Your Wish Is My Command

Big happy thanks to each of you who took the time to answer my short survey this week. There’s still time if you’d like to give me your thoughts, so click here to go to the survey.

I learned a lot from you all.

First, more of you would like an opportunity to work with me.

You’d like lower cost programs, designed to help you with your career or your business.

You’d like self-paced programs.

You’d like to see me collaborate more.

Which is really cool, because that’s the same stuff I’ve been thinking about.

So, let me make two announcements which will go right to the heart of the matter.

First, a very low-cost/high reward opportunity. You may remember the November free call where I talked with my friend, Good Vibe Coach Jeannette Maw, about aligning values, priorities and intentions. It was one of the most downloaded classes either Jeannette or I have ever seen. So, we figured, hey, why not do more of that?

We’ve decided to do a monthly conversation on a subject of interest – the first one will be on that perennial Big Issue: money. If you want to listen live and have the chance to ask questions, it’s a monthly subscription of only $9. And, you’ll get the recording, too. If you just want the recording, it’s $5. Simple. Easy. Fun. Want to sign up? Go right to: Listen In On Michele and Jeannette.

Second, so many of you are in the place where you need to reinvent your lives… You’re looking at a Second Act that may just change your life, and it’s kind of scary and there’s no roadmap and how’s it all going to work out? Good news, I can help you there.

My friend, author Mary Beth Sammons, wrote the best-selling Second Acts That Change Lives: Making A Difference In The World.  We’ve adapted the material from her book – and added tools and tactics from my coaching practice – to create a fabulous month-long telecourse will to help turn the “someday I’d love to” into “today I will”. For more information, check out: Second Acts That Change Your Life.

And, because we know many of you want to launch your second act by writing a blog… we’re offering two classes on blogging. Mary Beth is a fantastic editor and writer – she was a columnist at the Chicago Tribune and has written for magazines, and online outlets like MORE.com, CarePages.com, and BettyConfidential.com. She’s a pro and I’m happy to partner with her. Info on the blog classes can also be found at Second Acts That Change Your Life.

One more thing I’m working on in response to your requests – I’m preparing some workbooks for you to help you solve issues you face in your career. How to deal with difficult people. How to do a job search. How to ace an interview. How to get clear. How to really know what it is you want. I’ll be rolling these out as soon as I complete them. Stay tuned for more information, willya?

Bottom line: I am so grateful for each of you who read what I write and take the time to tell me what it is that you really want. I promise I will do my best to deliver. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll create some stuff that will surprise you, delight you and make you think.

Oh, and get you to a very happy, purposeful life, too.

What’s The Point?

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.

Clarity of Purpose

I’ve been running into a lot of stressed out, tense people recently. They all seem to be singing that old refrain from The Guess Who, “I got, got, got, got no time.” And these are women who are at home with their kids! Add in office politics for those attempting to do both career and parenting, and you’ve got stratospheric stress levels.

Thank goodness you’re reading this today. Because this is for you stressed out souls – especially all you people who think asking for help is a sign of weakness. Ahem.

OK, I’ll tell you how to live life with no tension, no stress. Lean into your computer screen and pretend I’m whispering this next part, just like Connie Chung.

Know why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Simple, huh?

Let’s look at it in action. In a typical week, Cheryl wakes up two mornings at 3:45am to get two of her kids to swim practice. She’s in a carpool so she only drives the kids to the pool one of those mornings. The other morning, she tries to go back to sleep but usually ends up oversleeping and wakes up just as the kids return from the pool. She wakes her third child, scrambles to get everyone fed, lunches made, homework in backpacks, then tears out of the house to make the early tutoring sessions scheduled for her kids. She has not showered nor has she had anything to eat.

While the kids are at school, she does laundry, walks the dog, goes to the grocery store, returns library books, shops for her elderly mother, volunteers at the kids’ schools (the three of them are in two different schools), and makes phone calls for a fundraiser. At 3pm, she races to school – late, again. One child goes to tennis, one to dance, the other to piano lessons. On Wednesdays, it’s karate, basketball and art. At 7pm Cheryl pulls out chicken nuggets and pasta for her kids and they begin two hours of homework. She checks all their work and corrects their mistakes. On Tuesday and Thursday nights the schedule changes when her oldest child has hockey practice. Dinner those nights is from a drive-thru, eaten in the back of the car. Cheryl’s husband comes home from work around 8:30pm, except for the nights he’s traveling or at his son’s hockey games.

At 10 pm, Cheryl gets her kids into bed and falls, half dead, into her own bed. Her husband, a night owl, stays up watching TV or surfing the Internet until 1am. At dawn the next day, it starts all over again.

Sound at all familiar? Should be. Because most of Cheryl’s friends are just like her.

Here’s something I know to be true: where you put your attention will grow more important in your life. So where is Cheryl’s attention? On her kids. And we will all say, “Yep, your kids should be your Number One priority.” But friends, there’s priority and there’s over-focus.

That’s why having clarity of purpose is vital to living a happy life. When you read Cheryl’s story, what would you say is her priority? To be self-sacrificing, have no life of her own, and do everything for her children? ‘Cuz that’s what’s she’s doing. She’s not eating, not bathing, not really in much of a relationship with her husband. She’s got no time with friends, no hobbies, no passions.

Why would Cheryl do this?

Henri Nouwen, noted spiritual writer, suggested that busyness is our way to quiet the yearnings of our heart. It’s often difficult for women to articulate their own needs or passions — society sends a strong message that doing so is selfish and not womanly. Cheryl would tell you, after her second glass of wine, that she knows that she keeps busy so she won’t have to think about it. “If I look at why I do things, I might have to change something,” she’d acknowledge.

And we all know change is scary.

So, Cheryl stays purposefully busy – so she doesn’t have to think about what she wants, and nothing has to change. “Most people prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty” wrote therapist Virginia Satir. And Cheryl would agree.

When Cheryl coasts, she takes the path of least resistance. She doesn’t have to ask her husband to be a partner (he might say no, he might think I’m not capable, he might leave, we might get divorced, what would people think?). She doesn’t have to give her children boundaries and limits (they might miss an opportunity to find something they’re good at, they might hate me, they might ridicule me, what would people think?). She doesn’t allow her children to be independent (it’s faster to do it myself, they won’t need me, I’ll have to get a job, I haven’t had a job for 12 years, I have no skills).

Cheryl’s decision tree goes something like this:

If I acknowledge what I feel, people will be mad –> they will leave me –> I will be all by myself –> I will die all alone –> I am not good enough for anyone to love –> I do not matter.

At the core of many of our actions is this thought: “I am so flawed that no one can possibly love me (I can’t even love myself).” So we attempt to cover our “flaws” thinking that if we move fast enough, and produce enough, our flaws are not going to be noticeable. Even to ourselves.

This is where coaching can really help. A good coaching relationship allows all you Cheryls (and Toms and Susans and Harolds) out there to take some time to look at who you are and why you do what you do. Unlike therapy (which I am a huge fan of, having logged plenty of my own couch time), coaching will help you take specific steps to move forward toward a new way of living. A therapist diagnoses and treats psychological problems, often looking at the past as a guide. It’s very important and life changing work. As a matter of fact, I often work with clients who are simultaneously seeing a therapist – and it’s great! These people are usually very open to change and make terrific progress.

And, guess what? People have successfully changed their lives without alienating their children or divorcing their spouse! People get balance in their lives without losing anything important – just by focusing on what’s really important.

Knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing sounds so simple. But it requires honesty, openness and a willingness to change. You have to understand yourself so you can say no to that which keeps you stuck in a rut, and yes to that which brings you joy and allows you to grow.

What does it take to get out of your hectic and purposefully busy life? Again, it’s simple.

It’ll start when you say to yourself, “I can’t go on like this anymore. This is not a fun, happy life” – that’s when you know it’s time to start making changes.

That, friends, is when you ask for help. That’s when you call me.