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“Know Your Name”

October 24, 2010 By 3 Comments
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I’m going to tell you a little story.

I have this friend named Patti Digh. You may remember her if you listened to my Virtual Birthday Party earlier this year. And Patti has a new book. And another new book. And her book tour brought her to my neighborhood this week, so I trundled off to see her.

Patti is a mental breath of fresh air. She’s so smart, and so funny, and so kind, and so… Patti. I really do love her (her Johnny Depp obsession aside). If you have a chance to see her during her book tour, do.

As she wrapped up her talk the other night, she passed around a basket of stones, each carrying a painted message. Patti said, “Don’t pick a stone, don’t look at them and choose one, let the stone pick you.” I dug my hand in – because, of course, I had to dig deep – and touched this one:

Know Your Name

And I knew what I had to write about this week. Had to write about. This stone chose me.

Because I needed to be reminded that there have been times in my life where I’ve forgotten my own name. Forgotten who I am.

Been so immersed in a relationship or situation that I’ve lost my essential self and grafted on the self of someone else. And while it felt completely natural and good at the time due to my own insecurities, fear and desperation, inherent in that enticing merging was a regrettable forgetting.

I forgot my name.

And sometimes I’ve placed too much hope in a teacher, especially teachers who say, “Do exactly as I do, and you are guaranteed success.”

I’ve learned that that’s not what a teacher says. That’s what a self-serving salesman says.

A teacher says, “Here’s what’s worked for others, maybe it will work for you.”

A great teacher says, “Let’s discover the brilliance within you, and get it to shine.”

Oh, it’s easier to sign on with the person who’ll tell you exactly what to do to become successful. We love our “7 Steps To A 7-Figure Income” and promises that marketing matters more than mastery. Doesn’t that sound easy? None of that pesky learning or training or study. No, we can just sell!

And by following that advice we swap our name for the salesman’s name and lose the brilliance within.

This has happened to me. And I’ve only realized it when I’ve figured out just how unhappy I’ve become. When I’ve been under the tutelage of someone who doesn’t really honor my name. When I’ve allowed myself to forget who I really am.

That’s when I have to do the real work, and pull myself back to my own happy self.

Because happiness comes from being yourself. Comfortable in your own skin. In touch with your own shining light.

Simple as that.

Remember your name. Say your name often. Love it. Know it. Because it’s yours and yours alone. Uniquely, authentically yours.

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Filed Under: Authenticity, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , 3 Comments

Larger Than Life?

September 12, 2010 By 4 Comments
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Sometimes there’s a confluence of stuff that starts to happen.  He mentions this, a few days later you read something, then a friend brings it up, too, and sooner or later you put the good old pieces together and see that there’s a bigger picture emerging.

It’s become what my internet friends (and various teenagers) tell me is called a meme.

So let me tell you about the meme I’m seeing.

For me, it started with Lisa de Moraes’ July 15th article in the Washington Post called “The Key To Reality-TV Superstardom? It’s All About Being Larger Than Life.”


“For a cast member to really give breakout performances, it’s critical that he or she has been born without the self-edit gene. ‘They have to be completely unguarded — if they’re a recessive character, they’re never going to make it to season four or five,’ noted Damla Dogan, VP at E! Entertainment Television.”

I was actually horrified at this idea. Larger than life, my dears, is how the Snooki-fication, too much information-ification, the oh-my-god-can-you-believe-that, train wreck of television has occurred.

But it’s just not in TV that we’re urged to be larger than life. Business “gurus” tell us the same thing. “Go big, or go home” – ever heard that before? I spoke with a disappointed woman recently who paid $15,000 to such a guru for a year’s worth of fawning training in How To Go Big. Unfortunately, the only place the big money is rolling in is to the shiny, pretty, unavailable guru who’s depositing all those $15,000 checks.

I don’t know about you, but I am fatigued with shiny, pretty. I am tired of empty promises and vague premises. I am sick to my stomach when I think about self-proclaimed, fast-talking experts taking advantage of good, maybe even slightly desperate, people who just want to grow a good business.

I am finished with those whose only motto seems to be “Shout loudly and carry a big schtick.”

Maybe it’s just my own, well-developed spidey-sense that sniffs out over-weening ego. Because that’s what I think most of this is really all about. Go-big rah-rah’ers are often walking fabulists who want other people to fawn, adore, worship work with them solely to reinforce their self-perception of fabulousity.

Which almost always includes an admonishment that you, too, must be larger than life to succeed. Hey, you want to be on TV, don’t you?

I was pondering this when my after-my-own-heart friend Fabeku Fatunmise wrote this excellent post: Go Big. Or Not. He said:

“But what I think really sucks is the subtle (or not) implication that if you’re not going big that you’re f-ing up. That you’re cheating yourself. Or your audience. Or the world. That you’re a lamer. Or, even more craptastic, a poseur. That, somehow, if you’re not taking epic leaps every single day then you’re just a spineless looooooooooooooser.”

Say it, brother.

A few days ago, my friend Kathy Korman Frey, a Harvard MBA and entrepreneurship professor, wrote a post where she says, “The old ‘get-obsessed-and-do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-it-done’ part of me is possibly gone, or on hiatus.” Now, if you know Kathy, you know she has more energy in her pinkie than do many small nations. But what she’s asking is right in line with the meme – given the realities of my life: what suits me? What is good enough? What is big enough?

And here’s the dealio – it’s always up to you. You decide what’s big enough, what’s good enough, what matters to you. No guru, regardless of how much you pay him or her, knows you better than you know yourself.

I recently had a young woman client say to me in frustration about her job search: “Would you just tell me what to do?” Know what? I’m not gonna. What I am going to do is help you discover your strengths, honor your priorities, center in your values and get absolutely clear on who you are. After you know that, you are going to know what’s right for you.

And it may or may not be big.

But I trust you. Whatever you choose is going to be fine.

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Filed Under: Authenticity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Your Personal Brand

August 23, 2009 By 6 Comments


Back in March, I did a survey and you told me that you wanted more free stuff. Since then I’ve obliged every month with a free conference call class — the most recent of which covered Your Personal Brand. Here’s a link to the recording:

Now, as someone recently said to me on the phone, we can make this easy or we can make this hard.

And while I usually choose easy — because that often means using my strengths and existing in the effortless part of The Zone — today I’m choosing hard.

I know.

Easy would be writing a blog post about personal branding using the outline I created for the class because 1.) I got all that stuff prepped and ready, 2.) I could write on autopilot and then go take a walk, and 3.) the resulting post would probably be widely read across the internet due to the subject matter, leading more people to my site, increasing my traffic and making me a transitory niche celebrity.

But that potentially well-read post would be derivative. There wouldn’t be anything new in it. Nothing that would make anyone who listened to the class sit up and say, “Whoa!”

Which is what I endeavor to do. People tell me they enjoy reading what I write because I take things they already know and make it thought-provoking. I help people look at things in a new way, I’m told.

Guess you could say that’s part of my personal brand.

So, to be true to my brand — thought-provoking, insightful, useful — I have to choose hard over easy today.

Your personal brand — which really boils down to the value you bring to others plus your integrity — may, sometimes, require you to choose hard, too. In those moments when easy is in direct conflict with what you stand for. And what you want to do.

And who you want to be.

Listen to the class. Do the exercises. Understand your personal brand, then make sure that you are using what you’ve learned consistently — in your resume, in job interviews, in your blog posts, across social media, in your life. And watch as your life opens up to you.

Because being conscious of your own personal brand is really about living in alignment with your integrity and what’s best about you. And when you’re truly in alignment that way, life becomes easy.

Except in those instances when you choose hard. Which, come to think of it, is really quite easy.

Filed Under: Career Coaching, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , 6 Comments

What’s The Point?

August 2, 2009 By 16 Comments



This one is coming from the heart.

Last week, after a particularly challenging coaching session with a client, I wrote this on my Facebook page:

“Never confuse urgency and drama with meaning and purpose.”

So many people are focused on “winning” and “making a mark” and “getting” and being “Type A” and, then ask me to help them find out why they are so unhappy and unfulfilled and struggle to identify their life’s purpose.

I can tell you something. They’re making things a lot more difficult than they need to be.

Because I believe every human being has the exact same purpose in life.

It’s to be a force for good in the world.

Simple.

And although we share the same purpose, we derive our own personal meaning from how we decide to do good.

One person might be a force for good in the world by teaching.  Another by cleaning streets.  One might find meaning in helping people become prosperous, another in curing illness.

The overarching purpose is to do something good. In large and small ways.  All the time.

I am never doing good if I cheat you, scam you or otherwise take advantage of you.  Never.  Not in business.  Not ever. People who conduct their business this way may find that they get a big score at the outset, but rarely ever create a lasting, truly lucrative business.  See Bernie Madoff, for example.  You do better when you’re focused on doing good.

Now, tyrants and despots often justify their bad acts by saying they are acting in the “common good.”  Ethnic cleansing, silencing dissidents and controlling the media comes to mind.  You can probably come up with some other examples yourself.

But when anyone is hurt, good is not being done.  When harm is done, we’re acting in direct opposition to our life’s purpose, so it’s no wonder that tyrants and despots often wind up being hung by their ankles with body parts stuffed into their mouths by the very people they were trying to “protect.”

Now we know what meaning and purpose are all about — let’s look at urgency and drama.

Just because something’s urgent, doesn’t mean it’s important. If I get a flat tire, it’s urgent but it’s not really important.  I can pull over, jack up the car, replace the tire, go on my way.

Or I can choose to make it a drama.  Boy howdy, can I. How about I call my brother, my sister-in-law, my neighbor, my son, my best friend and the local radio station to announce that I Have A Flat Tire and invite them to join the pity party with me?  I can then regale the folks at the supermarket, the dry cleaners and the smoothie shop with the story of My Flat Tire. Watch me work the story at the office!

I get all wrapped around the axle.

And a twenty minute inconsequential period extends into hours, maybe even weeks of drama.

Which takes time and attention away from my real life’s purpose.

Cuz I’m not doing good.  In fact, I’m just creating needless motion that uses up my energy.

Which is what I hear from my coaching clients.  For years and years they have allowed urgent matters to masquerade as their life’s purpose, and accepted drama as a substitute for meaning.  They’re addicted to the  high fructose corn syrup adrenaline rush of drama, and have completely lost their taste for the true sweetness of real meaning.

When you’re hip to your life’s purpose of being a force for good, you can find meaning in the smallest things.  Like holding the door open for the pregnant woman pushing a stroller.  Like giving up your seat on the subway to the elderly man with the cane. Like smiling. Easy things you can do every day.

Big things can hold great meaning, too.  Like mentoring that young man at work.  Or being generous with well-deserved raises to your best people despite the economy.  Or finding a vaccine for cancer.  Challenging, time consuming things that can take a whole career to accomplish are ripe with meaning.

Since this is my own personal manifesto, let me go a step further.  I believe you already know this.  I believe people are, at their core, good.  We only get stuck when we get in our own way and confuse urgency and drama with meaning and purpose.  So step out of the way. Deal with that which is urgent, because we all face things that need attention.  But attend without drama.  Fulfilling your life purpose means being who it is you are at your core — good old you — and doing what good you can in each moment.

Filed Under: Authenticity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 16 Comments
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