Month: July 2012

Recently, grief has come to visit three of my clients and two of my sisters.  I myself am well acquainted with loss and grief and have found comfort in the piece below.

That being said, surrendering to what is soothes the soul when we experience the small, daily “losses” as well as the more challenging death of a loved one.

Read on if you feel any frustration right now about not signing a client, the number on your bathroom scale, not feeling heard by your mother, taking a remark from your teenager personally or having another misunderstanding with your husband . . .

As we surrender to what is, we create space for receiving the gifts of what we had previously thought unacceptable.

Surrendering to What Is

Very little seems to be
as I believe I would like it to be.

I’ve resisted,
I’ve railed against it,
I’ve cried out, playing the victim.

All of which
has caused me more misery
than the original circumstances
I thought I didn’t like.

So, now I surrender to what is.

I accept
what I had previously considered unacceptable
because I choose peace within.

I choose to be the creator of my life
rather than the victim of circumstances.

I acknowledge in this moment
that circumstances are just as they are –
neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong.

Today, I surrender to what is,
choosing to consciously create my paradise.

As I surrender, I recognize that
my power as the creator of my life
resides in my response to life.
My thoughts and my stories;
They create my heaven or my hell.

Today I choose my thoughts carefully,
Choosing life–affirming thoughts.

Today, I rewrite my stories
to uplift and uphold a life I love
rather than recreate nightmares of the past.

Today, I surrender to what is,
And then I consciously choose thoughts and stories
That create my heaven right now, here on earth.

Excerpted from my new book, Thriving Work: 90 days of daily practice for transforming you and your coaching, consulting or healing business. To read a chapter as my gift and to buy the book, please visit:
http://www.annstrong.com/thriving-work-book/

As a business coach I have a coach.  And she has a coach.  And she has a coach.  And I have clients who are coaches.  Some of them also have clients who are coaches. 

We all invest in these services.

Hmmm . . . I’ve been told by some coaches that it sounds a bit like a pyramid scam.  Is it?

Or, do we hire coaches ourselves because we know something that others are only beginning to learn?  You can read more here and decide yourself.

Let’s take a look.  What is the power of the business coaching pyramid?

Partnership Collaboration
Where two or more are gathered in my name . . .  The gift of a powerful Mastermind alliance.

Energy Activation
The co-creative process at it’s best.  The gift of creating something from nothing.

Vision Holding
Even when I’m discouraged or feel I’m drowning in the details, my coach holds a vision of the best of me as I hold that vision for my clients.  The gift of keeping my focus on the positive.

Blind Spot Sighting
I see for my clients what they cannot see on their own.  My coach sees for me what I cannot see on my own.  The gift of greater vision to make greater choices.

Natural Accountability
I keep more of my commitments to myself when I share them with my coach.  The gift of consistently growing myself and my business.

Resource Availability
I use processes, forms and resources that my coach shares with me.  I make them my own, create more on my own and then share them with my clients.  The gift of not having to recreate the wheel.

Re-Minding
I am often stunned by how my own thoughts – both conscious and un-earthed unconscious thoughts – prove erroneous and life-draining.  The gift of a facilitated process for choosing better thoughts that create my better reality.

Divinity Stewardship
I tend to over-identify with the human part of me and under-acknowledge my divinity.  My coach champions and reminds me of the best of me.  The gift of remembering to live and work more and more from my best self.

Fun, Juicy Connection
Working on our own and running our own businesses tends to feel a bit lonely and isolating.  The gift of the coaching relationship, which creates this wonderful intimate, fun, connected, sacred and playful arena in which to grow!

Coaching beyond the Pyramid
In addition to playing in this delightful coaching pyramid, I also have clients who are not coaches.  I absolutely love witnessing how coaching transforms them.

My client Emma recently said it best.  She told me, “It’s slowly sinking in that I have control over my destiny.”  The coaching pyramid has helped her realize that she can create (and is creating) her life and work the way she truly desires.  

She bakes the most delicious cupcakes on the planet.  We are so fortunate that coaching has given her a way to continue to dream up and put out more and more of these delicious morsels, making the world a far yummier and happier place!

For the best cupcakes in Denver, get to The Shoppe today! My favorite special this month: Wakka Flame. My all-time favorite: Salted Caramel. YUM!

Worth the trip, make Denver a destination vacation and I will treat you and your family to a box of her cupcake divinity . . .
Emma Skala, owner of The Shoppe, 3103 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, CO 80206.

Ah, back to the question at hand.  Business coaching: pyramid scam or brilliant business developer?

I have an opening for a new coaching client, beginning mid-July and another in August.  If you have a sense you’d like to play with me in this amazing coaching pyramid as you brilliantly develop your business, let’s have a conversation.

Today, access my calendar to book some time just for you . . .

This week in my kundalini yoga class, my teacher Abby read something that sparked me.  I don’t know exactly what she read and here is what I realized.

To achieve anything, we can go and get it or go and do it OR we can be and get it or be and do it.  Going out uses our masculine nature.  Being uses our feminine nature.  Our culture has supported men and women alike in using and over using only the masculine way.

 
As we balance the masculine way of doing with the feminine way of being, we smooth our transitions and create the beingness foundation for moment-to-moment miracles.

For so many of us right now, many areas of our lives involve huge transition and change.  I have found in my own life and work and witnessed in the lives and work of my coaching clients that bringing more beingness to the changes tends to significantly smooth the transition.

We may not have within our control some of our circumstances, yet we always have choice about who we be in any situation.  One of my amazingly courageous clients finds that being present and gentle with herself as she’s grieving a recent loss causes her less suffering.  As I reach out to repair my relationship with my nephew, I am committed to being loving regardless of how he is or how he reacts.  I’m so happy that I’m no longer taking his anger personally.  

So, what about you – what’s your sense of how balancing more feminine beingness with your masculine doingness would impact your life and work?  I have found that I achieve what I desire far more quickly than when I don’t consciously pay attention to how I am being.  And, in the process, I am more loving, more peaceful and more joyful.  Oh yeah, and more accepting of whatever is!

Here’s to our profound personal freedom as we consciously choose how we’d like to be in any moment!  As we be whatever we desire, we achieve or get what we desire . . .