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Bless The Naysayers

God Bless Those Naysayers

There’s a form of support you may not recognize: the Naysayer.

These pessimists have a purpose. Every time you decide to do something new, the beloved Patron Saint of Risk sends down her Angels of Gloom to shower you with disapproval.

The loftier your goal, the worse their negativity. The more tentative you feel, the gloomier they sound.

If they succeed in dissuading you, be glad. Your commitment simply wasn’t strong enough to do what it takes to get what you want.

If you’re still determined, regardless of their bad tidings, then you win the Saint’s blessing. You’ve got what it takes to break new ground.

And if you’re really sharp, you found some food for thought in the crumbs of their criticism.

You Are The Average Of The 5 People You Surround Yourself With

Who Are You Hanging Around With?

Whatever you achieve (or don’t) is significantly affected by everyone you associate with on a regular basis.

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, I’m convinced it takes a supportive community to raise your income.

If the people around you are going to frown upon your success, if there’s a chance they’ll reject you, it’s way too easy to throw in the towel. Why risk abandonment when you’ve got so much support for just staying put?

It’s a well known fact: “You become who you’re with.”

Yikes! I Can’t Possibly Take Time OFF!!!

“There is no need to learn through pain” ~~A Course in Miracles

 

I wonder how many of you are craving some down time, a chance to step off the treadmill, but just can’t seem to swing it?

That’s where I was 2 years ago.

I remember saying to my guy, with a heavy sigh: “I wish I could take the next month off.”

“Why don’t you?” he responded.

I gasped! How could I possibly do that? I had all these “important” things to do!! Taking time off was unthinkable.

Then it hit me. I’d been interviewing women who made millions (my next goal) and saw something I never expected.

Right before these women soared, each one sank into a period of nothing happening, a time between, a void, often as a result of a crisis, like a devastating illness or painful loss.

These time-outs served an essential role in their eventual triumphs because they used them, as one woman put it, ‘to regroup and come back stronger.”

At that moment, I decided I wasn’t going to wait for a crisis. I could choose to step off the grid…by design, not default.

I invite you to do the same. Especially if you’ve had this nagging sense you need some down time.

I took 4 days off, going to a nearby hotel where I spent the entire time in self reflection.  It was during this time I discovered Sacred Success®.

Believe me, I had no idea a whole new body of work was living inside me, waiting for me to slow down and tune in.

Maybe it’s time for you to slow down and tune in too. That’s why I created a Sacred Success® Retreat, as a way to give women a structured  time out to go within.

If you can only take a day off, or even a few hours, that will work too. And you don’t need to go anywhere.

The whole idea is to eliminate distractions, do only what’s essential, connect with your inner wisdom and listen to what it has to say. (For more info, read my blog: The Beginner’s Guide to Surrender.)

You might be surprised with what you discover.  If you’d like to share, I’m all ears!

 

Greatness or Mediocrity? A Matter of Mindset.

Mediocrity sees difficulty in every opportunity. Greatness sees opportunity in every difficulty. (paraphrasing Winston Churchill)

Since September, I’ve kept in touch with the graduates of my last Sacred Success® Retreat.  Part of the curriculum is a year-long follow up.

You know what their primary challenge has been? (Mine too.) Not getting sucked into the Mainstream Mentality,   the way “Everybody” thinks, responds, and sees the world.

Sacred Success requires a radically different mindset…because it has a radically different goal.  Mainstream is heading for Mediocrity. Sacred Success is going for Greatness.

One of the biggest differences is how each camp views difficulties.

To the masses, problems are at best annoying distractions, if not dreadful disasters, setbacks to surmount as quickly as possible.

In Sacred Success, however, all problems are considered pathways to Greatness, pointing the way to pursuing your purpose.

Instead of struggling to overcome the obstacles, Sacred Success surrenders to every situation, looking for the lessons embedded in the circumstances.

Maintaining that perspective, however, isn’t easy. The mass mentality has an insidiously intense pull that’s always at play. You need a lot of support not to succumb.

If you’re ready to play bigger than ever before… If you’re ready to be supported by a community of like-minded women…If you’re ready to experience what Maria DeCarvalho did

I left the retreat with a much clearer vision of what is possible for me.  My time with Barbara has helped me recognize doors where I thought there were only walls.”

then, my friend, you are ready for Sacred Success.

If you’re ready to find doors where there now seem only walls, join me for one of my Sacred Success Retreats. I hold one on the east coast and one on the west coast every year.   Learn more here!

The Flu, the Farm, and a Metafiscal Lesson

“Wanna make God laugh? Tell Her your plans”–anonymous

 

I haven’t blogged for 2 weeks. Hell, I haven’t done anything for 2 weeks. Except see the doctor. Who told me I had the flu…and to stay in bed.

What?? Stay in bed???  I had important things to do!!!  I had a teleclass coming up. A retreat to market.  A speech to write. An interview scheduled. Clients to coach.  I had no time for the damn flu!!!

Yet here I am, still in bed, bemoaning my fate, but too weak to do anything.

Then my mind traveled back to my last visit with my daughter, the farmer, just last month.

The week I was there, the seedlings that Anna and others had started were sprouting. It was time to plant them in the fields.  The baby chicks were now mature hens. It was time to move them to bigger quarters.

But nature had other plans. It poured. And rain was forecast for the next few days.

You can’t plant when it rains, Anna explained, because the wet fields are too fragile.  And the ground was too wet to drive the truck to the other henhouse.

Here they were, all geared up to do both. I watched in awe at what happened next. No one got uptight. No one cursed nature.  No teeth were mashing or hands wringing.

Instead, the farm owner shrugged his shoulders, and said: “Enjoy the down time.”  (What a concept!)

We found other things to do. (I say ‘we’ because, by then, I’d been recruited into the workforce.) We cleaned the eggs. We did outreach.  One woman made a delicious apple crisp. Another couple worked on a brochure. We had a scrumptious stir-fry, loaded with freshly picked veggies.

What really struck me: everyone seemed grounded in a deep sense of faith–a  respect for nature’s  timing,  a deference to forces out of their control, a trust in a higher order–that  was so strong, they were able to dispense with their plans, embrace the delays, go with the flow and enjoy the whole process….with nary a complaint.

As I remembered this scene, I immediately saw the lesson.

Instead of fighting the current, why don’t I just kick back and relish the ride…even if it feels like I’m going nowhere?

I’ve written so much about surrender in this blog (Sweet Surrender) I guess I thought it was a onetime event. But I’m beginning to see…. the Universe has its own sense of timing. Instead of trying to out-control the cosmos, I’m going to lie back, let life unfold, delight in the downtime and do what comes next. In this case, I think I’ll write a blog!

A “Metafiscal” Moment!

So, I’m on a walk with my good friend, Suzy.  We’re talking about metaphysical stuff. Only she mispronounces the word. She calls it: Metafiscal.

Suzy laughs. I shriek! It was a pure light bulb moment.

“Ohmygawd,” I exclaim. “That’s my word. Metafiscal!”

To me,  financial success, especially for women, is both a practical process AND  a spiritual journey.

Now I have a word to describe it. Metafiscal

Metafiscal (adj)—that which blends financial know-how with metaphysical principles; a melding of the sacred and the mundane in regards to money.

The word perfectly captures the essence of all my teachings, but especially my most recent, Sacred Success™, which I’ve often described as the Wall Street Journal meets A Course in Miracles. Now I’ll just simply say it’s my latest Metafiscal work.

Guess what folks. I am a Metafiscal teacher!  Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

STOPPING The Oh-So-Subtle Self–Sabotage

In my previous post, I played true confessions.  I fessed up that, years ago, I constantly put myself down…without really knowing it!

I have a hunch many of you do the same.  And believe me, self depreciation is a subtle but serious form of self sabotage.

I’d like to share what I did to stop. It wasn’t easy. I’m far from perfect. But success is so much easier since I curtailed my self-criticism and began acknowledging my value.

Here’s my 3-point plan to Stop Self Criticism—Observe; Brag; Find Spotters.

  1. I started by observing my conversations. Every time I heard me belittling myself, I stopped. Literally stopped, mid-sentence, and force myself to say something positive…even if it was just ‘thank you.’
  2. I started bragging (thanks to Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts). I mean, I actually prefaced sentences with “I brag…” and then tooted my own horn.
  3. I shared my goal with a few close friends, asking  them to spot me by pointing out my more subtle put-downs. They had no trouble catching me in the act.  Their feedback was quite effective.

Admittedly, these steps, at first, felt ridiculously uncomfortable, completely awkward. But gradually, I began to notice something.  My self-derision all but disappeared. And I felt much better about myself.

I’m here to say, I swear it’s true–what you share, you definitely strengthen. Please leave a comment below on how these steps support you in achieving greatness.

The Talk!

I think it’s time we have The Talk. Don’t you? You know, the one about the Legacy you wish to leave. It’s a subject that deserves serious thought.

Leaving a Legacy is how you achieve Greatness. It goes right to the core of why you’re here and the mark you wish to make on the world you leave behind.

Some of you know exactly what it is. Mine, of course, is that there are a lot more financially empowered women running this country as a result of my work. And a lot fewer abused women who can’t afford to leave their abuser.

But many of you may be scratching your heads, wondering, ‘huh, what’s mine?’

Your legacy doesn’t need to light up the sky. It could be the tiniest footprint in the sand. All that matters: your legacy reflects your purpose fulfilled.

Need help? Try this exercise.

Imagine that it’s far in the future. You are lying on your deathbed. You’ve lead a long and meaningful life, but it’s now drawing to a close. As you lie there, you begin to review your past. What gave you the most satisfaction, outside of your family, to know this is what you’ll be remembered for? It need not be limited to one thing, either.

Once you pinpoint what it is, come back to this moment. Then ask yourself: What can I do right now that will contribute to the legacy I wish to leave?

Please share below by leaving a comment…I can’t wait to hear your insights.

Some Denial is Good For the Soul!

“Forgetting what you are not enables you to remember what you are”

-A Course in Miracle

I sometimes wonder if we’re hardwired to hate discipline. I think exercising discipline is to adults what eating veggies are to kids… we do it because it’s good for us. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it!! And we’ll try anything to get out of it!

It wasn’t until my interviews with women who make millions that I had a stunning realization. The key to disciplined action is disciplined thinking.

When I shifted my focus from making myself do something to monitoring my thoughts, my behavior changed (almost) automatically.

I started using a technique I call Constructive Denial. That meant I began consciously and deliberately denying any limiting beliefs, irrational fears or feelings of inferiority about how small, inadequate or inconsequential I was.  As a Course in Miracles explains: “Denial is as capable of being used positively as well as negatively.”

For instance, when that voice in my head says (as it often does) “you don’t have what it takes to do that!” instead of caving in, I come back with, “Thanks for sharing, but I absolutely DO have what it takes.” That one retort dramatically reduces my resistance to taking action.

That’s what these successful women told me they did. They carefully observed their conversations (internal and external), making sure they didn’t lapse into—or catching themselves when they did—automatic self depreciatory or negative patterns.

As a long time mega earner explained to me, “You have to remind yourself: I’m OK. I have strengths. It’s hard. But you have to!”

They made themselves focus on their strengths and successes, talk about their achievements, and reaffirm their value to themselves.  They were constantly giving themselves pep talks, and repeating positive affirmations.

I found a terrific affirmation in a fabulous book called The Master Key System by Charles F. Haanel: “I am that which I will to be.”  When I feel stuck, scared or small, I repeat that phrase, followed by “I have everything it takes to be a stellar success,” or “I am bursting with creative ideas for my next blog”.  Then I act as if it’s true.  It may seem contrived. But it actually works.

I suspect a lot of you do the same thing. Share your affirmations by adding a comment below.

The Beginners Guide to Surrender–in 6 Simple Steps

Surrender is NOT for sissies.  Surrender, by definition, means relinquishing control…a frightening concept for us control freaks.  Surrender drops you swiftly into a sea of uncertainty, at the mercy of your worst fears, producing serious doubts about ever being productive again. I’m speaking from experience here.

But, despite the discomfort, I’m fast becoming a fan.  Something happened when I stopped struggling to impose my will and surrendered to receiving guidance–financial success started to feel like a spiritual journey.

Primitive cultures and Eastern Religions had rites and rituals to honor the Time- Between. They took their people out of the villages, into the wilderness, allowing them to connect with their spirit guides, reassess old ways of being, recognize their true purpose.

But no one teaches us, or even encourages, this practice any more.

So, for those of you wishing to take some time out in a rich and rewarding way, I bring you The Beginners Guide to Surrender ( so named because it’s written by a total beginner…me!).  There’s no need to leave your village, or even your job. Just follow these 6 simple (though not easy) steps.

Step #1—Eliminate everything but the most essential.

 

I remember saying to my guy last winter, “I wish I could take the next month off!”

“Why don’t you?” he responded.

I gasped. Taking time off was unthinkable.  Or was it?  I decided to ease into it slowly, by saying ‘no’ to things that didn’t feed my soul, no matter how lucrative…or tempting.  I said ‘no’ to speaking invitations, ‘no’ to networking opportunities, ‘no’ to new clients, ‘no’ to writing my newsletter and blog.  If anyone asked, I was on sabbatical until further notice.  I continued a little teaching and coaching, but only because I wanted to.

As a result I was left with a lot of down-time…which, of course, is the whole point.

But to many, down-time is a dirty word. And I know why:  we’ll do anything to avoid the dreaded step two.

Coming up: Step #2—Allow uncomfortable feelings to surface.

 

Meet Barbara Huson

When a devastating financial crisis rocked her world, Barbara Huson knew she had to get smart about money… and she did. Now, she wants to empower every women to take charge of their money and take charge of their lives! She’s doing just that with her best-selling books, life changing retreats and private financial coaching.

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