 10 hours learning to sing each note perfectly.  “I couldn’t believe it”, she says, “My perfect pitch and muscle memory all came together.”  Mandy Harvey.

“If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.”  – Michele Ruiz

Then one day she decided to stop fighting against her dreams and start fighting for them.  She began writing her own songs and singing again.  She discovered that this real obstacle could be overcome.  She discovered that a big chunk of the real obstacle was in her own mind. Singing a song she composed she got sent straight through to the finals on America’s Got Talent.  She finished fourth.

“You don’t always need a plan.  Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, and let go and see what happens.”  – Mandy Hale

If you take a good honest look at your life so far, you will see times where what you had planned fell apart – and that it was a good thing.  You underestimated what you were are capable of. You made plans that were far too limiting in regards to your potential.  When you let go of the expectation of the plan, and how it should go – and instead learned to feel your way with intuition, amazing things happened.

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”  – Joseph Campbell

You discover hidden talents.  You uncover better ways to expand your comfort zones.  So when the path you are walking on changes direction, don’t be afraid to keep going.  When the sign says “dead end” don’t be afraid to go off the path and create your own.  When the wind blows you backwards, grab a tree and hold on.  When life challenges you to sit it out, get up and fight to keep moving forward.

“If we can just let go and trust that things will work out the way they’re supposed to, without trying to control the outcomes, then we can begin to enjoy the moment more fully.  The joy of the freedom it brings becomes more pleasurable than the experience itself.”  – Goldie Hawn

LemonadeMakers is hosting a monthly free class on goals, resolutions, plans – whatever you want to call your means of change and transformation in your life.  We discuss on a live Zoom call what is happening that is working and not working.  Ideas to try to get us motivated to change and transform our lives.  Where we might re-evaluate our plans.  How to adjust our sails.

We invite you to join with us the first Saturday of every month.  The next class registration is opening today.  Come join us!  Click on the box to register now.

Breathe In The Love

Updated 2/01/2020

2020, in the month April it was the 10-year anniversary of my nephew murder.  He would have been 29 years old last month.  It’s hard to process everything that has happened as a consequence of that happening in our family.  My sister has more good days than bad, but she is still and will probably always be stuck in her loss.  My life has shifted so much I don’t think I am even in the time zone.  The ripples of his death will keep moving as long as someone reads this blog about our loss.

“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…, ” – Terry Pratchett

Out of every great tragedy there comes the hidden blessings.  One of the blessings I received after my nephew’s murder was someone who was able to take the grief and loss that I felt and turn it into something beautiful and full of hope.  I wrote a poem purging myself of the intense waves of grief.  Writing is how I make sense of the senseless, it is how I can remain sane, when the crazy is calling my name.  So when my nephew was murdered, I wrote a poem about what I was going through.

“Writing is like breathing, it’s possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what” – Julia Cameron

I encourage anyone going through difficult times to write it out.  I think that it releases the poison, that would corrupt our souls.  In pain, we hold our breath.  Writing helps us to start breathing again.  To realize that we can still have a chance for a better and happier life.

“When we focus our energy towards constructing a passionate meaningful life, we are tossing a pebble into the world, creating a beautiful ripple effect of inspiration.  When one person follows a dream, tries something new or takes a daring leap, everyone nearby feels that energy and before too long they are making their own daring leaps and inspiring yet another circle” – Christine Mason Miller

I will print my poem at the end of this.  While I was able to process my way through the grief, it still felt a little dark.  The gift that this stranger was able to give me, was taking this poem and my story, and creating this beautiful song from it.  It took away the darkness in my poem and transmuted it into light.

I reached for this poem when someone else I love is having their own dark night of the soul.  We all need to remember that even though there are dark nights, they can be transmuted into something beautiful.

“Only in the darkness, can you see the stars” – Martin Luther King Jr.

I think that we all have those days, when the sky turns black, with no sunlight or starlight to shine upon us.  We think that God has turned his back on us.  We feel the intense emotions that threaten to drown us.  As I say in my poem, sometimes the sorrow burns us alive.

“Some days our grief appears as small manageable ripples.  Other days it completely crashes over us without any warning.  These are the days you need to be able to sit, reflect and remember; and not feel guilty in doing so” – Just Over the Rainbow Bridge

Sometimes it’s okay if the only thing that we can accomplish in a day, is to simply breathe.  Breathing in the love, turns the storm into a calmer sea.  The sun rises again.  As the poem ends, we can breathe again.  We can breathe in the love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope and manifest it back into the world.

I hope you enjoy the song.  We had it created especially for LemonadeMakers.

“We all die.  The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will” – Chuck Palahniuk

Carl’s Poem

Yesterday you were so alive riding the oceans waves, yes, life was so simple and innocent

But now your soul has left behind your flesh, and your bones lie there just an empty cage

Help me, I can’t breathe as this news fractures my life, I am so unsafe, I just can’t balance

And grief engulfs me, and anger rages, and I just can’t breathe.

 

I can’t breathe from hearing the news on T.V or reading the printed pages of your murder

I feel the thunderous storm of emotions pass through me as lightning strikes my heart

The senselessness of your passing, the gunshots of a stranger who tore our lives asunder

And so, I grieve, and the sorrow burns as it drowns me, and I can’t breathe.

 

The hours pass into days as I stumble down this long road breathing with heavy sighs

The days spent in crying, and the primal screams of the dark nights merge into numbing weeks

Yet storm clouds break up as I begin to see the healing of the rainbow’s blessings

And so, I grieve, and I begin to breathe, I breathe love.

 

Life carries on with unending support of love that is surrounding me and protecting me

Forgiveness is the answer, so I move past the limitations of grief, rage, and sorrow

To live in limitless love, light and joy, and my heart-lines align to the universal love

And so, I breathe love, and I add grace, I breathe, I breathe grace.

 

Love from Carl’s heart washes through me, cleansing and healing every part of my body

A warm wave it ignites an inner fire of transformation that love is the ultimate expression of grace

It illuminates the greater vision for my life to emerge from within me, a graceful unfolding,

And so, I breathe love and grace, and I add forgiveness, I breathe, I breathe forgiveness.

 

I release the need to blame you Carl, myself, or anyone else for your ending,

I release fears grip on my soul, and I choose to walk this path with love

I have experienced a grace inspired event that challenged me, and I have awakened

And so, I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, and I add joy, I breathe, I breathe joy.

 

Grace has opened a door whose light illuminates my next step as I step out of the darkness

I share this, your gift to the world, that love is the ultimate expression of grace

As I practice this belief, practice will yield to insight, which yields to embodiment, which yields to manifestation.

And so, I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy, and I add hope, I breathe, I breathe hope.

 

As I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope, life becomes a celebration again

And as I let my light shine, I unconsciously give others the permission to do the same

I will live like there is not tomorrow, I will live like there was no yesterday

I will breathe, I will breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope and manifest it out into the world.

20/20 Vision For A Well Lived Life

 

Revised 1/30/2020

“A pivot is a change in strategy without a change in vision” – Eric Ries

All around the world people make plans.  They set goals.  They build on their dreams.  Every year brings you some of the same goals and maybe this year you have a few new ones.  For the majority of us that is as good as it gets.  Why?

Because sometime in January or February or maybe even March your willpower begins to fade out.  You slow down.  You procrastinate and put it off for next month (this is me – lol).  You tell yourself what’s the hurry?  I have all year to get this done.

What if this year you do something unique?  What if you pivot instead?

“You can only succeed.  You cannot fail.  Failure is impossible …, an illusion…, Nothing.  Everything moves the human story…, forward.  Everything advances you on your journey” – Neal Donald Walsh

Thinking back to secondary education (Jr. High, High School or College) did you get your assignments done when they were assigned or when they were due?  How many late nights cram sessions did you have to do to finish a paper that you had weeks to complete but waited until the last minute?

The majority of us were late night crammers.  And that is one of the things that leads us to fail in our dreams. resolutions, goals, and plans.  Not fail as in we can’t do it but fail as in, we decide to quit trying to do it.

When you make your goals with the intention of accomplishing them within 12 months, you will delude yourself that you have plenty of time until there isn’t any time, and then you will quit.  Why?

You are out of integrity with your life

Because unlike school when you would have failed a class and then been grounded by a parent, you are only lying to yourself.

The problem with lying to yourself though, is that you are then out of integrity with yourself, and it plays out in your life over and over again.  Every time you say you are going to do something, that negative voice will say – “yeah right – you know that you are not really going to accomplish this, so why waste any time or effort in pretending.”

“We’re here to put a dent in the universe.  Otherwise, why else even be here” – Steve Jobs

This year what if instead of a 1-year plan, why don’t you do something different?  Do a weekly plan.  You choose how many weeks you want to plan for.  12 weeks is sufficient to work in a new positive habit.  For most goals it gives you enough time to plan out how to accomplish it.  If the goal needs more than 12 weeks such as education, plan out major steps that can be accomplished within 12 weeks.

Ready?

Get out your pencil and three pieces of paper for this exercise.  I want you to limit yourself to three goals.  Write one goal on each sheet of paper.

“How does the WHY relation to the vision” – Simon Sinek

Now write down some steps that would need to happen in order for you to accomplish your goal.  As an example, you might want to go back to school to get a degree for a change in your career or to help you advance further in your degree.  Since this is probably more than 1 year, plan out 3 steps that can be accomplished within the chosen number of weeks.

• You must also write down the WHY this goal is important to you.
• What dream is it helping you accomplish?
• How do you feel about that dream?
• What emotions does it create deep inside of you?
• What is the importance of it to you – not anyone else?

If it isn’t pulling you to complete it, it’s not really your goal.  Keep digging until you reach that place where the dream hooks you.  Then do the following step.

• #1 – find three colleges that you would like to attend.
• #2 – Look up the website and download information on the classes required to get your degree.
• #3 – Call and talk to an admissions officer about your plans.

Only list three steps that can be accomplished within the chosen timeframe.  Your goals should always be driven to your life purpose.  To move forward into who you are meant to be, who you are becoming.  Otherwise, it is just wasting your time, effort and money.

Always check in with our inner guidance system and follow where that is leading us.  There will always be some positive emotions, some connection – it will lead us if we get quiet and listen and feel for it.

“The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.  And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.  If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.  Don’t settle” – Steve Jobs

For a budget goal, you could plan out goals for each pay period.  Weekly, biweekly, monthly – according to the time frame your paychecks arrive.

• #1 – spreadsheet with lines completed for each bill that is due within the pay period.  List the name of the bill, date due, amount due, balance due.  List the net income after taxes.  Deduct all payments to arrive at a balance left after paying all of the bills.
• #2 – Determine your goals – saving money for vacations; for a big purchase such as a car or home; rainy day fund; education fund for your children; etc…,
• #3 – Goals for zero debt – what debts to payoff first, second, etc…,

Continue in a similar manner for your third goal.  What is so cool about this pivot is that you can play with it to see what number of weeks works for you.  The budget goal for example will continue all year long.  You will have accomplishments for each time period that you are working through.  Celebrate each milestone – it is what fuels you to the next milestone and gets you over the disappointments when life happens and creates havoc in accomplishing our dreams.

“If the challenge we face doesn’t scare us, then it’s probably not that important” – Simon Sinek

I know that if someone gives me something I may or may not make the time to actually do the work.   So, take a second and think about what I wrote up above.  Did you take out paper and pencil or did you just read through it thinking that you would come back later and do it?

What I also know about myself is that if someone takes the time to work with me through the material, I get some action and forward momentum started. I will answer the questions and get my brain thinking and planning.  So, take this small first step for 2020 and let’s create something personally designed just for you!

Commit to your dreams.  Travel down a clear path to your date with destiny.

Get Clarity By Magnifying Your Life Purpose

“If you can tune into your purpose and really align with it, setting goals so that your vision is an expression of that purpose, then life flows much more easily.”  – Jack Canfield

There is a dream that you had as a child.  It was a persistent dream.  It was a longing that would not be denied.  Maybe you went for it and failed.  Or maybe you were too scared to even try.  Or maybe you had the “one hit wonder” and then faded away, too afraid that you could never repeat or even surmount the dream.  That dream contained your purpose.  How it was fulfilled was your vision of what it could be.

“Focus on your own happiness, focus on your own life, focus on your own vision.”– GreatestQuotes.net

My dream was to write. 

I did well in school.  I loved learning.  I would read 6-7 books a week.  I would check out the maximum number of books every week and read them all.  My family was always moving somewhere new.  Until my Freshman year in high school I didn’t attend any complete grade in one school.  So books were my best friends and my escape.  And every single book I read, I would say to myself, “I could write this book.  Maybe even write it better than the author did.”

“Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are to your comfort zone.”  – Peerhustle.com

The problem was while I told myself that, the doing of the actual writing was outside of my comfort zone and I was terrified that I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was.  The fact that I got straight A’s and was in honors didn’t overcome the fears.  In fact it magnified them.  In my mind I was sitting on the pedestal and if I actually tried to write a book, I would topple off the pedestal and be subject to ridicule.

“Don’t try to overhaul your life overnight.  Instead, focus on making one small change at a time.  Over time, those small changes will add up to big transformation.  Don’t give up!” – emilysquotes.com

So I dreamed of writing year after year and fed my purpose a starvation diet of book after book that someone else who was smarter and braver wrote while I just dreamed about it.  I believe that God plants your purpose inside of you.  It never goes away.  I believe that door after door of opportunity comes you way to express it to its full potential.  I believe that the ups and downs of life itself are generated in such a way to try to coax you or force you to take up your dream and live it.

“A vision of a desired future allows you to engage and identify immediately in your focus with an improved condition.  It changes what you perceive and how you perform – NOW.  It’s not about achieving something in time.  It’s rather about the quality of choices you are making in this moment – what you choose to perceive, feel, and do.  It’s about getting the most out of your experience.”– David Allen

I believe that at least one of the New Year’s Resolutions or goals that you set – are a part of your life purpose. 

When my nephew was murdered I was forced through the door of writing.  I didn’t really understand what was happening at first.  By the time I realized that I had committed myself to writing LemonadeMakers I had literally changed my world.  All my goals before that were about changing myself to make other people happy.  Lose weight and be healthy for my family.  Climb the corporate ladder so that my family would be secure financially, and so on.

“Focus on where you want to go instead of the obstacles in your path.  Drive and persistence will take you to your desired destination.”– slideshare.net

Now all of a sudden, the question that I was asking was,

“Who do I need to be to make LemonadeMakers be what it is supposed to be? What do I need to learn? What habits do I need to bring into my life? Who can help me?”

It is such a unique space of focus away from fear of not being loved if I wasn’t giving all of me to my family or job – to the space of how can I help others find this place seeing “what else is possible”? It is kind of funny when I finally understood that giving all of me to my family or job was from fear and not love. And now I am finally living most of my time from love and not fear. Fear still shows up, disguised as self sabotage. Then fear is shown to the door, when once again I recognize it for what it is.

Somewhere in your goals that you are setting for 2020 is a part of your life purpose. 

It is the thing that you dream about when your mind wanders.  What is it that you do, that is similar to my inside my head comment when I was reading a good book.  What is your version of a “I could do this”?  Think about the thing that pops into your head, that is immediately discounted by your negative self talk.  There is something there to explore and understand more fully.

That “thing” will keep showing up month after month, year after year, decade after decade.  That idea or concept will not leave you – it can’t. It will keep haunting you, until you are expressing it to its fullest potential or you have died with the dream still unfulfilled within you.  So take a leap of faith.  Be brave.

Come join us on February 1st for our “Living the Dream” free workshop and take the first step in putting your dream into reality.

We are going to explore some ideas outside of the box on how to start living our dreams.  We are going to dig into our goals and expose the root systems to see how they connect to our life purpose.  It is more than a dream board.  It is more than writing the dream out on paper.  It is more than a calendar full of appointments and meetings and blocking out time to implement what needs to be done and when you will do it.  It is  more than a single leap of faith or five baby sets of doing something.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light. . , that most frightens us. . , ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ . . , who are you not to be?. . , Your playing small does not serve the world . . , We are all meant to shine. . ,  as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ― Marianne Williamson

I invite you to join us on February 1st for a live workshop on how to make 2020 the year of achievement. Get clear on what you want and how to obtain it. If your 2020 goals are already stalling, get recharged and refocused. Learn how to pivot to success.

Just click below to get started.

During the call you will have the opportunity to create, find a pivot or two, reimagine and refuel your life dreams.

I know that if someone gives me something I may or may not make the time to actually do the work. But if someone takes the time to work with me through the material I get some action and forward momentum started. So take this small first step for 2020 and lets create something personally designed just for you!

Instead of just thinking “I could do this” come and find out just how much you can do, confront your deepest fears. Stop playing small. Shine out in all of your brilliance. Give yourself permission to be all that you can be in 2020.

 

Find Your Missing Puzzle Piece To Living A Life Of Purpose

 

“A vision is not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more” – Rosabeth Moss Kanter

When you are living a life on purpose, what does that really mean?  You see yourself on a journey to accomplish something that is important to you.  Say for example that you want to run a marathon.  You set a goal of getting up every morning at 4 AM to run before you go to work.

Now you and I know that there are going to be mornings when you don’t want to get out of bed.  When you promise yourself that you will just sleep in this one time and that you will run when you get home instead.  But of course, when you get home, you have so many things to do that evening that you are too tired to run.

When your will power runs dry, what then?

Your actions will always, be 100% congruent with your thinking.  So, if you set a goal to run a marathon, and you set up a plan of how much running you must do in order to complete the marathon – yet you find yourself not getting up at 4 AM as planned, then your thinking is not congruent with your goals.

“You have to have a lot of passion for what you are doing because it is so hard …, if you don’t, any rational person would give up” – Steve Jobs

You need a change of thinking.  You need a breakthrough.  A breakthrough is a natural result of a shift in your thinking.  You suddenly connect past, present, future into a thought that sheds light on something you never saw before.  When you have a breakthrough, it feels as though the DNA in your body has changed every single cell.  Like one moment you knew who you were.  Then the next moment you are someone totally new.  You realize that you can never go back to what you were before.

Shifting your mindset can create opportunities that you never imagined were possible.  Many times, it happens when you run out of ideas.  When you hit the wall.  When you finally let go and let God.  It clarifies and simplifies everything.  It’s like the spotlight appears out of the darkness and shows you the way home.  You become more of who you are supposed to be.

Become more of who you are supposed to be

“Awareness is not a giver of solace – it is just the opposite.  It is a disturber and an awakener” – Robert K Greenleaf

It is kind of funny what happens when you wake up and become aware of how simple life can really be.  You are full of plans to run the marathon.  You are taking action.  Then something happens, and everything changes.

• Do you give up?
• Do you throw in the towel?
• Or do you do something outside the box?
• Something risky – something you’ve never tried and aren’t really sure can work?

Your “WHY” is what creates a compelling vision for your life of purpose

How does your “WHY” relate to the vision you have created?  Your “WHY” is what creates a compelling vision for your life of purpose.  It will clearly capture and establish an emotional connection to keep you on purpose to your vision.

It gets you up at 4 AM excited to go running, even in the rain or when you are just too tired to even press the snooze button.  Your “WHY” is the means to get you to the end result – running in that marathon.

Around 20 years ago, in the month of January, my middle son got engaged.  They set the date to get married in August.  I was so happy for them.  I wanted to pay for their dream honeymoon.  I contacted the travel agent they were working with and got all of the details.  I sat down and planned it out exactly how I could pay for it.

“Hold the vision.  Trust the process” – Unknown

A couple of weeks later they decided to move the date to May.  I was devastated.  I could see no way to pay for it in time.  I decided to try something new I had learned about at a real estate seminar.  I sat down and wrote out a letter expressing how happy I was that I could pay for their honeymoon.  How they had the best time at their dream destination.

About two weeks later I got a phone call out of the blue about 10 acres that we owned in rural Upstate New York.  The neighbors across the street wanted to purchase the property for cash and they were ready to close it immediately.  We settled on the price and two weeks later I had the exact amount needed to pay for the honeymoon.

Want to learn how to do the same thing?

How did this happen?  I created a compelling vision of what I wanted to do.  Not how it would get done.  I captured all of the emotions involved in being able to do this for my son and his new wife.  It created an emotional connection to my vision.  It opened doors I didn’t even know existed.  Want to learn how to do the same thing?

“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed.  The vision pulls you” – Steven Jobs

I know that if someone gives me something I may or may not make the time to actually do the work. But if someone takes the time to work with me through the material, I get some action and forward momentum started. So, take this small first step for 2022.  Create something personally designed just for you!

If you want some ideas and brainstorming, contact me via LemonadeMakers.

Launch Yourself on Every Wave

 

Life, like surfing, is all about wave selection and balance. Never let the best waves in life pass you by. Ride it now before it’s too late – Kiteboardstuff.com

I believe that your dreams, your true dreams, are given to you at birth.  That you are designed to grow and stretch beyond what you think you are capable of.

That you were given heroes journeys to push you to accomplish the dreams.  That those dreams are what make you passionate and give you a life of purpose.

I think of people who are adventurers and broke open new journeys you didn’t even know you could go on.  People like the Wright Brothers, who pioneered the ability to fly.  Pilots like Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart who created and broke records in pioneering flight.  Amelia Earhart said, “What do dreams know of boundaries?”

She had true unfaltering determination and pushed her limits.  She said, “when you fail, your failure must be but a challenge to others”.  I love the concept of my failures actually serving as something positive – to challenge others to succeed in their own dreams.

You don’t get into something to test the waters.  You get into things to make waves – Rituals

Every year there are new tech companies that are creating a new cutting-edge business or disrupting an industry.  Right now, someone is launching themselves in trying to fulfill a dream they never thought they could accomplish.  The really critical thing is to not give up on your dream as being too far beyond your capability to accomplish.

When someone decided one day that they wanted to be a mountain climber, they didn’t just walk out the door and climb a mountain.

• They got training in how to use the equipment
• They got training both in the body and the mind, to equip them for the journey.
• They started with small mountains and worked their way up to the bigger ones.
• They joined a club with others who like that sport, becoming a member of a team.
• They fell down, got back up and fell down again and again, until they started reaching mastery.

It is done step by step, day by day, year by year.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance – Alan Watts

You have to grow and expand your comfort zone again and again.  You have to have the trust that you deserve to fulfill the dream.  You work hard to get the skills that are necessary to make it happen.  You learn to trust yourself and your team.

Change is part of the dance of your life.  You learn to trust the dream as it shifts, changes and transforms too.

Sometimes as you are moving towards the dream, it is like driving through fog.  All you can see is the next 10 feet in front of you.  You travel towards what you see and as you travel, you see farther and farther.  You might see what you thought was a mailbox on the side of road shift into something else as you get clearer eyesight.

This is because your brains will take what little you can see or decipher, and basically guess at what you are seeing based on past knowledge. But as you get more clarity by pursuing the dream it seems to shift its shape into something totally different.

It’s not so much that the dream is changing as it is that you are getting a better understanding about what the dream really is.  Each problem that you encounter and solve changes you.  Each change brings the dream into more clarity.

You begin to realize that there are 50 different ways you can achieve your dream.  That your expectations around the dream are what is really changing, not the dream itself.  You begin to truly imagine the possibilities of the dream.

The big waves in life might come from outside of you, but the ability to ride them comes from inside of you – from your character strengths – Fatima Doman

Over and over again you can see the concept of “as above, so below”.

The teaching of the tree of your life reaching high into the heavens and deep below the surface with the roots.  Life is not lived in one direction only.  If you are reaching only for the sky and neglect your roots, the imbalance in your life may create temporary success, but will inevitably fall over.  And if you only feed the roots and neglect reaching for the heavens, then you won’t produce anything positive in your life.

It is the combination of inner and outer growth that leads to true lasting success.

I love the concept of “together we are an ocean”.  If you are interested, I can help you learn how to create your own personalized dream map, claim your own unique goals of change and transformation; refine them into goal crushing gremlins; and finally, to truly understand what your motivation around those goals is all about.

It’s not just about writing some words on a piece of paper that says in 30 days I will . . . ,   It’s not just about creating a vision board with pretty pictures of our dream house, vacations, our dream body or $1M in our bank account, and then waiting for the “magic” to draw in what we want in our lives.

You need to brainstorm your way to make your dreams a reality.  To map out your detours around your own unique self-sabotaging obstacles, and finally be able to fully implement your plan.

What I know for sure is that you will hit walls of failure, fatigue.  At some point you will get that feeling that “Life happens to you”, when it really is happening for you.  It will feel like when you are getting hit with a sledgehammer.  It helps to have a few tricks up your sleeves to handle those times, so that they just create slowdowns.  Just don’t give up and stop completely.

As a kid did you ever play the game Red Light/Green Light?  You had someone who called out Red Light for Stop and Green Light for Go.  The goal was to reach the finish line first.  Let’s change that game just a little.