book review: Manifesting Change by Mike Dooley

I’m a subscriber to Notes from the Universe (which, if you aren’t, you should be and can sign up here) and the notes are always these wonderfully peaceful and inspirational thoughts. So I wanted to read more from Mike Dooley, the man who writes them.

I also want to shift some things in my life right now, and I’m open to all kinds of methods. I’ve tried coaching, I’ve tried therapy, I’ve tried working my butt off, I’ve tried crowdsourcing… and while each method has brought more into my life and helped me along the way, I’m always fascinated by a new way of looking at things. So I picked up Manifesting Change: It Couldn't Be Easier. (Appealing title, no?)

At the heart of the book are these instructions:
1. Identify your end destination
2. Move in that direction
3. Let the universe figure out the rest for you.


Like he said, it can’t be easier.

There are, however, a few things you should be aware of as you embark down the manifesting path. First, you want to identify your end destination in vague but specific terms. “I am blissfully happy in a relationship with a man” instead of “I am blissfully happy in a relationship with Fred.” “I have the job of my dreams that brings me wealth and meaningful work” instead of “I have the VP of Sales position at JPMorgan that makes me $1 million a year.” The argument here is that the more you narrow down the options for what will make you happy, the harder the universe is going to have to work to put all the right pieces together to make it happen.

Second, you must move in the direction of your joy. It’s not enough to identify your end result and visualize 24 hours a day and never get off the couch. If you’re looking for a job, you must visualize, identify how you want to feel in your job, and maybe some specifics around how much you want to make or how meaningful your contribution is, and then you must go out there and, as Dooley calls it, “knock on some doors.”

[Sidenote: a friend once told me about how she had completely given up on dating and her mother told her that she can’t just give up. That love “doesn’t just walk up to your door and knock.” The next day, the refrigerator repair man walked up and knocked on the door and they’ve been married for 10 years. It’s probably easier, however, to be out in the world of people if you want to meet your soulmate.]

And then the third part is the most challenging part for me – step back, and let the universe drive for you. The more I read this book, the more I realized how much of a control freak I am, always trying to control when I’m dating, what kind of work I do, how much of an impact I have on the world around me. So I’m practicing letting go and, in the proverbial 12 step language, letting god. I’ve turned it over to the universe, so watch out! I’ll probably be married before the R train goes back through the tunnel!

book review: The Four Agreements

My book club recently chose to read the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and I have to admit that when I first started it, I thought, “dear god, there are going to be some members of the group who are going to think this is a load of hooey-gooey horsecrap.” (The first chapter leans pretty far into the la la la side of things.) But once I got past some of Ruiz’ ideas about the “dream of the human condition,” I found four very valuable, very actionable principles to add to my life.

Agreement 1: Be Impeccable with Your Word

What I love about this agreement is that it’s ostensibly about how you treat others. Do what you say you’re going to do, don’t lie, etc., but where it gets powerful is being impeccable with your word towards yourself. Don’t let the self-talk track you run on the inside put you down. Don’t trash yourself for the sake of comedy or to fit in. Choose words that empower you, not words that belittle or betray you.

Agreement 2: Don’t Take Things Personally

99% of what goes on around us has little or nothing to do with us. But because it’s near us and we’re in its orbit, we take it personally. Not taking things personally hit home with me -- I’m single in New York City. Dating here is a challenge, and people do all kinds of things that, if you can zoom out and take a bigger perspective on things, have nothing to do with me.

Agreement 3: Don’t Make Assumptions

I like to operate under the saying “if you’re going to make it up, make it good.” I still think that concept applies, but Ruiz is encouraging us not to make it up at all. Ask questions. Get confirmations. Have conversations. Take risks. Assumptions and expectations go hand in hand, and the lion’s share of disappointment comes directly from expectations. Let go of both, he argues, and your disappointment will decrease.

Agreement 4: Always Do Your Best

This one is a little tricky. On the surface, it seems to be saying that we should strive, yearn, and aim for perfection. But what it’s really saying is that we should do our best in any given situation, and be satisfied that we have done our best. Not compare it to some external ideal of “perfection,” and not berate ourselves for the times when the outcome isn’t perfect. For me, doing my best can mean only giving 85% when 85% is what’s called for. And there is great peace in looking back on my life and knowing that I did the best that I could in any given situation.

We haven’t yet held our meeting on this book, so I’m excited to hear what others have to say about it, but I find the principles simple, and their application varies for me day to day. Could I do better? Probably. But I’m not going to beat myself up over it.

Dan Pink’s Drive

If you haven’t seen this video before, take 11 minutes and watch it now. Seriously. I’ll wait.


So I just finished a two day training on these concepts and, while it’s meant to address employees’ engagement and motivation, I think it holds true for our personal lives and the drive we have to live fully.

Think about it: what’s something that you do because you absolutely love doing it? Odds are there are three big contributors to what makes that fun and wonderful for you: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

Let’s take one of my favorite things to do – hiking. Part of the reason I love it is because I have autonomy over it – I can do it whenever I want (more or less) and there’s nobody breathing down my neck telling me how exactly to do it. Another part of the reason I love it is because I can get better at it. I can hike longer, higher, farther. I can get more present while I hike and get “in the zone” with it. And I see progress as I go along – the views at the top of a mountain, for example, make me feel like I have mastered something (even if it’s just my legs). And thirdly, hiking contributes to my sense of purpose – living more fully. It takes care of my body and mind (so I can help others take care of theirs). It connects me to myself and to whatever friends I hike with. It gets me out of self-doubt, and it’s fun.

Now think about something you don’t love to do. If you’re like me, it’s something like doing the dishes. You can use these same concepts to help yourself motivate through tasks you need to do but aren’t particularly jazzed about.

Dish-doing autonomy: I can decide when I want to do the dishes, what kind of soap to use, how hot the water is, and how long I let them pile up before doing them. This is way better than having a roommate pestering me about the stack of baked-on-caked-on-greasy-dirt-encrusted cookware.

Dish-doing mastery: In truth, I don’t care about getting better at doing dishes, but I do care that they’re done well. So I can focus my energy on making sure they’re socially acceptable. I can also use the time it takes to do dishes to get better at something else – maybe by listening to a podcast or news report, or by focusing my mind on the task at hand.

Dish-doing purpose: If I tie doing my dishes back to purpose, they become much easier to do. I do my dishes so I can take care of myself so I can help take care of others. Then dish-doing becomes a gift I give myself instead of a punishment I inflict on myself. I do my dishes so I can be a responsible adult. I do my dishes so my home reflects the way I feel about myself. Think about it like explaining why you do the dishes to a young person. This can help the young person in you connect more fully to the task at hand.

More neat insights to come, but I wanted to introduce you to Dan Pink and these concepts before, say, another month accidentally passes without me writing anything…

making peace with peanut butter

I  confess: I love peanut butter with a fierce, burning love that should probably be reserved for a soul mate, or, you know, a person (or a pet – you know, something that can love me back). The sweet saltiness, the salty sweetness. Not even its being one of the few foods that can’t be dislodged by the Heimlich maneuver will dissuade me from my faith in its perfection.
I. Love. Peanut Butter.
Now, I’m sure you’re thinking “Kate, that’s not burning love, that’s food obsession.” But you’re wrong! I mean, it’s not like I stay up every night, dreaming of peanut better. And I don’t bathe in it (much) or talk about it (daily) or carry pictures of it in my wallet (though that’s not a bad idea). I’m not nuts! (heh heh)

It’s just that, up until about six weeks ago, if there was peanut butter in my house, I would consume it. Rapidly. By the spoonful. While standing next to the pantry door. Drooling. (It was not pretty.)

So I never bought peanut butter. Safer to just not have it in the house than to risk the 47,000 calories I was likely to consume in a sitting, like I did whenever visiting my mother, who, surprisingly, doesn’t have the same obsession. (My sister, though, suffers the same compulsion so perhaps it comes from my father’s side...)

I started reading a book called “Intuitive Eating” by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch that talked about the dieting mentality and how food restriction doesn’t work. “When you rigidly limit the amount of food you are allowed to eat,” they wrote, “it usually sets you up to crave larger quantities of that very food.” So by not having peanut butter in the house, I was setting myself up for hours of drooling next to the pantry door.

Their advice? Slowly re-introduce any foods you have restricted and teach yourself that you are allowed to have them. Reset your inner calibration so that you can appreciate the food for what it is, and not for all the emotional baggage that saying no to it has meant. For me, the first choice was, of course, peanut butter.

I warily bought a jar of natural (because it’s the most deliciousest kind) and kept it in the cabinet. The first week? It was bad. I ate a lot of peanut butter. And the second week, too. The third week started to taper off a bit, because, let’s be honest, at least half the jar was gone, and the fourth week it dropped off even more. By the fifth and sixth weeks, there were maybe two or three spooonfuls just sitting in the jar, smiling at me.

I call that a success! A jar of peanut butter has never lasted six weeks in my house before!

So what did I learn? That yes, I go to peanut butter for comfort. And I go there because I’m not usually allowed to go there, so it makes me feel special. But once I could have it any time I wanted, some of the comfort left. I started to see it as a fuel. A delicious fuel, don’t get me wrong, but one that was in service of me, not the master of me.

Can I take this experiment to the next level and do it with ice cream? I’m not sure. In truth, it takes a lot of faith, and a willingness to put on a little weight in the service of making peace. And given that it’s hot AND bathing suit season, I may hold off on this experiment until December. But I’ve taken the message to heart – there’s nothing I can’t eat. And when I watch people around me dieting and worrying about what they eat, I wonder if they, too, will sometime soon, find themselves next to the pantry door, overeating in an effort to feel special.

Book Review: One Small Step can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

The idea is big, but Robert Maurer’s book is quite small. “Kaizen” is Japanese for “improvement,” and it’s the philosophy that taking small steps is the best way to make continual improvement.

Or as I once told a client, “Baby steps only go forwards.”

Think of the last time you set out to make a major change. What did you feel? Exhilaration? Exhaustion? Excitement? Trepidation? Most people, when faced with change, will feel at least some element of fear. And very often that fear can get in the way of actually making the change. The idea of kaizen is to take make such small changes that your brain doesn’t even know you’re changing, and therefore, doesn’t get in the way.

It’s kind of genius.

There are six strategies in Maurer’s book:

1. Asking small questions

2. Thinking small thoughts

3. Taking small actions

4. Solving small problems

5. Giving small rewards

6. Recognizing small moments

Let’s take a quick look at each of these.

1. Asking small questions

Your brain loves questions. Just look at how many people are drawn to crosswords and Sudoku and jigsaw puzzles. But instead of overwhelming yourself with big questions (“How can I lose 25 pounds?” “How will I ever get a job in this economy?”) focus on the small questions instead (“If health were my first priority, what would I do differently today?” “What little step could I take today towards my ideal job?”).

Watch out, though, for negative questions. We get more of what we focus on, so if you’re tempted to ask yourself “Why does this always happen to me?” or “What’s wrong with me?” your brain will be delighted to work on those questions, too. In a judgmental, awful, negative way.

2. Thinking small thoughts

This is all about visualization, or what Maurer calls “mind sculpture.” Mentally practice a task using all five of your senses, and you are much more likely to develop the skills it takes to actually engage in that task in the real world. But this isn’t about 30 minutes of meditation on a task. It’s about how many seconds a day you’re willing to devote to the effort. The idea is to make it simple, habitual, and fun. And nobody can say they don’t have an extra 45 seconds a day, right?

3. Taking small actions

If you want to clean your house, you can go into the most awful room and start trying to rid it of its clutter, but for some of us, that’s just too big an idea. And so we avoid it. Instead, if you clean your house the kaizen way, it becomes about going into that room and cleaning up for five minutes. Or removing five pieces of clutter every day. Big, bold actions often get us initial results, but don’t take into account things like lack of time, exhaustion, fear, or resistance. The smaller steps get us to the goal because they can be so easily incorporated into daily life.

Here are some suggestions for small actions you can take:

If you want to stop overspending, remove one item from your cart before checking out.

If you want to start exercising, go – just go – to the gym three times a week.

If you want to get more sleep, go to sleep one minute earlier or sleep one minute later each day.

They may not seem like much, but for anyone who is really resistant to change, these are cracks of light in an otherwise dark room.

4. Solving small problems

The key to solving small problems is catching them when they’re still small. And if you miss that window, the trick is to solve small problems in the face of really large problems. Some of this step involves trusting your gut and listening to what your instincts tell you about things – so you can prevent small problems from becoming bigger ones. Maurer has a great exercise for helping to spot the warning signs.

5. Give small rewards

Small rewards serve us best as recognition of a job well done. They can be little treats and pleasures, or simply a verbal acknowledgement of taking the small action you set out to take. A few key things to remember:

The reward should be appropriate to the goal – that is, don’t reward yourself with chocolate if your goal is to lose weight

The reward should be appropriate to the person – I, for example, would not particularly enjoy the reward of watching a football game and drinking a beer as a reward for a day of hard work, but I know plenty of people who would.

The reward should be free or inexpensive – if not, rewarding yourself for all your small steps could become a financial burden, which would subvert the whole kaizen
process.

6. Recognizing small moments

This is all about paying attention to what’s going on around you and what opportunities for change naturally arise. A couple of the examples Maurer shares are:

A flight attendant noticed that passengers weren’t eating the olives in their five-item
salads. A the time, five-item salads cost far more than four-item salads. When the fifth item (olives) was dropped from the salad, the company saved half a million dollars a year.

George de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, noticed that when he took his dog out for a walk, the dog came back covered in burrs. His attention to this small moment led to the invention of Velcro.

Having this curiosity and awareness about life allowed the opportunities for innovation and enhancement to present themselves. Combining these six steps yields a very powerful philosophy, especially for anyone who has ever been afraid, stressed, or overwhelmed by change.

And because the book is so little (and only took me a day to read), it’s the perfect first small step!

doing The Work

A few weeks ago I went to a two-day workshop with Byron Katie, a teacher and leader who has developed a very clean, streamlined way of digging a little deeper into the thoughts and beliefs that keep you stuck. And while I didn't care for Katie herself (she was a little holier-and-more-transcendental-than-thou than I care for in my teachers), much to my own surprise and consternation, I got a lot out of her workshop.*

The first thing we did when the workshop started was to fill in a Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet. (You can get one, too, for free here.) You're asked to think of a specific situation in the past that has caused you pain and continues to cause you pain or discomfort whenever you think about it. Then, with that scenario in mind, you fill in the statements on the page.

Once your statements about what you needed someone else to do, say, think, or feel in that situation are on the page, you take a deep breath, and go back and question those statements. I'll go through one of mine as an example.

I looked back on a breakup situation and wrote "In that situation, I am angry with Frank because he wasn't ready to be in a relationship with me." (The underlined phrases are what I filled in. And "Frank," as usual, is a pseudonym.)

That statement is then subjected to four questions:

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?

3. How do you react (behave) when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without that thought?

So, was it true? It sure seemed true. I was angry. I was angry at Frank. And he wasn't ready to be in a relationship with me -- he even said so. So it seemed pretty true. But when I got to the next question -- can I absolutely know that it's true -- things fell apart. Frank may have told me that to get me off his back. He may have changed in the several months since we split up. He may have been ready, but the timing wasn't right, etc. There was really no way of knowing what was going on outside the confines of my own head.

So the answer to the second question was No.

How I react when I believe that thought is to get frustrated all over again. To feel like I'm not worth being ready to be in a relationship for. To feel like I'll never be in a relationship. I feel angry, and sorry, and frustrated, and fired up, and invested. None of which is pretty.

So who would I be without these thoughts? I'd be more free. I could be more understanding, less judgmental, less angry, less invested. I could be a better friend to him. I could be a better friend to myself.

(See how this is starting to work?)

Then, the final step is to take the statement through a series of turnarounds.

Initial statement: "Frank wasn't ready to be in a relationship with me."

First: I wasn't ready to be in a relationship with me. (Doesn't feel very true, but I sit with it anyway.)

Second: I wasn't ready to be in a relationship with Frank. (Again, doesn't feel very true, but I let the ideas wash over me.)

Third: Frank was ready to be in a relationship with me. (This one had a little more impact, because it allowed me to see what a relationship at that point would have been like. It wouldn't have been the kind of relationship I would choose, that's for sure.)

I used this technique on a series of non-useful beliefs to great results. Imagine this one:

"I'm going to be single for the rest of my life."

First: I'm not going to be single for the rest of my life. (Heard it.)

Second: I'm going to be single only for a short time. (Hmmm, all of a sudden, singlehood is a precious commodity...)

Third: I'm going to be partnered up for the rest of my life. (Wow! I better make the most of this singleness now, that's for sure!)

I recommend picking up a worksheet, taking yourself through it, and sitting with a friend, coach, or trusted advisor and having that person take you through the questions and turnarounds. And when you're done, you can thank me for saving you $295 and a day and a half of uncomfortable hotel seats and recycled air.

* When I don't like a teacher personally, I don't want to like her work. I don't know why, but it probably has to do with a smallness and competitiveness in me that says, "But you don't like her, her work can't be good!"

book review: The Five Love Languages

I can't believe I haven't written about this yet.

Seriously. How could I have gotten this far without it?

There's an amazing book that will change your life forever if you go out and read it. How do I know? As the saying goes, I'm not just the president, I'm also a member.

Gary Chapman has written an incredible book about the ways in which people express and feel love called The Five Love Languages. At a certain point, the book gets a little more God-and-Jesusy than I like, but before it gets there, he shares with us some observations about the way people love that have changed the way I both interpret people's behavior and express my own feelings.

Chapman's argument is that there are five major styles -- languages, if you will -- that people use to express their love. And those, in turn, influence the way people feel loved by other people.

Those five languages are these:

1. Acts of Service

Some people will DO THINGS for those they love. They will take on the chores they know disgust you, or go out of their way to perform a task for you, whether you've asked them to do it or not.

My father is a perfect example of this. Once, when I was incredibly sick (and a mere two blocks from the doctor's office), I called him hoping for some sympathy. My father, instead of telling me how much he loved me and letting me know I would be ok, immediately offered to get into the car, drive to where I was, and take me to the doctor. He was more than willing to take 3 hours out of his day to find me, chauffeur me to wherever I needed to go, and then go home. Because he understands love to be about DOING.

2. Words of Praise

Some people are moved to show their feelings by saying nice things. It could be as simple as "you look pretty" or as complex as a sonnet on the shine of your hair, it doesn't matter. Words of praise people will TELL you how much they love you.

I had a boyfriend once who fell into this category. He sent me the most romantic letters, poems, and emails. He spared no opportunity to speak to me with words that made me smile.

3. Quality Time

Still, others prefer stopping their world and making spending time with you the most valuable thing they could be doing at the moment. To these people, it doesn't necessarily matter what you do, just as long as you are BEING together.

I once had a boyfriend who found that time on the phone to his family was also quality time. What mattered to him wasn't the amount of time, but rather the intention behind the time -- making space to really connect with another person -- that mattered.

(This was a good thing, as he happened to live across the country from me, too.)

4. Physical Touch

These people are the huggers. They're the hand-holders, neck-nuzzlers, and back touchers. They're the ones who seek reassurance and connection through physicality. And it's not just about Naked Time. It could be sitting on the couch with his feet in your lap, or patting him on the head as you walk out the door. These people FEEL love physically.

5. Gifts

Gift people like to give things -- expensive or free -- to those they love. They collect and hand over presents that the object of their affection has either requested or not.

My mother is a perfect example of this. She always plies us with food or "something I saw at the store that made me think of you." I remember growing up and taking long car trips -- my mother would GIVE us a little something to unwrap every hour.

Odds are that you fall most strongly into one category or another. That doesn't mean you have to speak only one language, but that your main mode is likely to be only one of the above.

Me? I'm all about gifts. I love to give people presents, and I've been known to squeal with glee when someone gives me something that made them think about me while they were out and about. But I'm also into words of praise. After that, I'm probably acts of service, and then physical touch. Quality time is very difficult for me to understand -- why wouldn't you want to be with me all the time?? So it's best for me to go out with men who are either gifters or who understand the value of gifts to me.

And this is where it gets cool. When you know the five languages, you can choose to express yourself in any language, not just the one that makes the most sense to you. If you know your partner feels love through quality time, you can make an appointment with him or her. Conversely, you can interpret your partner's behavior -- wanting to spend a night with you -- as his or her way of expressing love.

Let's go back to my father for a minute. When I called him, I was looking for words of praise -- "You'll be ok," "I love you," that kind of thing. But my father hasn't read this book and doesn't know that his way of expressing and my way of feeling loved aren't the same. So it was up to me to interpret his act of service as love. Once I realized that he was sharing his love in the only language he spoke, I was able to hear how much he cared.

Similarly, with my Quality Time boyfriend. When I realized that his language was one I couldn't comprehend, I told him about the five styles. I told him I was more a gifts/words of praise kind of girl, and he tried to modulate his behavior to meet me there. And I tried to see his desire to spend time together as his way of saying he loved me.

This has been an incredible tool for me in understanding why people behave the way they do. Why, when all that matters to me is that you tell me I'm beautiful, are you always taking out the trash? Who cares about watching TV on Friday nights -- can't you just bring me home a tootsie roll?

And one of the really neat things to look at is whether or not you use your own love language on yourself. If you're a gifter, do you allow yourself to buy that sweater you can't stop thinking about? If you like words of praise, what kind of things do you say to the mirror? When do you schedule the quality time with yourself?

Forgive my oversight in not having posted this sooner. There's still time -- go out and buy this book! (See? I'm trying to gift it to you right now!)

carrots and sticks and bears, oh my!

I've been reading an interesting book about motivation and sticking to your commitments called Carrots and Sticks, written by a Yale professor of economics. The book proposes two different approaches to goal-reaching; being rewarded for reaching milestones along your journey, and being punished for not doing so.

(Hence, carrots and sticks.)

The interesting thing, though, is that Ian Ayres (the author) has built a website, www.stickk.com, that allows people to put up a certain amount of their own money as a bet against their failure. For example, Ayers himself has been striving to keep his weight under 180 pounds. To aid in this, he has agreed that stickk.com can take the $500 he has put at risk every week if he goes over 180. Even more compellingly, he has agreed that stickk.com can send that money to a cause he does not support.

How does the website know that he's gone over 180 pounds? Well, he tells them. Part of Ayres' commitment is his willingness to participate in the contract (and report honestly) in the first place. Because are you really going to bet $500 that you'll stop a behavior you kindasortakinda want to stop? I doubt it. Stickk.com encourages users to identify an external arbiter to oversee these contracts -- someone like a coach, for example -- to make sure the person is reporting honestly, and really making use of the system.

Because once someone lies about one commitment, the whole thing is shot.

I find this particular type of motivation both exciting and terrifying. Putting $500 of my own money at risk would ensure that any undesired behavior would cease to happen -- especially if that money was going to, say, the NRA, the Tea Party, or Sarah Palin's campaign fund -- and yet, I don't know if I could forgive myself if an emergency happened and I couldn't stick to my commitment. Not only would I be letting myself down, I'd be out $500, and would probably have to drum up another $500 to donate to positive causes to balance out the harm I've done.

And that's what I like about using money as a motivator; it brings the issue into the front of my consciousness. There are a number of things I want to do -- like blogging regularly -- that, if I lost $500 every time I didn't do them would happen more often. At the same time, I'm not sure I'd want to live with the stress of that kind of money hanging over me.

A client of mine is using this approach -- not through the website, but through a verbal agreement with me -- and I'm amazed to see the amount of work he's doing. Will this last longer than one week? I'm not sure. But it definitely is motivating him to make absolutely sure the desired behavior happens seven days in a row.

Who knew Sarah Palin could be so useful?

book review: What Happy People Know by Dan Baker (part 2)

In my previous post, I started raving about a great book I've read recently called What Happy People Know, by Dan Baker. In it, the author outlines six tools for happiness that you can employ to make your regular life happier, or to use in times of trouble and misery, just to get through the day. (I like doing both, thankyouverymuch.)

The six happiness tools are:

1. Appreciation

2. Choice

3. Personal Power

4. Leading with Your Strengths

5. the Power of Language and Stories

6. Multidimensional Living

I covered Appreciation, Choice, and Personal Power in the last post, so today I'll give you a run down of the last three, starting with...

Leading with Your Strengths

It feels good to do what you're good at. That's no great secret. And there have been two camps in the Self-Mastery world for years -- those who say to play to your strengths, and those who say to develop your weaknesses. But if you think about it, only the first camp really makes sense. Why burden yourself with improving your calculus skills if doing calculus doesn't make you happy?

Baker says that in working with severely troubled people, his first efforts are to connect them to their strengths. Everyone is good at something, even if that something isn't something you value. Baker's work starts with finding his clients' strengths and then transferring those skills into other areas of his clients' lives.

For example, he worked with an anorexic patient and never once asked her about food. Instead, they spent the first few sessions talking about what she loved -- her dog -- and then finding ways to expand that circle of love onto herself. When we surround ourselves with what we're good at, we feel powerful and joyful, and those lead us to greater and greater adventures.

The Power of Language and Stories

Several years ago, if you asked me if it was important whether someone said "I can't" or "It's hard," I would have said no. I would have told you that there are things I can't do, and things that are hard for me to do, and I would have done my best to convince you that that was "the truth."

Now, however, after a few years of playing with language and its effect on me, I have a completely different opinion. I have first hand experience of the power of words on the stories I tell myself. So I was pleased to see this show up in Baker's book.

He talks about how engaging in self-talk is how people begin to make sense of the world around them. (Incidentally, there's a Radiolab episode that talks about the same thing, and I was just listening to it before I sat down to write. Thanks, Universe!) And that, if we talk to ourselves the way we want others to talk to us, we're already on a better foot, saying "we do not describe the world we see, we see the world we describe."

He, too, cautions against using "can't," "don't," "shouldn't," and "won't," and goes on to warn against using the passive voice instead of the active one. But the key point I took away from the whole section on language is his idea of telling healthy stories vs. horror stories.

"When you meet someone new and tell him the quick version of the story of your life, do you usually tell him a healthy story or a horror story? Most people want to tell a healthy story, because nobody wants to look bad. But many people just don't know how. They're so accustomed to telling themselves horror stories in their self-talk that they just start blurting out all their fears and feelings of helplessness, although they often cloak them in terms of humor or heroics. They like their job -- but it was a real struggle to get it, and it still feels precarious. Their children are doing well -- but they're teenagers, and you know how that is..."

He goes on to say that it's "smart to tell yourself and others healthy stories about all the little incidents of your daily life. If you're late for work, don't tell yourself that your boss is going to kill you and that you're a loser for sleeping late. Tell yourself you're lucky to have a job where you can be late once in a while, and that you're going to use this experience to be more punctual in the future. The horrific version will just make you more defensive, while the healthy one will make you appreciative. People will notice the difference."

Multidimensional Living

When I read this book, I was dating a wonderful guy who seemed to have it all -- genius smart, off-the-wall funny, good-looking, and a great communicator. And the reason our relationship fell apart was because he was allowing himself to be ruled by his job. He had no time for a relationship -- or anything else, for that matter. And he wasn't happy. So this section really resonated with me.

A question that Baker asks his clients (to gauge where they are in their heads) is "are you winning at life?" The responses he gets vary, but if a person has no idea how to even approach the question, he gets a sense immediately that they are out of balance. ("Happy people," he says, "almost always think they're winning, even when they don't know what they're winning.")

Most people suffer from a lack of clear, values-based priorities, and so end up floating through life, buffeted by whatever comes their way. Baker argues that if you want happiness, you need to decide what you really want and then put your energy where it will do the most good.

There are three arenas in life, he argues; 1) purpose (often, work), 2) health, and 3) relationships. If you integrate all three arenas into your every day life, you can let your passions take you where they will -- because you have the grounding in the other areas to pull you back to center. It's when one of the arenas has more sway and importance than the others that people can get out of whack.

And that's the extremely nutshelled version of the book. There is so much more to it, so much that I want to xerox and hand out to people on the subway like those crazy stores that want to buy your gold.

The New York Public Library has five copies of this book, and at the time of this writing, four of them were available. If you're interested in finding balance, connecting with your heart, and having a handful of tools in your toolbox of self-improvement, this is a great book for you. (It certainly was for me.)

book review: What Happy People Know by Dan Baker

I read a lot of self-help books, but rarely do they offer me so much new information that I feel compelled to share them with you. (The last book I recommended was The Magic LAMP, which I read in February!) I recently came across a book, though, that I want you all to go out and buy/rent/borrow/steal. (Ok, maybe not with the stealing.) Today! Now! Go!

Oh wait. You need to know what book first.

In this book, What Happy People Know, Dan Baker, the head of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch (a spa/resort/retreat I may never make enough money to visit) offers up useful information in an approachable and easily digestible fashion.

According to Baker, there are six major happiness tools people can use:

1. Appreciation

2. Choice

3. Personal Power

4. Leading with your strengths

5. Language and stories

6. Multidimensional living

Because it's had such an impact on me, I thought I'd take you through some of the highlights of the tools.

1. Appreciation

I've talked about appreciation and gratitude before, but Baker takes these concepts much deeper, offering three or four practicable tools to make appreciation not just part of your regular routine, but also part of your disaster recovery mode.

For example, he shares one exercise called "Freeze Frame." When things are going All Kinds of Wrong, instead of thinking about how things are getting out of control, you think of something you appreciate. A loved one, a natural phenomenon, your dog, whatever. Doing this will calm your heart rate and give you space in which to see things differently. I've used it, and found it incredibly helpful.

He also talks about optimism, and how being an optimist is not simply walking around with a dopey smile on your face and approaching life with a glass-half-full attitude, but rather, it's an understanding that the more difficult or painful a situation is, the more profound the learning will be. This has helped me a lot recently while going through an incredibly emotionally break up -- I knew that when I came out the other side of the break up I would know more about myself and how I operate, which felt like a gift compared to the kick in the pants the break up was giving me. Does it make me want to run right out and break up again? No, absolutely not. But it does give me some silver lining and light at the end of an otherwise unpleasant-smelling tunnel.

(His mother also chimed in with the soothing idea that "no two people ever love each other the same -- and that whoever loves the most is the lucky one.")

2. Choice

Baker calls choice "the voice of the heart" and "honesty in action." I like that.

He talks about failure, helplessness, and powerlessness (and a bunch of shocked dogs... which made me sad) and offers some thoughts that can serve to remind us to stay strong:

1. Failure only occurs when you quit -- he talks about how Thomas Edison "failed" to design a lightbulb until his 2000th try

2. Be brave enough to resist when someone offers you the tempting scenario in which they strip from you the right to make your own decisions. While it is occasionally unpleasant to make (and live with) our own choices, imagine the other alternatives...

Finally in this section, he discusses the "Life Changing Quarter Second" in which we have a brief moment of control over our emotional reactions. There is a quarter second in which we can wrest our thinking away from a fear reaction and into a considered response, but we have to see and seize that moment regularly to stay in a place of choice.

3. Personal Power

This is that indefinable something that enables happy people to be happy, even when things are difficult. (In my leadership class, we call it the "Internal Locus of Control," meaning essentially the feeling that, no matter what comes your way, you can do something about it.)

Baker encourages his readers to watch out for VERBs -- Victimization, Entitlement, Rescue, and Blame. Highlights include:

V: He says that other people can hurt you, but only you can victimize yourself.

E: The mind and body thrive on struggle. Satisfaction without effort doesn't create happiness, it makes for boredom, alienation, weakness and feelings of worthlessness. And I can tell you that, after looking for a new job for six months, I was so elated to finally get one because I had struggled and put my time in.

R: There's a difference between assistance and rescue. There is nothing wrong with asking for help as long as you're willing to do your share of the work.

B: Blame solves nothing. If you were in a car driven by a friend that was going over a cliff, would blaming that friend keep you from crashing into the ravine below? Instead, what can you do to improve the situation for yourself (and/or your friend)?

We'll take a look at the other three tools in my next post.

Hep Gleck!

(that title makes me feel like I'm blogging in Ikea. But don't worry, Hep Gleck can be assembled without pictures.)

I have a daily ritual that I perform on the subway -- I open up my journal, give myself an affirmation (for the last several months it's been "I have everything I need") and then set an intention for myself. Usually the intention is in alignment with something I'm working on -- patience, breathing, being present, not comparing myself to others, etc. -- and then I sit down and list five things I give myself credit for. After that, it's a list of things I'm grateful for, and a Daily To Do list. I've discussed all this before (see here) and bring it up again because my friend Jon recently introduced me to an even deeper practice that expands on this base.

It's called Hep Gleck.

Ok, no, it really isn't, but I like calling it that, so that's what I'm calling it.

Learned from a Tony Robbins book (but slightly unclear as to which one -- though I'm guessing now it's "Personal Power" as I got some help from this website in writing this post), Hep Gleck is actually an acronym that expands on the idea of listing things for which I am grateful and for which I am giving myself credit. Each letter stands for another feeling, and carries with it three questions. The feelings are:

Happy

Excited

Proud

Grateful

Loving

Enjoying

Committed to

Kate is Awesome

(Ok, there's no K in the acronym, but "Glec" doesn't look like a strong word, whereas "Gleck" does, so I added the K for phonetic reasons. Sue me.)

And the questions are:

1. What am I happy/excited/proud/grateful/loving/enjoying/committed to in my life?

2. What about that makes me happy/excited/proud/grateful/loving/joyful/feel committed?

3. How does that make me feel?

The key to this exercise, though, is to NOT JUDGE, and that's a caution I extend with big, red, wavy flags.

For example, this morning I wrote that I was grateful for sunsets.* So to deepen the experience using Hep Gleck, I would then ask what about sunsets makes me feel grateful? I could respond with "their beauty," or "the sense that the world is bigger than I am," or "just 'cause." And then I have to report with honesty and curiosity about how that makes me feel.

A trap I could easily see us all falling into** is being happy about something that truly makes us happy -- the way the driver of that car honked and waved at us on the way to the subway, finding the $20 bill on the street, having an awesome smoothie for breakfast -- and then judging the experience. What about that makes me feel happy? Well, he thought I was hot stuff, so I felt like hot stuff and that made me happy. It's a free $20, what's not to be happy about! The way the tastes blended together was so amazing. Watch out for then falling into despair with the "How does that make me feel" angle. I might be very tempted to go down the I-suck-because-I-need-some-guy-in-traffic-to-validate-my-feelings-of-hot-stuffedness road.

I'm going to try Hep Gleck. And Jon is, too. (Or at least I think he is.) Are you?

*Secretly, I wanted to write sunrises, but it's been EONS since I last saw a sunrise so that felt like stretching the truth.

** And by "us all," of course, I really mean "me," but I wanted to take you with me so I wouldn't be lonely.

a poem

Autobiography in 5 Short Chapters
by Portia Nelson, from the book There's a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery

Chapter I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit ... but,
my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter V

I walk down another street.

book review: The Magic LAMP by Keith Ellis

In preparing for my goal-setting class, I read a lot of books, websites, and other materials on goals. And in general, they were pretty dry and boring reads. But Keith Ellis, in his book The Magic LAMP: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals has captured some of the magic of goals and transmits it to his readers with joy and enthusiasm.

I highly recommend it!

The LAMP in his program breaks down into:
Lock on -- What do You Want?
Act
Manage Your Progress
Persist

In many ways his advice parallels mine -- figure out what you want and make a plan to get it. Then do something (anything) that starts you in the direction of your goal. Keep your goal in sight at all times and maintain an emotional connection to it. Then just keep going.

He calls goals wishes, because, in effect, that's what they are. "Wishing" has a whimsical, heart-felt-ness to it that boring old "goal-setting" just lacks. And, tempted as I am, I won't steal it. (Though it's such a great idea I really, really want to!)

He makes a number of great points, some of which are:

• Everyone knows how to make a plan, because we all plan for vacations. So if you say "I'm not good at setting goals because I can't stick to a plan," that's kind of crap.
• If you're not motivated enough to act on your goal, then you don't care enough about attaining it to act. And if you don't care enough, then why pursue it in the first place? You may be unhappy, but you're just not unhappy enough to actually do anything about it.
• Self-destructive behavior is just a habit. You can change any habit in 30 days if you apply yourself to it. But you have to be willing to do the work to release the old habit.
• Life is like a self-service gas station -- you can sit in your car and honk the horn as long as you want, but that's not going to get your tank filled.
• Goal setting (or, in his book, wishing) is like gardening; you have to have faith that your efforts will get you to your goal. Nobody would plant seeds if they felt strongly that they wouldn't turn into tomatoes!
• You can never finish what you never start.

He has some great exercises, fabulous insights, and difficult questions to ask yourself. If working with my posts has not inspired you enough then you're not human! I mean, if working with my posts has not inspired you enough, then pick up this book. Hell, pick it up anyway!* You won't regret it!

*or get it at the library like I did! Thanks, NYPL!

book review: Taming Your Gremlin

"You're too fat."
"You're stupid."
"You're a failure."
"You'll never get a job."
"You'll always be single."
"You're such a waste."

Any of that sound familiar? If so, you're human. (If not, congratulations!!)

I don't know about you, but the little voice inside my head can be so cruel sometimes that it's a miracle I can drag my ass out of bed in the morning and make it through a day. It judges me at every turn, telling me what "everybody" knows (that clearly, I don't) and gives me "helpful" pointers about how I should live my life.

Rick Carson, in his wonderful book, Taming Your Gremlin, calls this little voice the gremlin, and he offers useful tips for how to turn down its volume, and keep your head cleaner, clearer and more focused on who you really are.

The major tools he offers are these: Simply Noticing, Choosing and Playing with Options, and Being in Process.

Simply Noticing
It's as simple as it sounds. "Simply Noticing... is what happens when you experience the natural you and your surroundings without input from your gremlin." You can notice your body, the physical world, or the fact that you're paying attention to neither and are lost in the world inside your mind. This tool will help alert you to the presence (and "contributions") of your gremlin and can help you identify the voice that isn't yours. It also grounds you in the present, and reminds you that unless it's real (e.g. noticeable), it's probably fantasy.

Choosing and Playing with Options
Once you've simply noticed how irritating your gremlin can be, Carson offers five different options to play with to turn down the gremlin's volume. Since one of thes has been particularly useful to me in the last couple of weeks, I'll share more about it.

Breathe and Fully Experience. "If, instead of listening to your gremlin, you will simply breathe, feel your emotions, and give them lots of space in your body, you will notice that these emotions are no more than simple energy, and to experience energy is to feel vibrant and alive. ... The only time that emotions become dangerous is when we habitually bottle them up or discharge them impulsively without respect for other living things."

I met someone recently, (yes, a guy) and let me tell you, my life has been full of supercharged emotions and overwhelming gremlin chatter. (Let's just say that if my gremlin were communicating via cellphone, my bill would be in the thousands-of-dollars range.) Instead of freaking out, though, and taking foolish action to make my crazy feelings go away, I've been working to give them lots of space in my body and my life. More breathing, less doing/talking/thinking/judging/etc. It's been a major change, and one I can't recommend enough.

Carson shares additional tools, too, including changing just to show yourself and the world that you can do it, or speaking the words of your gremlin outloud, just to hear how absurd (or evil, or whatever) they are. All are useful (if you ask me).

Being in Process
"Being in process," says Carson, "is an attitude -- an appreciation of this simple truth and of the reality that your life will be forever unfolding and your future always unknown. ... Seeing yourself as in process will help you increase your level of simple moment-to-moment contentment and your appreciation of your very own gift of life."

This section of the book reminded me that there is no endgame, no finish line, no "being done" with change. That my gremlin will never fully disappear (even if I do manage to turn down the volume on him every now and then), but using the tools I have, I can create more happiness and peace for myself at every step along the way.


This book has been so helpful to me, I'm offering a two-night book group/workshop on it! July 7th and July 21st, I'll be gathering people in my office for a couple of hours to talk about what we learned, what we practiced, what resonated most with us, and how we can continue to use these tools to enrich our lives even more. If you're interested in joining, pick up a copy of the book, and drop me an email so I can share all the details!

good thing? bad thing? who knows?

I recently ran into something in my life that seemed an awful lot like a setback. The Universe didn't give me a flat-out "No" (it was more of a "Not Yet") and yet it still knocked the wind out of me and, for about an hour, I was pretty despondent.

But then I thought of a story I had read in Are You Ready to Succeed? by Srikumar Rao:

An old man lived in a valley with his son, a handsome and dutiful youth. They lived a peaceful life despite a lack of material possessions. They were very happy. So much so, that neighbors began to get envious.

One day, the old man used all his savings to buy a young wild stallion. It was a beautiful horse that he planned to use for breeding. The very same day he bought it, the horse jumped the fence and ran off. The neighbors came over to sympathize. “How terrible!” they said.

“Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?” said the old man.

Ten days later the stallion returned. It came with a whole herd of wild horses, and the old man was able to lure them into the corral and fixed it so escape was no longer possible. The neighbors again gathered around “What good fortune!” they said.

“Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?” said the old man.

His son started to train the horse. One of them threw him to the ground and stomped on his leg. It healed crookedly and left the son with a permanent limp and endless pain. “Such misfortune, “said the neighbors.

“Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?” said the old man.

The next summer, the King declared war and all the young men from the village were forced into the army. Except the old man’s son was spared because of his injured leg. “Truly, you are a lucky man,” exclaimed the neighbors who cried over the loss of their own Sons.

“Good thing? Bad thing? Who knows?” said the old man.

And the reality is that when something, on the surface, seems like a bad thing, it could actually be a good thing. I started thinking about all the times in my life when something "bad" turned into something really "good" (or at least something fairly neutral). That time missing my regularly scheduled train meant I managed to snag a seat on the later express train. Or the time I didn't get a window seat on the plane and ended up on the aisle next to a good looking guy I dated for the next six months.

And vice versa: how many times have I rushed into a subway station late at night to jump onto a train car (when they only come once every twenty minutes), only to find someone really drunk (and potentially barfable) in the car with me?

So I'm suggesting that for the next few days, when you jump to a conclusion that something is bad, instead you say "good thing? bad thing? who knows?" and try to see the doors that opportunity is opening up for you, rather than the ones you see circumstance closing. (And, as a note, the MTA is a really good place to start!)

motivating change

In Kaye Thorne's book Coaching for Change, she has a section on how a coach (or you, yourself, acting as a coach), can help clients to motivate themselves. One of the major obstacles to achieving change is often the lack of focus on the issue and the initial hurdle of getting going. Sort of the "I want to change, but not if it's going to hurt" mentality. (Because even though a rut is miserable, it's terribly comfy, isn't it?)

Thorne recommends looking at the following ten questions:

1. What is stopping me?
2. What could I do differently?
3. What could I do today to help me take the first step towards achieving my vision?
4. What help will I need?
5. Who do I know that I trust to talk to about what I want to achieve?
6. What will happen to me if I don't get started?
7. If I decide to wait what are my reasons?
8. If I am going to wait when will it be the right time?
9. What have been the best successes in my life?
10. What can I learn from these successes to help me achieve my current vision and goals?

Additionally, she recommends using the following checklist to assess whether or not you (or the client) are motivated enough to actually make change:

Can they describe their goals in one or two sentences?
Have they really researched the idea?
When thy have spare time does it readily come to the forefront of their mind?
Have they refined their goals over a period of time?
Are they happy to talk about it?
Could they share the achievement of this goal with someone else?
Have they got all the information they need about this goal?
Have they got a network of support?
Could they overcome challenges in the achievement of their goals?
Do they really want to do it?

I know that, for me, identifying what's in my way and relying on a support network can be enormously helpful when I'm facing a change. Are there questions you ask yourself when you're trying to change?

book review: Mindset

Rewriting this post (which, alas, blogspot has forced me to do, grumble grumble grumble) has given me an extra opportunity to practice something I learned from Carol Dweck, Ph.D., in her book, Mindset.

The premise of the book is simple but extraordinarily valuable. Dweck argues that there are two ways to approach the world -- two mindsets, if you will -- that people fall into. One is a fixed mindset, where traits and skills are permanently frozen and any value an individual has in life comes from the application of those traits and skills. It is easy for a person with a fixed mindset to define herself -- "I am smart," "I am funny," "I am valuable because I succeed at ____________." (And I certainly don't know anyone like that...) (ahem) The danger of the fixed mindset is that anything that causes friction between your beliefs about who you are and the reality of a situation (e.g., a bad grade on a test, a lack of laughter at a comedy show) becomes a defining moment. "I am no longer smart or funny. I am a failure."

The second approach is a growth mindset, where identity is more fluid and learning takes on a more important role. In the growth mindset, failure is just an opportunity to re-evaluate the situation. Bad grade on a test? Just means you have to go back to the book to try to comprehend what you missed on the test. No laughter? Hmmm, maybe the show needs to be reworked a little bit. Failure in the growth mindset is "a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from." (p.33)

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. I wrote it beautifully (if I do say so myself) and posted it, only to encounter a major error and the eating (by blogspot) of my post. Now, from a fixed mindset, I could have said to myself that I was a loser, a failure, what, you can't even post a blog the right way? In the growth mindset, though, I can focus on saving the drafts and making sure that what appears to be saving is actually saving.

There are arenas in my life where I definitely live in a fixed mindset -- acting, "smarts," my body, money -- and arenas in which I live in a growth mindset -- coaching, fiction, working out. And I want to transition more of the fixed areas (which are comfortable simply because when I am not taking risks, I get to feel superior) into growth areas (where superiority and inferiority aren't even issues).

Where are you in a fixed mindset? Where are you in a growth one?

book review: What Got You Here Won't Get You There

What Got You Here Won't Get You There, by Malcolm Gladwell

This is a useful book when, as a coach (or a person) you approach people who have already had a great deal of success in their lives, but need to make some changes to make them even more successful.

As Gladwell points out, there are several reasons successful people are reluctant to change:

• their past behavior worked
• arrogance
• success serves them as a protective shell
• they are working towards an endgame that doesn't matter to them (they don't care what other people think or about promotions or money)

And, there are a few reasons that often work as motivators to change (especially in business):

• money
• power
• status
• popularity

Goldsmith then goes on to list twenty habits that hold people back from becoming more successful. I won't list them all here (or why would you read the book?) but most of them can be derived from the first one, which is Winning Too Much (or Needing to Win Too Much). This need takes many unflattering shapes -- arguing, putting down, ignoring, withholding, blaming, etc. The more you can suppress the need to win, the more you let others be right, and the more they will respect and enjoy working with you.

After sharing the 20 Habits that Hold You Back, Goldsmith offers Seven Steps to Improvement, all of which seem fairly commonsensical:

• Accepting Feeback
• Apologizing
• Advertising the change you're trying to make
• Listening
• Thanking people
• Following up
• Practicing Feedforward

Feedforward is an ingenious way to get other people involved in your success. The concept is simple -- pick something to change, describe your project to everyone you know, ask them for two suggestions on how to improve in that area, listen carefully and thank them.

That's it. Don't comment on the ideas, complain about them or agree to do them. Simply listen and say "Thank you." Then compile a list of suggestions and begin to act.

While this is a particularly business-based book, there are a number of suggestions (especially listening, thanking and apologizing) that work really well in personal relationships, too. And, although I haven't tested it yet myself, feedforward seems like a really good way to get those around you to buy into the changes that you're trying to make -- especially if your changing threatens those people.

fearless living (a totally different three day conference)

With all the fearless living conferences I go to, you'd think I'd be fearlessly ruling the world by now. Alas, I'm not. I'm focusing on conquering a far more complex and confusing terrain -- me.

Over the long weekend, I went to a Fearless Foundation Workshop, run by Rhonda Britten (of Starting Over fame) and, while I won't go into the specifics of exactly what we covered (as that would breach my agreement with the Institute) I will give you a basic outline of what I learned, and why it's important to me -- for free!

(Aren't I just the best?)

First, Rhonda argues, when we experience negative emotions (anger, anxiety, frustration, despair, etc.) it's because we're being triggered by fear. We have one major fear, and when we can identify that fear, take a step back and stop reacting to it, we have much more freedom in our lives to make choices that actually serve us. Additionally, she argues, there is an essential nature that each of us has, but which we have denied, and only when we stop reacting from fear will we start to access that essential nature and end up with what she calls our "wholeness." My essential nature, as I discovered this weekend, is compassionate. And that may not surprise many of you, as I believe I'm an extremely compassionate person... to other people. Inside my own head, however, it's a bar brawl, with Judgment duking it out with Mean-Spiritedness (who is tag teamming with Not-Good-Enough). There's definitely an element of this that has served me over time (pushing me to go to Yale, driving me to be better and less complacent in just about everything I do), but more than not, it has been a really good tool for me to use to drive myself crazy. (Just ask my ex-boyfriends. I think they'll back me up on this.)

However, the problem a self-judger faces when she feels she is now tasked with the job of being compassionate is that it's really easy to sit there and tell yourself you're not being compassionate enough, or compassionate in the right way, or compassionate at all. (This was how I spent my Sunday night and Monday morning. Don't do this at home. It's exhausting.) The upside, it turns out, is that any decision I can make from a place outside of fear is already compassionate, by default! (Yippee!) The more I can do to take a step back, examine my behavior, take a deep breath, or stand up for myself (especially in the face of my greatest fear), the sweeter I will be to myself. The more I will move towards forgiving myself. The awesomer I will become.

So, while the conference was draining, at times irritating, and I basically felt like someone had taken the Jaws of Life, cracked open my rib cage and just kept spreading and spreading and spreading until there was next to no life left in me, it was totally worth it in the Peace of Mind department.

If you're interested in learning more about any of this, please let me know, visit www.fearlessliving.org, or read Rhonda's book, Fearless Living. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, as it's really hard emotional work that will only benefit you if you're really ready for it, but if you feel stuck in a rut (either in your thoughts, career, behaviors, relationships, life, whatever) it'll totally help.

You may, in fact, never be the same again.