How do I know that I am on the right path?

“How do I know that I am on the right path?” she asked as we began our Heart-to-Heart session. “I’ve been working in my business for years now and it feels like I am stuck. I’ve made so many mistakes, and even though I sometimes feel like I am making progress, I don’t know if this is the right path for me”.

“What is the right path?” I asked.

“It’s the path that feels right” she immediately replied. She then got quiet for a moment as her gaze shifted somewhere towards the horizon, as if there is a better answer there and added: “the path that brings me high fulfillment and high income”.

Even though we were meeting on a Skype video call, I could sense her frustration with her life coming through my computer screen. A frustration that is keeping her up at night making her question everything she is doing.

“So what fulfills you in life?” I asked.

“My design work fulfills me. And even though I’ve done that for a long time it feels like I am running on a hamster wheel.”

“Well that doesn’t sound very fulfilling to me” I said.

“Yes”, she agreed, “I keep trying to grow my business and every time I try something, I keep failing miserably.”

“And what does failing miserably look like?” I asked.

“No income.” She quickly replied, “It’s exhausting.”.

High income is directly related to high fulfillment. In fact, the level of income that you are currently experiencing is in exact proportion to the fulfillment you are receiving from what it is you do in the world.

We were taught that we have to work hard to earn money. That we have to compromise our heart and settle for “enough” as long as long as we meet our basic needs. But doing that only stops us from dreaming. It stops us from listening to what our heart wants and from making the choices that fulfill it.

This woman may feel a sense of fulfillment from her current work but that fulfillment is not really full. It is partial fulfillment.

Seeking fulfillment is something we all have in common. There’s a billion dollar industry out there that caters to those who lost their path and seek truth from outside of themselves. There are never-ending choices of teachers and gurus that will gladly take your money and sell you their formula for finding fulfillment.

I know this because I spent so much of my adult life seeking fulfillment. Heck, I even took a two-year sabbatical and traveled the world for the sake of this search. I met teachers, and guides, and gurus and muses--everyone had opinion and advice. But no one had the right answer. No one had MY answer.

Only my heart did.

I realized I was asking my brain all the wrong questions. My brain could never know what my path is or what I should do or how I should do it.

Our brain is a learning supercomputer. We feed it constantly and expect it to give us the answers to every question we have. Like a computer, our brain has a logic board, called “our mind”. This logic is powerful. We make many choices from this place.

But not all choices require logic.

The choices our heart makes may never be logical. When we make logical choices we answer to what makes sense, to what fits into our brain’s way of seeing the world.

We need to stop asking our brain what fulfills us. Our brain can not possibly answer the questions that our heart is asking. Our heart is the most authentic source of intelligence we have. And yet, we hardly ever mine its full wisdom.

It wasn’t until I stopped asking my brain and began to ask my heart “What is it that really fulfills me?” And it wasn’t until I began listening and acting from the answers that my heart gave me that my life truly changed.

When I made choices that were aligned with what fulfills my heart I began taking bigger risks that lead to bigger changes.

And my life hasn’t been the same since.

Because when our heart is fulfilled, we are in total alignment with our path and our purpose.

It’s that simple.

Fulfillment is knowing what it is that fulfills you and living into it, no matter what the outcome may be.

The problem is that when money gets in the picture, what fulfills us becomes less important. Money is the outcome that we hope to get from whatever it is we do. When we give money the power to influence the choices that we make, we live in a reactive way, forgetting that we have the ability to create whatever it is we put our minds and hearts into (including money!).

What fulfills you, may not seem like something that could make you money in the future. But guess what? It wasn’t either for people like Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. They were simple dreamers, just like you, before they became the men as we know them today.

Not knowing what the outcome is, didn’t stop all the people you compare yourself to from doing what fulfills them in life. They were willing to risk safety, risk security and risk being comfortable for the sake of what their heart wanted.

Because they had to.

They had no choice because the path they choose to walk is the path of their heart. They didn’t listen to their fears, to their self-critic, to people who don’t believe in them. They trusted their heart enough to know that when they listen to what their heart wants and act from that place, they are always on the right path.

 

 

Living a should-less life. 

I love words. 

Because every word is a universe onto itself.

Our words create our reality. The words we speak and the words we think. 

Positive words make us grow. Negative words hold us back. 

For my 50th, I decided to give up the word SHOULD and begin living a "should-less life". 

I will never SHOULD again. And with that, everything that comes with this word will go away. 

Everything.  

The self-judgment, the self-criticism, the self-pity, the self-hatred, the depression.

 

I am letting go of the shoulds. 

I should make more money.

I should write a book.

I should have a kid.

I should spend less money. 

I should give more money away. 

I should call my mom.

I should be debt free.

I should not spend my savings. 

I should take a vacation.

I should spend less time on Facebook.

I should buy a house. 

I should go out more often. 

I should meet more people. 

I should lose weight. 

I should work out more. 

I should look good. 

I should care more. 

I should care less. 

 

You get the picture. 

 

"Should" is a powerful word. And a toxic one. Every time I speak it, every time I think it, I hold myself back from being who I am destined to be. 

I'm going to stop "shoulding" all over myself. 

Because every time I use negative words like "should", I put myself in a toxic space. The vibration around the energy of the negative words effects my health and well being. 

 

You could spend hours, days, years, practicing yoga, visualization or meditation, and that practice would be offset by a vocabulary that is organically toxic and negative. 

If the words you use towards yourself are hostile, you will experience a hostile way of being. You will feel hostile and negative, especially towards yourself.  You will feel like you are not enough. You will feel less than. You will feel unworthy and unloved. 

Stop using toxic words and your depressions will be much less. 

Stop using toxic words and your life will transform.

Choose to get up every day and bless your day. Say to yourself: "I have no idea what this day is going to bring but it is blessed, because I am alive, and I am here." 

And then choose words that are powerful. Words that inspire you. Words that heal you. 

This choice alone will take toxins out of your heart. 

This choice alone will transform your day. 

 

What are the toxic words that you say to yourself? Words you must never utter again? 

 

Who do you want to become?

When I was a kid, the adults used to ask me “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. 

They never asked, “what do you want to do when you grow up?” 

But here we are, all grown up, and we’re so busy doing that we forgot who we wanted to become. 

Who did you want to become when you grew up? 

What did you dream of before the voices in your head began to tell you that you’ll never be good enough or that you are not worthy?

When did you begin to please everyone around you so you can feel loved or to know that you matter?

Are you living who you wanted to become?

Do you even remember what that was?

I meet grown-ups every day who forgot who they wanted to be. They walk around as if in a trance. Busy working in jobs they hate or own businesses that don’t give them joy or profit.

They stay in unhealthy relationships and are afraid to take real risks in life.

These people complain. They become people pleasers. They live in fear of the future.

These people are stuck.

They forgot who they wanted to be.

They compromised.

And fell asleep to life.

But sometimes, they feel stuck for a bit too long. They arrive at a moment when being stuck no longer works.

The boredom and lack of passion in whatever they are doing stops fulfilling.

And even though they have no idea of what the future may bring, they find themselves willing to take a risk. Maybe for the first time ever.

Take a risk and change something so big, that it throws their entire echo system off course.

Sometimes we need to get to that low place so we can wake up to our life and do something risky. Become who we've always wanted to become.

Become a writer or a filmmaker, or a coach, or a chef, or whatever their soul has been asking them to do and they have conveniently never listened.

Simply become.

Remeber when we used to hear "you can be anything you want to be"? When did we stop believing in that?

I believe we can. I believe we all have the tools we need to become the best versions of ourselves. The tools are there. All we need to do is use them.

I'll explain what these tools are next week.

Thanks for being.

 

Living a soul-driven life. 

There’s an exercise I often lead with people I coach that reveals a surprising truth: most of us don’t really know what we want.

In this exercise, I ask a simple question: “what do you want?”

And then I repeat this same question over and over again.

In the first minute or so, the expected answers come out. Those generally are the things that are top of mind, the things they want most immediately, like wanting more money or new clients or other material things. In their minds, if they were to have those things, they would be happy and fulfilled.

But then, when they have finished listing all the material things they want, and all the success they desire, they become a bit emotional, sometimes tearful, and begin to go deeper.

They become silent.

They gaze at me with curiosity and unknowing.

They begin to mumble, they slow down enough to begin hearing their soul’s voice.

This is always a precious moment. A sacred opening.

It is in this moment they realize that what they really want most is a life of real purpose. A life filled with intention, fulfillment and inner peace.

I call that a soul-driven life.

It is in this moment that they begin to pay attention to what really matters most to them.

It’s easy for us creative types to lose sight of our soul’s voice. That’s because our creative free spirit gets drowned out by the monkey mind chatter that our ego consistently broadcasts. Our work becomes consumed with solving other people’s problems and along the way we become less creative and less in touch with who we really are.

Our ego is doing a great job at wanting more, wanting faster, wanting bigger. It gets so loud that when it doesn’t get what it wants, it has the ability to create a dark cloud over our lives, resulting in depression and hopelessness. This dark cloud can turn us into self-doubters or worst, fear-based people-pleasers.

Our ego is constantly wanting. And the louder our ego is, the further we get from living our soul’s purpose.

We live in a media-driven culture that sends us constant messages that we are not enough. Our ego eats these messages up like a starved animal. If only we had that luxury car or that fancy house or that big name client, our life will be better. We believe this campaign and beat ourselves down for not achieving the milestones we supposedly were meant to achieve. We compare ourselves and suffer.

What you want will always come from somewhere. It will always have an origin. What you want will either come from your ego or from your soul. The question is, which one are you listening to? Which one is driving your life?

There’s a beautiful parable I once heard about a grandfather talking with his grandson and he says "there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery, and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred, and fear."

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, “The one you feed.”

Our ego wants to look good, to win, to be right, to succeed, to be known, to be in control. Our ego wants to receive for the sake of receiving. And the more it gets, the more it wants.

Soul is pure. Soul is the essence of our being. Our truth. It is who we truly are underneath the mask we so carefully and masterfully created in order to cope with the world. It is the part of us that lives behind our ego, the part of us that is divine.

I spent many years of my life unconsciously driven by ego. That brought me success, accolades, and wealth. But at the end of the day, much of that achievement didn’t bring me real happiness. I found myself running on a hamster wheel, feeling unfulfilled by my work, depressed and exhausted.

That’s when I stopped running and asked myself “What do I really want?” And guess what? I had no idea either.

All I knew was what I didn’t want.

I didn’t want to feel like I’m swimming upstream. I didn’t want to keep running on the hamster wheel for the rest of my life.

When I stopped to ask myself this simple question, that's when my soul journey began. 

We tend to focus so much on what our ego wants and forget to focus on what it is we need that truly matters. We fool ourselves thinking that what our ego wants is what we need and yet when we achieve those things we think we want, we often realize that we are still empty inside.

Our soul, in its purest divine form, wants to create, to influence and serve others. And when we live in a soul-driven way, we get to do just that and get more than what we want. We get what we truly need. Meaning, fulfillment, and inner peace. 

What stands in the way of change.

Have you ever faced a time in your life where you wanted to make a big change and yet, you were too terrified of making it happen?

Maybe you wanted to end a relationship or start a new business, or perhaps change careers?

Whatever change you desire, there is one thing that will always slow you down and keep you stuck from making it happen.

The fear of the unknown.

Did you know that this fear actually has a name? Xenophobia. Derived from the Greek word 'Xenos' meaning “foreigner or stranger” and Phobos which means 'morbid fear’. This fear is totally irrational and yet, so many of us have it to some degree.

So, why do we feel afraid of stepping into the unknown?

A lot of it has to do with the way our ego works. Our ego likes to be in control and unless it feels safe and secure, it will partner up with our imagination and start playing the “what if” game.

“What if I make a mistake?”

“What if it’s worse than what I have now?”

“What if I fail?”

Sound familiar?

The problem is that we can never win this game. Our ego is so sophisticated and sneaky that we actually begin to believe the negative outcomes of our “what ifs”. We become focused on imagining worst case scenarios and worry ourselves into action paralysis.

Ten years ago I was in this exact same place.

After a thriving twenty year career as a designer, I woke up one day to realize that I was done.

And then my ego freaked out.

My design firm was highly profitable, we were working with some of our biggest dream clients and by now I’d built myself a solid name and a trusted brand in the industry. I’d be crazy to give that all up, right?

Yet, underneath all that, deep inside, my soul was feeling crushed.

I couldn’t imagine what my life would look like if I wasn’t designing.

What could I do?

How could I make enough money to sustain my current lifestyle?

What am I even good at besides designing?

My Xenophobia was out of control. In fact, it brought on a depression that became my norm. A state I don’t wish on anyone.

Even though I felt I was done with being a designer, I wasn’t willing to admit it. My ego was gripping on in fear of losing control. For three years I found every excuse to push through my days. I felt stuck, unhappy and unmotivated.

I finally sought help. I hired a coach who masterfully and lovingly woke me up and guided me towards making the decision my soul was waiting for me to make.

After close to a year of deep coaching and spiritual clean up work, I mustered up the courage to take a risk and close my firm even though I had nothing else lined up.

I learned to trust the unknown.

But I also learned to trust something I became disconnected from over the years - my creativity and my power. Through our deep work together I reconnected with that part of myself that was dormant and once that woke up, I was able to drown out the negative “what ifs” soundtrack and begin hearing the positive ones.

“What if everything will actually work out better than now?”

“What if I will make more money than I ever had as a designer?”

“What if I find joy in fulfillment in whatever happens next?”

These were motivating “what ifs,” questions that lifted up my spirit and brought hope and curiosity. Once I was able to ask these questions and believe in my power and creativity to make anything I want happen, making the decision to close my firm and moving on wasn’t so much of a challenge anymore.

My coach helped me raise my belief in myself. He helped me raise my self-esteem and learn to identify and stop listening to the negative voices of my fears.

Once I took action on my decision, it was amazing to see how things unfolded so quickly from that point on. It was as if the universe was waiting for me to make a move so it could begin to shower me with opportunities.

In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t waited three years before making a big change in my life. Only because of the depression I experienced along the way. But on the other hand, my own transformational process has given me incredible tools and insights into helping the people I coach change their lives in unbelievable ways.

Nowadays, when I’m faced with wanting to change something big in my life, it doesn’t take me three years to do something about it. That’s because I learned to trust. The faith I have in my creativity and my in power is strong enough to move me forward towards making a change.

And so can you. Things will always work out for you if you let go of your fear and listen to what your soul wants. Be soul driven in your decisions and everything will always work out. That’s a promise.