For my children in California and Oregon, the fires are dangerously close by.
My daughter Julie and her 3 year-old were packed to evacuate, as fires raged 4 blocks from her house. I sat by the phone, hysterically waiting.
Stop what you’re doing. Pay attention. The world is changing. In order to thrive, you must change too.
How often do we use money, like Novocain, to numb the pain in our lives or the pressures at work? Instead of making things better, spending just gets us deeper into trouble.
Yet we justify our shopping sprees with thoughts like, “I’m going through a divorce. I deserve this,” or “I hate my job. At least I can enjoy my life.”
The real problem: we’re not honest with ourselves. Our denial produces considerable debt.
Getting out of denial is a prerequisite for prosperity. Credit card debt is insidious, but not insurmountable.
Making minimum payments can take 30 years or more to pay off (because 75 percent of what you pay goes toward the accumulating interest).
I proudly considered my perpetual wanting a healthy sign of a robust ambition. Until I began studying neuroscience and realized how truly unhealthy this kind of thinking actually is.
Here’s why: We literally sculpt our brain by what we dwell on. The more we think a thought or feel an emotion, the stronger that neuropathway becomes in our brain.
By constantly hungering for more, I was inadvertently telling my brain “I don’t have enough.”
I have a theory. Each of us has a Patron Saint of Risk. Every time you dare do something different—make more money, write a book, start a business—this benevolent cosmic being sends a flock of angels (disguised as negative people) to tell you what a dumb idea it is.
These naysayers serve a very important function. They come to test your level of commitment. If you notice, the more tentative you feel, the more pessimistic they sound.
If they succeed in discouraging you, be grateful. Deep down, you just didn’t have the moxie to make it work.
If on the other hand, you are determined to proceed despite the pessimists, you’re sure to succeed. Commitment is what keeps you going despite rejection, disappointment or failure.
This may be a sign you’re on the wrong track. When you’re attempting something at odds with your authentic desires, your resolve will fizzle at the first hurdle.
A few years back, I was determined to learn to ride a motorcycle. My husband, a Harley fanatic, has two in our garage. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could ride one alongside him?
But when I took a tumble on the first day of motorcycle class, that was it. Clearly I wasn’t committed. I was quite happy to ride on the back of my hubby’s bike, thank you very much.
When you find yourself perpetually thwarted with a project you’ve tackled, here’s my advice. Instead of beating yourself up or struggling mightily to make it work, step back and dig deeper.
Is this something I want so badly that I’m willing to fall down repeatedly until I finally succeed? Is this my soul’s yearning or simply an arbitrary ‘should’ I put on myself?
As D.H. Lawrence once advised: “If it doesn’t absorb you, if it isn’t fun, don’t do it!” Amen to that!
Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m beyond grateful to those gutsy, courageous suffragettes.
But in the last few days, I listened to a Ted Talk by one of my favorite actresses, read a WSJ profile of an acclaimed microbiologist and coached a high level executive…all of whom wearily spoke of their struggles with sexism.
If we want a seat at the table, it’s our job to take it. We can start by becoming the change we want to see in the world.
A long ago memory came to mind today. I was living in Kansas City, raising two little girls, running a thriving career counseling firm. Business was hopping, but I wasn’t happy. I was longing to live near water and write.
Huh??? I’d never written anything. And there was no water in KC (at least none that I’d want to live near!). Why would I give up a flourishing business, uproot my kids, leave behind a network of friends and reliable babysitters?
In work, as in life, there are only 2 games you can play. One is To Win. The other is Not To Lose.
Which one are you playing? (Be honest, now!)
In order Not to Lose, you must focus on playing it safe. That means looking good, staying comfortable, avoiding anything that could possibly be scary, awkward, embarrassing or (gasp!) lead to failure.
To Win, you must play full out. That means once you start, you just keep going as far as you can with all that you’ve got. And when you fall down, you get back up and keep going.
Problem is, it can be tough to tell which game you’re playing. There are times when I swear I’m giving my all, but later it hits me. I was fooling myself by holding back (even just a tiny bit means I’m playing it safe).
I devised the following list to help assess if you’re really playing to win. 5 Signs I’m Playing Full Out (check what applies to you).
Could this be you? You’ve read a ton about investing, attended some classes. You understand stocks, bonds, and the value of diversification. You own a few funds in your retirement account.
Still, you continue to ignore or neglect your money, even though you know better. Why?
Blame it on traditional financial education…where the emphasis is on filling your head with facts rather than fostering your courage to change.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been given the tools to boost Self-Efficacy, the most powerful predictor of financial well-being. (I didn’t think so.)
Those who have the most trouble thinking bigger are the ones who have to know exactly how they’re going do it. And if they can’t figure it out, they lower their sights.
I was in this category most of my life…until I interviewed six-figure women.
I learned from them a three-step plan.
The second step is where the power is. Commitment, like a magnet, attracts coincidences. I always say, once you commit to a goal, if you’re not experiencing coincidences, go back to the drawing board. You’re obviously not totally committed.
That’s the way it happened for me. In 2008, I decided to earn $125,000. When I told my now ex-husband, he burst out laughing. I did too. It sounded ridiculous coming from a chronic underearner.
I had no idea how I was going to do it. But as I learned from the women I was interviewing, I didn’t need to have a full blown plan in place.
I just needed to take advantage of synchronicities. Of course, coincidences always lay just outside our comfort zone.
Here is the real secret to success: let go of control and do what comes next, especially if you’re scared to death to do it.
What are you scared to death to do? Leave me a comment below!
There’s actually a positive side to being stuck at home. Personal savings have skyrocketed. But my guess is that when the pandemic passes, savings will plummet.
The fault may lie in our brains.
A recent study by Cornell University neuroscientists discovered that our brains are biased toward earning and against saving. Perhaps it’s the immediate gratification our paychecks offer while putting aside small amounts feels about as gratifying as watching grass grow.
“Fundamentally it comes down to this: saving is less valuable to our brains, which devote less attentional resources to it,” said the co-author Adam Anderson. “Our brains find saving more difficult to attend to.”
Yet fixating on earnings can be fool hardy. I call it the Illusion of Affluence. I see it all the time. Successful women spending too much, saving too little, plowing all profits back into their businesses or on classes for personal growth (deceptively calling it “an investment”).
Their ample earnings gives them the illusion, but not the security of true abundance. The real measure of wealth is your net worth…not what you earn but what you keep.
