What Do You Want?

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re hungry. Your tummy is growling, a headache is galloping toward you, your mood is having more ups and downs than a carnival roller coaster, and the idea of eating is eclipsing all other thoughts.

Imagine, for a moment, that you race into the kitchen, throw open the fridge and devour it’s contents. Indiscriminately you pull food from the cabinets, open cans, pull apart boxes and stuff food into your ravenous body. Forty-five minutes later you are finished; stuffed and bloated, but with little recall as to what you ate or how it tasted. You may be full, but you’re  certainly not satisfied.

Now imagine, for a moment, that it’s another day and you have the identical growl-y, headache-y, emotionally chaotic hunger. Instead of a embarking on a thoughtless binge, however, you stop and ask yourself four of the most important words in any language.

What do I want?

Instead of heading out to the kitchen you stop, go within and ask yourself that life-enhancing question:

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The Most Humiliating Thing I’ve Ever Done!

Actually, I’ve done so many humiliating things that it’s hard to keep track of them all. But this doozy tops the humiliate-her chart!

My main motive for sharing the single most humiliating experience of my entire professional
career is this…

Having already completely and publicly mortified myself, I might as well make certain it wasn’t a wasted experience.  If, by sharing this with you, I could save you an equal measure of humiliation, then it would be worth airing a bit of dirty laundry.

(Before reading on, go get a tissue—You’ll either be laughing or crying by the end of this page.)

Here’s what happened:

In the early 90s, I moved to the northwest from New York City.  Having abysmally failed to strategically plan this move, it wasn’t long before I’d run out of time, money, and ideas to launch my career.

I was—to put it delicately—EAGER TO GET BUSINESS!

Okay, so I was probably desperate the day I AGREED TO DO SOMETHING I HAD ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS DOING—speak to a group of 100 women about trends in the fishing industry.

Yes, the fishing industry.

Now, if you’re sitting there thinking, “Wait a New York minute… Nancy doesn’t

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Today Is The Best Day Ever

Me: “Hey, how’re you doing today?”

Him: “Great. Just great. I woke up today and, boy, does that beat the hell out of the alternative.” LOL.

This was a recurrent conversation I had over many years with a mentor of mine, Ross Anderson. Hearing his words never failed to get my attention. Every single time I’d think to myself, “Gee, he’s absolutely right, since the alternative is death.”

Some ten years after I first met him, our conversations abruptly stopped. ALS greedily stole his life and, ever since, I’ve felt gypped of the friend, mentor and confidant he’d become.

Ross had it right—no matter what happens today, no matter the scope of your problems, the fear in your mind, the pain in your heart—you woke up today. Which means you still have at least one more day to make things right, and to get more of what you want.

You might desire more love, a promotion, a better relationship, inner peace, joy, a new car, life fulfillment, a new career, more money or increased happiness. The ‘it’ doesn’t matter—that you want to change it does.

You have one more day….

One more day to do something about the things in your life that aren’t working as well as you’d like. One more day to celebrate the glorious things you’ve already accomplished. One more day to learn to love and accept yourself exactly as you are. One more day to turn your potential into performance.

One more day…….

How will you spend it? What choices will you make? On what will you focus? Whom will you forgive? How will you love?

That’s all. And it’s everything.

Live your purpose. Love your life.

Nancy

SHRINK TO FIT: Playing Small Isn’t Playing at All

Here comes some tough love:

You are never, ever, ever, going to fit in! And that is “a cause for celebration, not an apology”. You will never make anyone completely happy: that is not your job, it is theirs. Therefore, the only person who can absolutely, positively, be happy with who you are, with what you do, with every itty-bitty delicious detail about you, will be YOU!! You might as well start now.

Think, for a moment, about fitting in. Into what? It’s a mold, a perception that someone else or some group of someone elses decided was appropriate for you. Do you know these people? Have you spent time with these people? Do you respect these people? Do want to emulate these people? Just what I thought. No, no, no, and no. And you care about their opinion why? Oh, for approval! You may want to rethink that.

There comes a time in every woman’s life when she realizes that the choice for how she will live the rest of her years is entirely dependent upon her personal vision and preferences. You have arrived at that time in your life.

Fitting in requires that we get small, that we compromise, that we become less authentic, less genuine than we are. Fitting in implies that we change some aspect(s) of who we worked so hard to reveal, so that others won’t feel uncomfortable comparing themselves to us (and feel diminished by the comparison). And if we do know these people, and they want us to shrink to fit in, then we must ask ourselves if these are really the kind of friends we should have anyway.

Suffice it to say that the moment we are required to ‘fit in’ we will be asked to forfeit some precious part of ourselves that we have spent most of our lives cultivating. We are asked to do this so that other people aren’t inconvenienced into expanding their views of themselves and their world. We are asked to do this so that other people don’t have to revamp their perspective. We are asked to do this because, for the most part, people are unmotivated to grow and relinquish their outdated expectations.

Anyone who wants to change us so they are more comfortable, aren’t comfortable with themselves which means that the minute you change, they’ll want you to change again. Exhausting! Repeat after me: Bye. Bye.
*This is reprinted from Nancy’s new book, Impact! What Every Woman Needs to Know to Go From Invisible to Invincible.

FEAR: The number one reason you don’t have what you want

There are a multitude of reasons we fail to turn our brilliant ideas, our intellectual capital into actionable items and bottom line results.

The two biggies are, predictably, fear (90%) and timing (10%). Everyone experiences fear. “Getting It Done” people have the identical fears as the “Talking it to Death” folks. And the quantity of fear doesn’t vary much between the groups either.

I know, I know, all of us have met people who claim to be fearless. My industry is saturated with them. There are dozens of books on the shelves declaring ‘live a fearless life’, ‘have fear no more’, ‘banish fear from your life once and for all’.” Yadda, yadda, yadda & blah, blah, blah!

If someone tells you they don’t have any fear, they are lying to the both of you.

These books were written by people who drank the ‘If I say it positively enough any fool will believe me’ Cool Aid. It is not only impossible to banish fear from your life it is undesirable as well. Doing so, as though that were actually possible, would be akin to taking the batteries out of the smoke detectors in your home.

Fear is an indicator of one of two things: Either there’s a bear running you up a tree in the woods, or you’re experimenting with the stuff you’re made of, with your courage quotient. Regarding the former, congratulations that you’re alive to read this. In the latter, congratulations that you’re willing to pursue your purpose and passion even though you might suffer elevated blood pressure now and again.

Here’s the deal: If you’re alive then, by all means, live!

Fear is part of your path not separate from it.

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Confessions of a Cyber-Challenged Woman…or (as my mother told me) God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

If the question is:

Where have you been, Nancy?

Then the answer is:

“Cibernating” (as in hibernating in cyberspace).

For all of you who’ve wondered where I disappeared to the past three weeks (yikes!) I want to first thank you for missing me. I missed you too. Next, I want to respectfully request that you reframe from contacting the blog police. I know, I know, those of us who are serious about growing our businesses must consistently blog (and consistent is more often than every 3 weeks). So let me explain where I’ve been—and it was not on a romantic 5 star vacation with the man of my dreams. More on that later.

It’s really quite simple or, at least on paper, it was supposed to be.

Situation: My first book, Impact! was published last month by John Wiley.

Challenge: I was several months late in getting my new website up and running.

Solution: Hire a web designer.

Challenge: It was mid-holiday when I decided to do something about it.

Bottom Line: Do it myself.

Stop laughing.

As I’ve said before, I am what I refer to as a computer klutz (aka: social media klutz, cyber challenged, technically spastic and computer compromised). My gifts are people related. End of story. For that I make no apology.

So what inspired me to take on the mother of all things frustrating—building my own site? Fear. Yup. As frightened as I was (kindly notice the past tense) to snuggle up with html, I was more scared to have spent a zillion years writing a book no one would read because they’d never hear about it.

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You Were Born to Have Impact!

The rumor is true…. I did disappear for the past three weeks. I’ve been cybernating (as in hibernating in cyberland). In no time at all I went from cyber klutz to cyber savvy. For those of you who know me: It’s been transformational.

I have a few more finishing touches to put on my website in time for its debut this coming Monday, January 4th. Until then, I wanted to share this inspiring, heart opening, hope-filled video. Enjoy and do share it with the world.

Remember– you were born to have (positive) impact: Your impact is your brand and your life purpose. In 2010 I wish for you ten times what you dare to wish for yourself!

Much love and great health, and I’ll see you here next year.

Pink Is The New ….. You!

I double dare you to watch this video without moving your hiney…..

See, I told you you couldn’t do it. Now pass it on and make somebody’s day!

To All The Kids Who Survived The 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

If anyone knows who wrote this gem of a piece, would you let me know so that I can give credit where it’s due? Thanks!

At the end of this email is a quote of the month by Jay Leno. If you don’t
read anything else, please read what he said.

Very well stated, Mr. Leno.

_________________________________
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs
covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets
and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster
seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special
treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren’t overweight. WHY?

Because we were always outside playing…that’s why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps
and then ride them down the hill,

only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few
times, we learned to solve the problem.

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It Takes The Pedal To Get You To The Medal

(continued from yesterday)

Barb was already in coaching when she came to the realization that her career trajectory needed to change course. She’d been wandering through her organization like a five year old in a puddle, yet didn’t understand why she wasn’t getting anywhere.

I told her, “If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you arrive?”

Barb was tenacious once she made up her mind to do something. She emptied her mind of a lot of sloppy thoughts that hindered her progress, and came to a deep understanding of why she’d stood in her own way. The moment she committed to take her foot off the career brake, I could literally see it happen.

Look at taking your foot off the brake, as a decision to stop doing something that’s incongruent with one of your goals.

The next step was for Barb to start doing something new; for her to take action and positive steps toward something she desired. That’s where she ran into trouble. Or, I should say, that’s where she stood still, heels dug in, refusing to move.

What was required of Barb was for her to strategically plan her next five years of professional development. Then we would define the tactics needed to get her there. It took a long time for Barb to take this next step.

To sum it up, she had little difficult stopping a particular behavior, but great trouble starting a new one. Why? For Barb, as is true for many people, stopping herself from doing something was passive and, therefore, easy. On the other hand, starting something action-oriented was very much the challenge.

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