4/2/12 Food and Exercise Log

I had an Access bar and went for a 2 mile walk this morning.  I didn’t have my good walking shoes, so I wore some Reeboks that belong to my older daughter (we wear the same size).  I will definitely remember to wear my own shoes from now on – my shins and calves feel rather sore this evening, which doesn’t usually happen from walking.  I probably should have had a protein shake afterwards, but I didn’t.

For lunch, I had a small Caesar salad with chicken.  For dinner, I had a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.  I’m munching on some smoked Gruyere cheese right now.

At this writing, I’m only about 3/4 of the way through my 2 liter bottle of water, but I know I’ll get it all down within the next hour or so.  There’s a very good chance that I’ll have a big glass of milk before bed.

Consider my mind blown…

I went to a seminar today, facilitated by my coach, and run by her mentor, Martin Sage of Sage University, who was attending via Skype from his home in Ibiza.  The name of the class (which continues tomorrow afternoon) is Find Your True Calling.

I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like to be in a room full of people who are so curious and open to possibility.  Almost everybody echoed the sentiment that they were looking for something more in their life, and that they felt this was going to be their year!

Martin has a gift of really seeing inside a person and helping them unlock their hidden desires, passions, and motivations.  He helps people connect their puzzle pieces with the puzzle pieces of others in the room.  He encourages people to play, to find and build teams, and to explore projects.

It seems that at least one of my passions is performing (what a shock – NOT!), and I’ve been sort of floating a project idea about somewhat casually that is actually generating a LOT of excitement and enthusiasm within the people that I share it with.  I’ve got more fun, intelligent, exciting, talented women than I know what to do with who are eager to become part of the Fat Bottom Girls – my all-girl Queen cover band!  And lots more people who are eager to see our first show!

Which means that I’ve got to get some music arranged, I’ve got to set up some rehearsal times, I’ve got to find and book a performance venue, I’ve got to recruit a support team to help make it happen, and I’ve got to market it so we can have an audience!  Whew!  There’s no way I can do all that on my own (for starters, I know very little about arranging music, even though I’ve been playing it for more than 3/4 of my life).

Yet another project that got the BIG thumbs-up from Martin is a video blog / tv show where, as The Joy Diva, or possibly as Bubby Darling, or maybe even some other character(s) that I haven’t come up with yet, I talk about Joy and interview people about Joy.  I just set up a YouTube channel this evening, and I guess it’s time to get serious about this aspect of my blog that I’ve been wanting to do since I set it up back in October.  I’ve already got several people in mind that I want to interview – both in person and across Skype (if I can figure out how to make *that* work, record the conversations and import them into my blog and/or YouTube channel).

This coming year is the Year of the Dragon.  I’m a Dragon.  It’s my year, and I hope you’ll come along with me for the ride!

Health Goals: Water, Fiber and Protein

I’m really not off to a good start on drinking water this year.  Frankly, it’s not something I tend to think about an awful lot.  I had a pretty nasty, persistent headache last week that wasn’t responding to either meds or sleep, and it occurred to me that dehydration might be playing a fairly significant role.  After making a point to drink plenty of water (and visit my chiropractor!), the headache went away.

This morning, I woke up with another headache, and I’m thinking once again that I need to drink a lot of water.  I really ought to be drinking about 2 litres a day, and I know that unless I really focus on that goal, it just doesn’t happen.  Most days I’m probably lucky to get even a cup of water into me.  In the past, I would have taken a headache like this (feels kind of like a sinus headache) as an excuse to grab a big cup of coffee, since coffee is a natural decongestant.  But with my resolve to reduce my sugar intake, that’s not going to happen today (in spite of the fact that my younger daughters orthdodontist appointment this afternoon is right next door to Einstein Bagels, home of my favorite coffee anytime, anywhere, their delicious Vanilla Hazelnut, mmm…).

When my clients have commented to me that they’re afraid that upping their water intake will also increase the frequency of their visits to the bathroom, I’ve been able to tell them from my own experience that it WILL increase the visits, but only for a short time.  The body adapts *very* quickly and easily to the proper levels of hydration, and soon the trips to the bathroom aren’t any more frequent than they were before the increase in water consumption.

I also tend to sneak in my fiber with my water.  I’ve discovered Benefiber, which doesn’t get all gloopy, and has no discernable taste when I add it to water.  So it’s pretty easy to increase my fiber in that fashion – as long as I’m actually drinking the water!

Another easy way for me to get fiber is to add it to a protein shake, which is often a quick and easy breakfast for me.  Breakfast is important, but it’s usually not something I take a lot of time for.  School mornings are generally just way too busy for me to worry about preparing anything for myself.  Even my kids don’t seem to want much in the way of breakfast at that hour of the morning, although I can occasionally get them to eat a breakfast bar of some sort.

I don’t usually get very fancy with the protein shakes – depending on the brand of protein powder I’m using.  With one brand, it’s add water, fiber, protein powder, mix it up with a whisk and go.  With another brand, it’s add milk, fiber, protein powder, and ice.  Toss it all in the blender, possibly with some fruit, and it’s ready to go.  My kids like the latter option better, so I’ve recently purchased more of that brand of powder, and will probably be taking a little extra time in the mornings to make sure we’re all getting a good nutritional start to the day.

Health Goals: Food

So far in the New Year, I haven’t done horribly, but I can’t say I’ve done brilliantly, either.  Yesterday, I had a bowl of Frosted Flakes for a late breakfast while I was preparing the pot of bean soup I was planning for the evenign meal.  Dinner was delicious – we took the bean soup and some sourdough bread over to our friedns’ house, where they had some black eyed peas and cornbread and a salad.  I had some of the cornbread and some of the sourdough bread and some of my bean soup (with onion, tomato and ham in it), but no salad.  We also had a cup of hot wassail before we left their house, and I had a large mug of hot chai once we got back home.

Today, I had some leftover pasta with white clam sauce for lunch (no breakfast), and one of the last two cupcakes from my older daughter’s NYE birthday.  I’m having a potluck dinner with some friends this evening, and I’m not yet sure what I’m going to take.  I’m thinking I might take my black beans, cooked with onion, garlic and balsamic vinegar (yum!).

I haven’t had coffee since Saturday, and I haven’t had any sugary beverages today.  I do need to drink a lot more water, though, so I’m going to go get some right now…

Resolutions

I’ve never been particularly good about Resolutions, but I recognize that I need to make some serious changes in my life.  For me, I need to make myself publicly accountable.  In October of 2009, I embarked on a 30-day Nutritional Detox program, with the goal of losing some weight and gaining some energy.  I wrote about my progress on Facebook every single day, and I found that really helped.

I do have some things I wnat to incorporate into my life much more reegularly in 2012, so it’s entirely possible that I’ll be blogging more frequently on those various topics.

One thing I want and need to practice more regularly is Meditation and Self-Hypnosis.  I feel much more connected to my life and to my Joy when I do this at least 5 times a week.  I find the mornings to be the most conducive times for this, before my girls wake up.  Sadly, I’m NOT really a morning person, myself, and I often find myself opting for 30 more minutes of sleep instead of that necessary mental / physical / spriritual exercise.

Another is to eat (and drink!) more mindfully.  I tend to get very busy during the day, to the point where I often only eat 1 meal a day.  With everything I know about healthful eating practices, I know I need to be eating at least 3 meals a day, and probably more like 5 or 6 small meals throughout the day.  I also need to drink a LOT more water and cut back on my coffee intake dramatically.  For me, it’s not the caffeine that’s the problem, but the large amounts of sugar and cream I take with my coffee…  Plus, when I drink coffee every day, it tends to upset my stomach.

I’ve come to realize, though, that I seem to be addicted to sugar.  If I don’t drink my coffee, I’m much more likely to grab a chai (also very sweet and creamy) or a soda (the real thing, thanks, no diet stuff for me), or to eat foods loaded with empty calories.  So it’s my intention to pay much closer attention to what I’m eating and drinking, and how much.  I do need to allow myself some room for indulgence, or I’ll fall off the wagon in a big way.

Yet another thing I need to change is the amount of movement I engage in.  I enjoy walking, and I’ve been eyeing the gangs of bicyclists that roam my mother’s neighborhood at all hours of the day.  When it’s warm enough (and the public pools are open), I like to swim.  I’ve got some Pilates DVDs, and dancing is always fun.   There’s certainly no shortage of things I *could* be doing to burn calories and keep myself flexible and strong – it’s just a matter of actually getting off the couch and DOING them!

And finally, housekeeping.  This isn’t something I enjoy, or prioritize.  I have piles of clean laundry because I hate doing anything laundry-related once it’s come out of the dryer (everything up to that point is fine, for some reason).  Dishes tend to pile up more than I’d like.  And my recycling bin is overflowing, waiting to be taken outside to the big can.  I want to set a better example to my girls, so I’m committing to spending some time EACH DAY to getting my house looking more like a home.

I’m not comfortable saying that I’m making New Year’s Resolutions to manage these things I’ve stated above, but I will say that I’m keeping them at the top of my priority list.  To keep me honest, I’ll plan to blog on these topics at least a few times a week.

30 Day Blog Challenge, Day 22: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

How have I changed?  Since when?  Since I was born?  Since I became an adult?  Since I became a mother?  Since last year?  Last month?  Yesterday?

In many ways, I think I haven’t changed very much at all.  Fundamental things like the color of my eyes and the fact that I love living in Austin, TX have always been a part of me.  I still love music, cats, good BBQ, and spending holidays with my family.

But in many ways, I have changed over the years.  When I was in high school, I didn’t know anybody (that I knew of at that time) who was gay or bisexual, and it was an unfamiliar, uncomfortable concept for me.  Today, I know and love many people who are gay and bisexual, and I’m a staunch supporter of their right to love and marry whomever they choose, to have all the same rights and responsibilities as the rest of us.  I’m tired of a certain segment of our population being denied the same rights that are granted to the rest of our citizens – no matter WHAT that segment of our population might be.  If it’s wrong to deny rights to people of a certain skin color or to people with certain genitalia, then it’s wrong to deny rights to people who vote differently than we do, or who pray differently than we do, or who love and want to marry someone of their own sex.

When I was in high school, I was taught that I should “save myself” for the man I was going to marry, and that marriage was forever.  Well, I did “save myself,” and it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.  Neither of us knew what we were doing, and I think he’d gotten many of his ideas about what sex was “supposed” to be like from porn magazines and movies.  Sex was the single biggest problem of our marriage – the fact that I wasn’t in the mood as frequently as I “should” be, or that I didn’t enjoy a particular aspect of foreplay as much as I “should” meant that there was clearly something wrong with me.  For those 3 years I was married to him, and for a few years after I divorced him, I built a large amount of my self worth on whether or not I was attractive to men.  I’m so glad I came to realize and embrace the fact that I have a LOT more to bring to a relationship than my sexuality.

Before I had children of my own, and realized that even at a very young age they have distinct personalities, and means of expressing their preferences without needing words, I was guilty of giving the parents of apparently unruly children “that look.”  You know, the sanctimonious “my child(ren) will NEVER act that way in public!” look.  While dining in the back corner of a restaurant one evening, with my older daughter (then my only child), who was not hungry and who was bored and who wanted to climb all over the seats and the people occupying them at our booth, a young couple with a new baby was seated a few tables away, and I saw them giving ME “the look.”  I remember laughing to myself and thinking “just you wait until your wee one grows up just a little bit more and that personality really starts to emerge!”  While I certainly believed then (and still do!) that certain behavior can be expected and enforced in public, I also believe that one should know and understand the limits of ones own child(ren).  Some kids will be willing and able to behave perfectly well in a fine dining establishment, while others should not be allowed to go out to any restaurant more grown-up than McDonalds because they just WILL NOT be still and quiet.  If my children ever started to act in an inappropriate fashion in public (temper tantrums being the most notorious examples I can think of), I would give them a warning and a chance to calm down, and then I would leave if necessary – getting the rest of the meal to go, or finishing up my shopping errands at a later time when they were not with me.  But yeah, I do remember believing that I could weild ultimate control over my children – before I ever even had them.  HA!

There are other ways in which I’ve changed.  My body is certainly changing as I get older.  My joints get a little more creaky and achy now.  My eyesight is changing (I had 20/10 distance vision for most of my life, so it was a terrible blow when I needed corrective lenses in order to be able to drive).  There are these lovely little things called skin tags popping up here and there, and I’m really, really, REALLY ready to be done with this peri-menopause thing.  I can’t eat everything I want all the time now for fear of gaining too much weight, and drinking coffee every day can tend to irritate my stomach.

Change is inevitable, and ultimately, I belive that change is good.  I am sometimes a little slow to adapt easily to change, as I am generally a creature of habit and comfort, and change is rarely comfortable or easy, but I do embrace change as an opportunity, and I even seek change for growth.  I’ve recently seen a quote making the rounds on Facebook that I like:  “The 3 Cs of life: Choices, Chances, Changes.  You must make a Choice to take a Chance, or your life will never Change!”

So I’m making a Choice to take some Chances and make some Changes in 2012.  I’m not sure yet what all the Chances or Changes will be, but some of them include:

• More regular meditation / self-hypnosis time
• More regular movement / exercise time
• I’ve hired a Coach to kick my butt, find my hidden passion(s) and help me make an action plan!
• More action in business instead of thinking and planning and dreaming
• Less sugar, greater focus on healthful and mindful eating for better overall health and energy

I look forward to sharing my Journey with you here.

To *Bleep* or Not to *Bleep*, That is The Question…

I admit it, I have a tendency to use “colorful” language when I’m around my closest friends and people I’m completely comfortable with.  Sometimes, there’s just nothing that quite gets your point across as vehemently and satisfactorily (if not eloquently) as a well-placed f-bomb.  In part, I blame my father for this tendency – I grew up hearing that language around the home all the time.

Oh, don’t get me wrong – I can be perfectly polite and well-behaved if need be.  I have an extensive vocabulary, and I’m not afraid to use it.  I realize there are plenty of times and places where an expletive is entirely inappropriate.  I’ve made every effort to provide a good example to my children by not cursing within their hearing (although an occasional &*%#@ has certainly escaped in moments of heightened frustration, pain or anger at one thing or another).

I have fond memories of my 12th grade English teacher, Mrs. Ouida Whiteside, who had a knack of dropping creative not-quite-curse words.  Her favorite was “Bug Dust!”  Apparently, she grew up in a VERY strict family, where even “gosh” was considered inappropriate, so she made up her own expletives.  I’ve found myself doing something somewhat similar when around my children or other people with whom I’m not certain just HOW they’ll react to my considerably less refined use of the spoken language.  I’ve adopted “frelling” from a past favorite sci-fi show (Farscape), and I often use “freaking” when I’d prefer to use something else that also starts with “f”…  “Dang” and “darn” have been known to leave my lips after a brief hesitation for my mouth to shape the less-offensive syllable.

However…  I’ve been attempting to explain to my children that while people do curse, it can create the impression that you are not intelligent enough to express yourself clearly WITHOUT resorting to crude and possibly offensive language (even when you clearly ARE).  Sometimes, you WANT to offend, or to get the attention of the person(s) to whom you are talking, so you might choose to insert a choice and crass word or string of words into your conversation.  I’ve created a sort of cognitive dissonance with friends in the past when, in an attempt to get them to smile or laugh, I’ve told them to “Cheer the f*#@ up!”  It usually works.  Sometimes those words are completely appropriate – when explaining that Hell is a place, for example, and that being damned is how you get there, or that a bastard is someone whose parents weren’t married, or that the word bitch is actually a perfectly acceptable descriptor for a female dog but not a female human.

Where do you draw the line with regards to polite and appropriate usage of these words?  Is “derierre” or “tush” really less offensive than “bottom” or “butt” or “ass?”  Why are you discussing somebody’s (or possibly your own) “rump” with someone else anyway?  Is it solely dependent upon the situation?  Does using a more “polite” or “acceptable” substitute create less of an impact, or does it honestly disguise the fact that somewhere in your mind you’re likely screaming the “real” word you’d rather say?

Sometimes I feel kind of like I ought to follow the example set by The Bloggess – she actually has an alternate blog that she calls The Good Bloggess, where she doesn’t use curse words…  Okay, well, maybe she doesn’t do that anymore, because now I can’t find any online references to it.  Maybe I hallucinated that whole thing.  Shoot…  I mean, oh, never mind, you probably know what I mean by now anyway.

Wisdom (And Love) From Unexpected Sources

More than 20 years ago, my younger sister got married for the first time.  The marriage didn’t work out, and now she’s been married to a great guy for more than 15 years.  The one good thing that came out of that first marriage (for me, at least), was a source of comedy gold.  And possibly, at long last, wisdom.

My sister’s first husband was an only child whose father was a New York Jew and mother had been in the Hitler Youth (when you were young and living in Germany at that time, that’s what you did whether you embraced that philosophy or not).  Needless to say, they were an interesting couple.  I honestly don’t remember if the grooms mothers parents came to the wedding or not.  I *do*, however, remember that his fathers mother showed up with her husband, Harley.

She had, of course, been invited, but she hadn’t indicated whether she would come or not, and frankly nobody expected her to.  On Friday night, I was getting ready to leave my parents house to go to the church for the rehearsal when the phone rang.  I was the only one here, so I answered it.  I heard a very thick New York accent asking “Hello, is Teresa there?”  Now my sister had been living in her own home for a few years at that point, so I couldn’t figure out why anybody would be calling for her here.  I answered “no.”

The thickly accented voice informed me “This is Georgies Grandma – we’re here for the Rehearsal Dinner.”  I remember thinking “Oh, boy! Nobody knows she’s here, she wasn’t expected!”  Per her request, I gave her husband directions to the church, then left myself to get there as quickly as possible and let everybody know she was coming.

From the moment she walked into the building, she commanded everybody’s attention.  She was all of about 4’12” tall, and started grandly telling EVERYBODY to call her Bubby (Yiddish for grandmother), and calling everybody “Darling” (I presume it was easier than trying to remember every new persons name).  She also declared “I love you!” to everybody within earshot.  Multiple times.  And issued invitations to her home in Florida.  Well, not really invitations so much as commandments: “Darling, I LOVE you!  Come see me in Florida!  You’ll love our place.  Everybody loves our place.  Call us from the airport, Harley will drive…”

I found myself irresistibly drawn to imitating her through the course of the weekend.  I have a tendency (when I’m not paying attention to it) to acoustically mirror the people I’m speaking with (the groom in question at this wedding called me a Linguistic Chameleon).  I’m always afraid they’re going to be offended, or think I’m mocking them, but I really just can’t help it.  Bubby was a delight to imitate – her vocal inflections, her tonality, her phrasing.  She was just such a delicious character to immerse myself in.  I didn’t imitate her in her hearing, or in the hearing of her son.  Her grandson, the groom, though, thought it was wonderful, and asked me more than once to call his father and “do Bubby” on the phone.  I regaled people who didn’t come to the wedding with tales of Bubby.

Two girls in our office (my sister and I worked together at that time) regularly donned “old lady” clothes for Halloween and adopted the personas of their mothers, Doris and Shirley.  I was invited to join them and channel Bubby all day.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do it for an entire day.

I’ve gotten laughs over my impression of Bubby for *years*.  I was just sharing Bubby with my friend Erin Byrne the other day, and she said it was a great schtick that I could use in a comedy show.  My friend Dario told me years ago that I should do a comedy bit, and my coach, Dana Minney, has challenged me to get up on stage and do something (comedy, or music, or hypnosis, anything really, as long as I have fun doing it), and I was thinking last night of how I could incorporate the Bubby schtick into an act.

*WHAM*!  I was suddenly hit with inspiration.  All these years of laughing about Bubby, and she’s having the laugh on me for a change.  Yes, I want to be on a stage.  I can see myself very easily in a large arena with hundreds or thousands of people listening to what I have to say.  The problem (up until now) has been that I didn’t feel I had a grasp on a message.  I’ve got some good tools, and some good ideas.  Centered In Joy is a sort of an umbrella for me, and I feel like it will be a big part of my message.  And Bubby has just become part of my message – because I suddenly FELT, after more than 20 years, that she was being genuine when she was telling everybody “Darling, I LOVE you!”

Dana asked me at our first meeting how open I was to love – to loving and being loved and being touched and embraced by love.  Without conditions.  And I’ve been thinking about it off and on ever since.  In *theory* I’d like to believe that I’m completely open to unconditional love.  It’s a beautiful concept.  But I’m human, and there are so many filters in place that make it difficult, even nearly impossible, to REALLY open to unconditional love.  For every single person on the planet.

One of my all-time favorite authors is Robert A. Heinlein.  He has many quotes that I like, but this one comes to mind at the moment: “The more you love, the more you can love – and the more intensely you love.  Nor is there any limit on how many you can love.  If a person had enough time, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.”  While I love this quote, it, too, provides limitations.  What about loving the people who are NOT decent and just?

Keep in mind that when I talk about loving someone, I don’t necessarily mean that you have to *like* them, or even to know them.  Nor do you have to love everything that they do.  And that’s where it gets sticky, in my mind.  The concept of love has always been intensely personal.  I can’t love someone unless I know them.  And chances are, if I don’t particularly like them, I won’t get past that to allow myself to love them.

But what if love didn’t have to be so personal, and therefore something so small?  What if it could be elevated to something larger, grander, more Divine?  What if it could become LOVE?  What if I could allow the Divine spark that resides within me to resonate with the Divine spark that resides within each and every single other person living on the face of this planet?  All 7 Billion of you?

This is the gift that Bubby gave me at 1:30 in the morning.  It startled me so much, I almost let myself forget all about it – it’s too big, it’s too important, it’s too earth-shattering, it’s too much for me.  But I didn’t forget it, and I don’t think I will.  Bubby won’t let me.  And now that I’ve written about it, Dana won’t let me.  Vicki Flaugher won’t let me – she recently dubbed me The Joy Diva, and I think I might have to steal that and make it my new Job Title!  Erin won’t let me, my new Twitter Twin with whom I am sharing a fascinating journey of discovery.

Most importantly, though, is the knowledge that LOVE itself won’t let me forget.  This is only the beginning of my message.  My heart is expanding as I think how it would feel to sweep into a room full of mostly strangers, arms wide open, loudly declaring to one and all…

“Darling!  I LOVE you!!!”

30 Day Blog Challenge, Day 9: Any Job

If I could have any job, what would it be?

Well, see, that’s a problem, because I don’t really WANT a “job.”  I’ve proven (or had proven to me, perhaps) time and time again that I just don’t seem to be cut out to be an employee.  Nearly every job I’ve had in the technical sector has ended with me being laid off, or the contract wasn’t renewed, or it just flat out got canceled.  Several other jobs worked out in the same way.  The longest I’ve ever stayed employed by the same company was about three and a half years, and I managed that three times.  I actually enjoyed all three of those jobs for different reasons, but the last one was by far my favorite – I answered an ad for a hypnotist at a weight loss center (“will train!”).  I didn’t actually get the job when I originally applied – they opted for someone with more experience than I had – but about 8 months later when that person left, they called me back and asked if I was still interested.  It was a small company – I think the largest we ever got was a total of 13 people on staff, including the owners – and we felt like family.

But from the day I started training there, I had a vision to be self-employed.  I think I’ve always felt more like an entrepreneur than an employee, but I never had any idea about how to BE one (or what to DO), so I never really did anything about it.

Well before I started working there, I became a Customer and a Marketing Executive with a company called Melaleuca.  I never got very good at the Network Marketing gig, but 10 years later I’m still using their environmentally safe and cost-effective products in my home.  I had very high hopes for that “job,” and I put in a lot of work.  I built a small team, and I still have a very small residual income every month, which is kind of nice.  But I got a taste for being my own boss, and I definitely got a taste for residual income and multiple income streams…

Being a hypnotist has been the most rewarding job/career/vocation I could imagine – and I found that it was just as rewarding (although in a completely different way) as playing music (whether I got paid to do that or not, although there’s a LOT to be said for getting paid to do something you LOVE to do…).  I’m glad I sought further, more advanced training, and I enjoy working freelance now.  Although I need a lot more expertise with marketing and sales…

You might not guess this if you don’t know me personally, but I rather enjoy being the center of attention.  I’d really love to combine that enjoyment with my love of hypnosis and develop a Stage Hypnosis show.

I also realized, while watching Krish Dhanam speak at the Get Motivated! Seminar the other day, that I want to do what he does – speak, amuse, inspire and bless people.  I really loved his energy, his delivery, and his message.  I’m just not sure I have a message within me with the potential to be as as powerful as his.  I feel like Centered in Joy has a great deal of potential, and I have these sort-of-rather-vague ideas about products (like books, seminars, webinars, etc), but no real clue about where to start with any of it (other than this blog right here and now).

And then there’s my Mary Kay business, which I also enjoy very much.  I just gained my third Team Member, which officially qualifies me to wear the coveted Red Jacket (first step towards Leadership), and I’m very excited about that!  I ordered my jacket on Tuesday, and I hope it arrives by Saturday morning, because we’ve got a big training / meeting going on then and I’d like to wear it for the first time!!!  If all goes according to my desires here, and I achieve the National Sales Director position, I’ll be on a large stage (metaphorically AND literally) with the opportunity to do exactly what I was talking about in the previous paragraph.

So, if I could have any job in the world, what would it be?  Essentially what I’m doing now, only… MORE.  BIGGER.  BETTER.  I want to help every person in this world learn to find their center, whatever it might be.  Mine is Joy, and I would love for everybody else to at least be able to live Joyfully.  But someone else might be Centered in Love.  Or Centered in Truth.  Or Centered in Beauty.  Or any one of about 7 BILLION other things, each one as unique as each of us.

 

30 Day Blog Challenge, Day 2: 10 Years

Today’s topic is “Where would I like to be in 10 years?”

I’d like to be financially secure and well-off. Both of my daughters should have graduated high school by then, will possibly both be in college, and will possibly be living on their own. While a decent chunk of my income will likely still be heading in their direction, I’m hoping that more of it will be available to me for investing, saving, spending and playing.

I’d like to be living in my dream house, which will be something I’ve helped to design and build myself. My home is spacious and comfortable, intimate and inviting, my cozy sanctuary and a place where I can eagerly welcome friends and family. I live far enough away from town that I have space to spread out over several acres and close enough that I don’t feel isolated from my social circles.

I’d like to be a seasoned traveler at that point, domestically as well as internationally. There are so many places in this world that I’d love to see, and to share with my daughters!

You might ask “what is the vehicle that will get you there?” And I would have to say “that is a very good question!”

One viable vehicle is Mary Kay. Of course, I’d have to sell a LOT of lipstick to earn the kind of living I want, but a more lucrative path than strictly selling Mary Kay skin care and cosmetics is Leadership, and that’s where I want to go.

I’ve already started building a team of Consultants, and I’m thrilled to have them join me on this journey. I’m aiming to earn the status of Director, but I don’t intend to stop there! Once I become a Director, my goal will be to develop other Directors and to eventually become a National Sales Director.

The NSD position is where the financial security is found – after retirement at age 65, an NSD has a GUARANTEED income for 15 years, and if she dies, that income is still paid to her family. That’s a retirement plan I’d love to have in place.

It’s ALL about helping and serving others! As a Consultant, I help women find skin care and beauty solutions. As a Team Builder, I help women find a source of additional income, help them develop as a person and as a business-woman. As a Leader, I help women learn to pass it on, to make a difference in their own lives, in the lives of their families, and in the lives of their own customers and team members.

Will that be my only vehicle? I don’t know! My Coach, Dana Minney, has challenged me to “be outrageous and famous!” I can probably handle outrageous, as nearly anybody who knows me can tell you… But famous? I’m not sure I know much about that!

Will I / can I become “famous” within 10 years? I know I don’t especially want the kind of fame I see happening to celebrities, but I think I could handle the kind of Rock Star treatment I see being given to the Mary Kay NSDs…! Vicki Flaugher (who was a huge source of inspiration for me to start writing this blog / website) has an e-book on being “Famous In Your Niche.” That’s the kind of fame I’d like to have – recognition for being among the very best in my chosen field!