Fourth Annual New Year’s Resolution Special Offer

Back by popular demand, the Fourth Annual New Year’s Resolution special coaching program will launch on December 1st.

Reserve your slot now.

Don’t miss out. I only offer this three month, deep-discounted, laser coaching program through March 1st.

Go here for more details.

Ask the Coach: Vending Machine Model of Relationships

Question: My husband I fight all the time. I try to avoid them but he really knows how to push my buttons. He keeps picking fights with me and I try not to fall for it. But he really knows how to push my hot buttons. Any suggestions?

Answer: Here’s the vending machine theory of relationships.

Think of yourself as a Coke machine. Your husband puts a dollar in and a can of Coke rolls out. As long as he wants Coke he’ll always come to you because you deliver. Next time if he puts a dollar in and a bag of Skittles falls out he may find he needs to go elsewhere for his soft drinks.

If he can reliably pick a fight with you each time and you are coming through like a champ – where’s the incentive for him to stop?. This is more fun for him than back to back re-runs of “Cops”. Break the habit once or twice and he’ll lose interest in this game. Next time he picks on you smile sweetly and ask him what he’d like for dinner because you’re just running out to the store and you’d like to get him something special.

Ask the Coach:To Move or Not to Move

Question: My boyfriend lives in Florida and is pushing me to move there. I’ve visited him and I hate where he lives. He can’t move because of work. I’m not happy without him but I don’t think I’d be happy in Florida. Do you think this one relationship can outweigh all the other drawbacks of uprooting myself and moving half way cross the country to a place I hate? I can’t seem to move one way or the other and I’ve been trying to make this decision for 5 months now.

Answer: Then don’t make this decision. Make another one. Chunk the situation down until you find a decision level you can live with. Can you make a decision to sublet your apartment and move there for a 90 day trial period? Can you make a decision to move there for a month? Can you make a decision to make a decision?

You’re hiding out in your indecision which has now become your comfort zone. The longer you hang out in your head and stay away from any kind of action the more difficult it will be for you to do anything. Take a shot. Nothing’s written in stone. You can always come back. Decision is not only the ending of something but the beginning of something else. Focus on the positive side of acting.

Run to the edge of a cliff and stop on a dime.

This is my one of my favorite Constructive Living maxims. It takes a little thinking about. It has that Zen-like obfuscation factor which can be irritating to some – but which I love.

It’s not a call to lemming-like suicide as you might think. Perhaps another C.L. maxim of a similar nature would shed some light. “Give and give until you say goodbye.” Or – as a man named Ecclesiastes once put it “To everything there is a season. And a time to every purpose under Heaven.” Meaning there is a time to run and a time to stop. When it’s appropriate to run you run flat out. When it’s appropriate to stop you stop.

I thought of this today as I was watching a Sunday morning political news show. By the time you read this ,we will either have a new President or a lot of fat cat lawyers will be very busy. I have strong opinions about whom I would like to be our next President. Whatever happens, however, I have let go of the outcome.
Letting go of an outcome is a tough concept for some people. They see it as not having faith in yourself; giving up; being negative. To admit that you may not get what you want may appear to be defeatist. In fact – nonattachment to the outcome of your actions is a strong peaceful position to take in the world. It all comes down to what is controllable and what is not.

My personal commitment to having my guy be the next President is within my control as are my actions which spring from that commitment. I can give money, time and effort. I can attempt to sway undecided voters and I can man the phones to get the vote out on November 4th. But the actual final national outcome of the election is not within my control.

So I give and give until it’s not appropriate to give anymore. I run until it would be unwise to continue running.

I see what Reality presents to me and I respond to it.

How to beat the home-based business burn-out blues

I went to visit a friend who had quit the corporate world to start his own art-based business. This was a guy who wore, if not a suit, at least a tie and jacket to work every day for a decade.

All the curtains in his house were drawn and his bed was littered with color samples, catalogs and all the assorted detritus of a home-based business. With his unshaven face and sunken eyes, he bore a frightening resemblance to Tom Hanks in “Castaway”. He leaned over and, with a wild glint in his eye, whispered “I haven’t taken a shower in three days.” That close to him it wasn’t difficult to believe but I couldn’t figure out why he felt the need to tell me.

A couple of years later I got it when I too had swapped working for the man for the pleasantly unstructured life of a home-based entrepreneur. I was on my way to a Networking luncheon and slipped on some dress shoes only to find that my feet had apparently grown two sizes. My sneakers and my fluffy slippers fit just fine but they didn’t go with my little black suit. I understood then that his confession had been more than a need to share his personal hygiene issues with me. He felt compelled to share the horror of what he was becoming.

At some point every back bedroom start-up entrepreneur has an epiphany that they might be a little too far gone along the go-it-alone continuum. For me it was the shoes. For my friend it was the orange water pouring out of his groaning shower head when he finally found a reason to shower.

If you’re just starting out with a home-based business and still euphoric over working in your p.j’s – be aware that there is a dark side. One day you, too, may run slap up against a moment of clarity when you see your formerly civilized life sliding away over the horizon; a moment when you realize that you may have taken the ball and run with it just a little too far.

There’s so much to do in setting up and maintaining a business. And, mindful of the fact that 80% of all small businesses fail in the first year, you’re probably anxious to do as much as you can as fast as you can in order to start bringing home the goods.

There are several balances to be worked out – all of them tricky. When do you outsource and when do you do it yourself? How much can you work and still have a life and a family at the end of it? What do you absolutely have to do first and what can wait?

There are many excellent books and articles on what to do to set up your business. This isn’t one of them. This is about how to be as you do those things. How to be kind to yourself. How to be available to your family and friends and enjoy life even amid the uncertainty and stress of creating your dream from scratch.

After all, your life isn’t wallpaper to your daily struggle. It goes on whether you pay attention to it or not.

So here are a couple of tips to keep you present and focused. Six things you can do to avoid singing the Home-Based Burnout Blues.

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Three Absolutely Essential Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before You Retire

By now, everyone knows the statistics. 10,000 Baby Boomers retire in the U.S. alone each day. Many of us will spend more time in the Retirement stage of life than in young adulthood, adolescence and childhood combined. We will also spend much of that time in good mental and physical health because of scientific and technological advances.

All indicators are that modern Retirement is a powerful life transition and can be the doorway to the most creative, enjoyable time of our lives.

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Bright Shiny Objects

How many bright shiny objects can you juggle at one time?

If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, you’re under siege from Bright Shiny Objects.

Every time you check your e-mail, open magazine, network or check out a competitor, you’re faced with a multitude of them.

They glimmer and twist in the light and you just have to have them.

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