And Americans have Monday off so they, too,  get to enjoy an extended weekend. And with the weather, at least the weather here in central Ontario, it’s already sunny and warm. I’ll be swimming this afternoon for sure.

Here’s a short video for you to enjoy! I loved it and want to pass it along to you and would appreciate it you would pass it (the newsletter) along to anyone you think might benefit!

Thanks!

But if we persevere and keep doing the new behaviour, this too, will become a track that’s trodden and worn and then this new behaviour will become easy too.

There’s an old saying about procrastination and it’s this: if the first thing you do in the morning is eat a live frog, then nothing worse can happen for the rest of the day.

Brian Tracy, a star in the human potential field, says that your ‘frog’ should be the most difficult item on your ‘to do’ list, the thing you’re most likely to procrastinate on–because if you eat that first, it’ll give you energy and momentum for the rest of the day.

And, it will cut the rope that connects you to something that’s dragging at your energy.

Here’s a short video about that frog I think you’ll enjoy. Check it out! Click HERE AND,if you liked this newsletter, please pass it on to a friend or 2! I’d love some  new subscribers!

The Badge of Busyness

Below is a poem about Busyness by coach, Christine Arylo. Although the poem is for women, both genders fall under the whip of the task-master’s ‘To Do’ list. and fall prey to getting busy!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to get things done, but never at the expense of keeping good, positive energy. In my experience, it’s vital to keep the balance between ‘doing’ and ‘being’. Clients/customers don’t hire us just to do things, they hire us because they like us, which is just another way of saying they like our energy!! Think about it, when was the last time you bought something from someone you didn’t like?

We Burn Our Badges of Busyness:

By Christine Arylo

You can be anything.
You can do anything.
You can have anything.

Now get going.

There is much to do.
So much that you will never feel like you’ve done it all.

Allow me to introduce you to your new lifetime companion
Her name is “To-Do List”

She will follow you everywhere from now on
She will be there to greet you when you wake
She will hang out near you all day long
And she will be there when you lay your head down to rest
Making sure that you don’t forget her, even as you try to sleep

You will learn to wear her as a badge of honor
This flashing symbol of busy-ness
She thrives on attention,
lives for compliments,
She seeks out acknowledgments of her busyness,
and ability to ‘get it all done’
without a sweat, and with a smile

She is not stingy
She loves to share accolades with her sister super women
Swooning and commenting on their multi-tasking feats
As if their doingness was the latest, most fabulous, all-the-rage hat

Some days you will be tired
And will want to set down the to dos
Take a break from your badge,
Whose weight you notice has become quiet heavy

You will try to unpin it
Pull it, tear it, yank it,
But no matter how hard you try
Your badge of busyness
Will not budge

Your to-do list
Doesn’t take kindly to being set down
Or Forgotten
She is fiercely intent on
Staying alive
Remaining on center stage
Where she can always be seen

What they (we) didn’t tell you
When you accepted your to-do list as a rite of passage
And fashioned on your badge with pride
Was that try as you might
When you tire
No matter how hard you try
You can’t hide
You can’t run
You can’t even pin that relentless list on some other unsuspecting soul

But YOU can choose

Girl, woman, sister
You have a choice to NEVER pick up
This badge of busyness
You have the choice to walk away and NEVER look back
Not because you stop doing and achieving
Which I know is one of your (my) greatest, unspoken fears
But because you know that you don’t need a
Badge of busyness or a never-ending list of to-dos
To prove your worth

Stand tall
Turn on your heel now
Do not follow us
A generation of women who unknowningly ran down the aisle
To marry busy-ness
And ended up with a sense of self
Tied to ‘what I’ve accomplished and gotten done in a day”

Turn away
Run away
And change your sense of self
for the good
of us all

As you turn away
We will burn our badges
And together we will change
The decree of women forever

“Yes I can do anything.”
“Yes I can be anything.”
“Yes I can have anything.”

BUT NO … I DON’T NEED TO DO BE AND HAVE EVERYTHING

I am valuable simply because I am
Even if I never pick up another to do
Even when I am doing nothing
Especially when I am just being
I am worthy

Because I know the truth

I am enough
Simply because I am

And so are you.

Mother.
Sister.
Daughter.
Woman.

Changing Your Energy!

Being able to change your energy at will is a HUGE skill. It changes everything because it frees you from being dependent on circumstances outside yourself for how you feel!

Last week I talked about a course I’ve developed that will help you do that. In case you missed it, the course, ‘Change Your Energy, Change Your Life’, is a 40-day online course that delivers a short ‘lesson’ to your Inbox daily, bringing you videos, audios, inspirations, bits of humour, EFT tapping procedures and always a specific skill to augment your ability to modulate your energy at will.

Try The ‘Change Your Energy, Change Your Life!’ course

To try out the course for 10 days at no cost (and no obligation), click HERE! This is the last week I’ll be talking about it! Honest!

Here are some of the comments people who are taking the course are saying:

“The course reminds me that being happy is something that’s determined by me and not events. Now if I notice a mood change, I notice it earlier and stop and return to equilibrium. I love the stories and the videos too.” Evelyn Wolff, MD Wellness Educator and Artist.

Judy, another participant says, “The course is helping me stop my usual business and take a few minutes to breath and reset my perspective.”

Last Week for ‘Change Your Energy, Change Your Life course!

This is the last week I’ll be talking about the course so if you haven’t taken advantage of this offer and want to, go HERE

Today I want to illustrate my point about ‘helping others’ through a powerful story. I know you’re going to be moved by it, just as I was.  Before reading it, please accept my apologies for not posting an article in so long. I was getting a book off to the publisher~! Here’s the story!

A Powerful Story About Helping Others:

It was 1942 and Sussi Penzias, a young Jewish woman who’d fled Nazi Germany, was traveling alone, hoping to remain unnoticed. Since she’d arrived in Italy three years earlier, she’d been moving from place to place, hiding from the authorities. Now she was on her way to yet another safe house in a new town.

Suddenly, the door at the end of the train car swung open and two police officers came in. Sussi’s heart beat wildly. They were wearing the black uniform of the Fascisti, the government police. To Sussi’s horror, the policemen began making their way down the aisle, stopping at every row to examine the papers of each passenger.

Sussi knew that as soon as the policemen discovered she had no papers, she would be arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where she would face unimaginable suffering and almost certain death.

The officers were getting closer, just a few rows away. There was no escape. It was only a matter of minutes before they would reach her seat. Sussi began to tremble uncontrollably, and tears slid down her cheeks.

The man sitting next to her noticed her distress and politely asked her why she was crying.

“I’m Jewish and I have no papers,” she whispered, hardly able to speak.

To her surprise, a few seconds later the man began shouting at her, “You idiot! I can’t believe how stupid you are! What an imbecile!”

The police officers, hearing the commotion, stopped what they were doing and came over. “What’s going on here?” one of them asked. Sussi began crying even harder.

The man turned a disgusted face to the policemen and said, “Officers, take this woman away! I have my papers, but my wife has forgotten hers! She always forgets everything. I’m so sick of her. I don’t ever want to see her again!”

The officers laughed, shaking their heads at the couple’s marital spat, and moved on.

With a selfless act of caring, the stranger on the train had saved Sussi’s life. Sussi never saw the man again. She never even knew his name.

Helping Others IS Helping Ourselves:

Sometimes we, as small business owners or just as people, can be so focused on getting our own goals met, that we forget the bigger purpose of our lives and our work.

I have fallen into this trap many times by fashioning my goals in terms of how much money I want to make or how many clients I want to have. I notice, however, that when I switch my focus to helping others, the questions change.

Questions That Reflect Helping Others:

If I turn my focus to helping others, I start asking, ‘How many people can I help this week?” or to “How Can I Serve My Clients Better”. I have noticed time and time again that really good things start to happen in my work and in my personal life when I move my focus from what I want to ‘get’ to what I want to ‘give’. Others notice and trust me more and that’s vital for ALL my relationships, personal Or professional.

Try it yourself. Focus on helping others for a while by concentrating on what you can GIVE!

Making a Difference!

This is an eyewitness account that happened in the City of New York, on a cold day in December some time ago…

A little boy about 10 years old was standing before a shoe store on Broadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold.

A lady approached the boy and said, “My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?”

“I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,” was the boys reply.

The lady took him by the hand and went into the store, and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel, and he replied: “Certainly,” and quickly brought them to her. The lady took the boy to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet and dried them with a towel.

By this time the clerk had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy’s feet, she purchased him a pair of shoes, and tying up the remaining pairs of socks, gave them to him.

She patted him on the head and as she turned to go, the astonished boy caught her by the hand, and looking up in her face, with tears in his eyes, answered the question with these words,

“Are you God’s Wife?”

—–

You, too, can be God (or an Angel or Fairygodmother/father)

This story shows how any of us can be “god” or an “angel” or “fairy godmother/father” to another.  The truth is that you CAN make a difference if you decide to.

To me, that’s the gift of this time of year. To realize the incredible power you have in any moment to be godlike, loving, generous and BIG!

I hope you take every opportunity you can to be BIG this holiday season. The gift will be as wonderful if not MORE wonderful for you than for anyone else.

Questions are like fireworks when it comes to self-development. They shoot your thinking out of the box and into the sky of possibility. Creative people and anyone who’s entrepreneurial need to be using them all the time, but really, they are powerful for anyone who wants to stimulate their mind and solve problems more effectively.

I recommend you print out this list of self-development questions and keep it by your computer. Use it whenever you feel stuck or want inspiration around a problem.

Ten Top Self-Development Questions:

Write down 3-5 points for each of the following questions:

1. In what way(s) might this problem be a good thing?

2. How might I profit from this problem?

3. Who would look at this problem as something great?

4. Why would it be great for that particular person?

6. How can I develop this person’s viewpoint at least temporarily?

7. What is the key obstacle that if removed would solve my problem?

8. What are my beliefs in regard to this problem? Are they true?

9. Do my beliefs about my own capabilities need adjusting?

10. What am I assuming to be true that may not be true?

Wow–I can practically see the fireworks of new thinking going on in your mind.

I believe humanity is at the same place. We’ve moved into a very special time on the planet where learning is not optional. It’s “Evolve or Die” for us too. I know that’s a strong thing to say, but I believe it’s true. But growing up is fun too and offers us all kinds of new opportunities.

So, even if you’re reluctant to learn something new, persist anyway. And enjoy this video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpTqV6LPl8c

“Who took it?”

Various possibilities went through my head–each of them involving someone not caring for me and my stuff. I could feel my irritation rising and my body began to feel the stress of that.

Luckily, I’ve learned the word, “Whoa!”

I got off this train of thought and took a breath. Then I remembered that I myself had taken the shower cap to another house…… hmmmm………

“Good catch,”  I said to myself as I wrapped a towel around my head to cover my hair.

Stopping myself like that was good. I did what you might call an  ‘intervention” on myself. The word ‘intervention” is one that Tony Robbins uses a lot. I am taking the Tony Robbins-Cloe Madanes Strategic Intervention course right now and he always tells us to catch the questions you ask yourself!

I could have asked, “Where did I put it?” but I asked a question that had blame laced right into it. Which is what Tony is trying to get us to see by looking at the questions/reactions that come up when we hit a wobble in our lives. These ‘reactions’ are what I call ‘defaults’ because they show us our general psychological orientation.

Another person might have asked, “Why does this always happen to me?” (victim default)

Or, “I wonder how my partner will feel when I don’t do something HE likes!” (revenge default)

Or, “I don’t have to put up with this crap…..” (anger default)

As you can see, each question/reaction has the emotional pattern embedded right into it.

Of course! We all run our patterns all the time. They just kick in, kind of by default. So, people who blame will seek to blame, people who get sad, will get sad, people who tend to collapse, will collapse. It really has nothing to do with the situation.

This is powerful information because once you know your ‘default’, you can catch it running and do an intervention.  Like I did this morning.

And after I caught it, the shower, was great.

This week, when things go wrong, see what questions YOU ask yourself.

Or phrases like, “The reality is…”, or “The truth is….”

I use them too from time to time, but I’m trying not to.

Why? Because the older I get, the more I realize that life is essentially a mystery and I’m less inclined to want to box it up into anything firm or fixed. I’m more interested these days in letting it be the deliciously fluid thing that it is!

Don’t get me wrong, part of me would ‘absolutely’ love to nail ‘life’ down into some sort of certainty, but I can see that my wanting of that is more about my own need to create a sense of stability than anything else. (Eckhart Tolle says this is the small ego-based self trying to shore up its sense of importance).  If I really acknowledged how uncertain it is and let my language reflect that, I might have to face some fear.

Lately, however, I’ve been experiencing the advantages of not knowing. First of all, it’s more fun ‘not to know’. Allowing myself ‘not to know’ lets me be a learner and once I do that, life becomes much more of an adventure. It also becomes more exciting and makes me feel more alive!

That’s one of the reasons I love September–it’s a time of expansion, a time to pick up some new skills or interests. That’s not only fun to do, but it’s good for the healthy functioning of the brain!

So how about taking that sculpture course you’ve seen advertised? Or what about learning Spanish? Or signing up for that screenplay weekend? Whatever it is, let yourself be a learner.

And if you want to learn how to do a website, here’s a course I can highly recommend. It’s Christina Hill’s Website Creation Workshop. You take it online and there’s videos and a live classroom each week where she reviews your student project. I learned so much in this course that I was able to revamp one website and do another from scratch. But the BEST part, was that the learning was easy and fun. There was no techie language or steep learning curve and I love that I can now manage my own site(s).

Anyway, if you’re interested, tomorrow, August 26th at 2 pm (EST), she hosting a free webinar called ‘Planning Your Website’.  In the ‘class’, you’ll get to ‘meet’ Christina and learn about WordPress. To register for the course, click HERE!

Or, to check out the course on it’s own, go HERE!

Or, here’s the URL:

http://thewebsitecreationworkshop.com/a/?af=1079349

Happy learning!