Professionally Speaking...

Do you know what I do professionally?

When I am feeling inspired, I call myself a "Human Potentialist", someone who helps people to believe in themselves, in their potential, and to find work that allows them to express who they are in the world -- for a return. For money. Other times, I call myself a "Reinventionist" because I help people to reinvent who they are in the world and how they contribute work. I've even been called a "Corporate Deprogrammer" because I've helped a lot of my clients out of traditional corporate jobs into more entrepreneurial ventures.

My core philosophy is the unifying principle that underlies all of my work. Here's what I tell my clients: I believe that in today's world, your "job" is to figure out your God-given talents, to use those talents to make a contribution to the world, in alignment with your purpose, which will give you a sense of meaning and fulfillment. And, that's how you make money.

Some people call me a career coach, others an executive coach, and my clients, a life coach. I've never liked monikers or labels. What I do is to help people figure out who they are and how they want to express that in the world, for a return. For money.

I'm not just a career coach because I have my clients think about work in the context of their lives. Far beyond a job, I help my clients design lives they want to live, of which work is just one component.

I love working with executives, to help them think about how to leverage themselves, -- their strengths, talents and abilities, to make a larger contribution to their company, to the business. Sometimes I even help my executive clients to reinvent their businesses.

I would never call myself a life coach because, well, while I do love to help my clients think about their lives, my focus is helping them to figure out how they want to "work". There is a focus on "work." (To me, "work is play" especially when you are just exercising your gifts, but more about that later.)

So,now that you know a little bit more about me and what I do...what would you call me? What do I do? Please leave your comments for me...

Miss Flo's Daughter Got Married...

What a thrill...

Miss Flo's daughter got married today. What a happy day...I remember the day, over a year ago, when Miss Flo got the news that her daughter's husband was killed by a drunk driver while riding on his motorcycle. It was a tragedy. And, today, that pain is replaced with joy by knowing that she is getting married again.

We went to the wedding in Hardeeville, SC at the Greater Pentecostal Tabernacle -- the church was festively decorated with flowers, candles. Her father, Miss Flo's husband Jerome, walked his daughter down the aisle. Everyone looked beautiful -- and family was everywhere...sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, cousins, nephews, nieces, daughters of the bride and groom.

We went to the Agape Family Life Center for the celebration afterwards, a 22,000 square foot structure that was the fulfillment of a vision held by the pastor, a building which stands ready to offer services and classes and day care and Youth Ministry for the community. We ate yummy food -- chicken and ribs and punch and cake and talked to folks who happened to live in our hometown of Sheldon. It was a blast --

We drove home in the rain, feeling warm and fuzzy inside, feeling privileged to have witnessed something as sacred as the sacrament of marriage and the exchange of vows and the joy of finding love again. We hadn't been to a wedding since our own almost a year ago...and it reaffirmed feelings of the tender love we have for each other. Sigh... I still pinch myself sometimes...I'm so...well, I want to say lucky, but that's not the right word...I'm so blessed...

Meeting Joe

Earlier tonight, husband and I decided to support a local business -- Ray's Ribs in Yemassee, SC. Actually, the real name of the place is "Ray's Rib King" because Ray is King of the ribs.

You've never eaten "ribs" until you've eaten Ray's. They are awesome! Beyond finger-lickin' good. For this Yankee, just some of the best home-cooked food I've ever eaten. YUMMY.

Not diet food, of course, but great stuff. I had the ribs, red rice, beans and rutabaga that was so sweet, it tasted like candy. Someday I'm gonna git me some Homemade Sweet Potato Pie!

As we were eatin', I looked out the window and saw two guys in suits getting out of what looked like an SUV. Out-of-towners, I guessed. Sure enough, it was my Congressman Joe Wilson and his District Director, Butch Wallace. You never know who you are going to meet in these parts -- and where. So, after a lot of handshaking and card exchanging and ordering food and photo-taking with the Ray's Ribs ladies, they got ready to take off. Before they did, we asked that Congressman Wilson send our regards to our "friend" in Congress. Wink, wink.

Apologies to My Readers

Geez, I'm really falling down on my regular writing -- don't you worry, I've accumulated quite a numer of posts to share with you -- posts about readjusting, getting ready for spring, teaching seminars, redecorating, elder care -- all sorts of stuff. This weekend I'll write them up and start posting -- one a day.

Stay tuned...and thanks for coming back!

Happiness Is...

In the morning, my husband and I take time to appreciate each other.

This morning he said to me: "My job is to make you happy. No, that's not it. My job is to create an enironment where you can find your own happiness."

That's an enormous distinction that has taken me years to figure out. I have lived my life, wanting others to be happy, doing for them, trying, expending energy to make them happy. To no avail. And, to my detriment.

What I've learned is...you can't make any one happy. They have to choose it for themselves. Easy to say, hard to do sometimes. The most important thing is to understand that not only is it impossible to make someone else happy, but it is not your responsibility either. They must choose for themselves.

It's very hard to sit and watch somone else close to you actually choose to be unhappy. I have people right now, not my husband, who are choosing, unconsciously or otherwise, to be unhappy, feeling victimized. It has caused me pain. Now I see that it's the best that people like this can do and I have compassion for them. In some way, it serves them to be unhappy. Whether they define themselves as the victim and enjoy the attention and perceived sympathy, which they mistake for love, or whether they like being unhappy because of the drama and attention, or whether they choose to be unhappy and complain because it keeps them from seeing possibilities and living life fully, staying in their confined comfort zone which makes them feel safe, or finally, whether they feel unloveable, unworthy of love, and believe that unhappiness is their destiny, I have no idea. So, I just stand by. And, love.

A friend wrote to me the other day and told me that she wasn't feeling well, that she had a cold, that her father had been staying with her, and that it made her sad that all he did was talk about how badly he felt. Here's what I wrote to her: "Here's my guess about your dad. He's feeling lonely and wants to be loved. The best way he can find to feel that love is to make people feel sorry for him because he doesn't feel well. so he chooses to complain about how he feels to engender the feelings of sympathy, which he mistakes for love. Try to find a way to love him without feeling sucked into feeling guilty or sad or sympathetic, without being sucked into his pain. You can love him, on your terms, generously and unconditionally. "

All I can do is love such people, an act which which seems difficult to do sometimes. But, then I remember what my dear friend Kelly says: "Everything is either an expression of love or a cry for love." I see choosing to be unhappy as a desparate cry out for love. So, I just love. Really love. Provide unconditional love, seeing them as loveable, and holding a space for them to walk into that love, whenever they are ready to accept it for themselves. Love is all around them. They just can't see it.

Do you know you are loved? I mean, really loved. Unconditionally loved? If not, you might want to watch this movie, called Do You Know?

Click here to watch: http://www.bettertobless.com/movie3.html

Getting Buzzed

This is a picture of two F-18s flying overhead.

We live near the Marine Air Force base. So near in fact, that some of the missions require the Marine Air pilots to fly right over our house. And, they fly low. Really low. So low that the house shakes under the supersonic sound waves.

My husband tells me that when the planes are flying a mission over our house that they are practicing taking off from the short runway and that they are doing this to prepare for a deployment overseas. He should know. He's a retired Marine.

When these F-18s fly over, our house shakes and rattles and even though I have my door to the outside closed, I have to stop talking on the phone because people on the other end of the line can't hear me. All they hear is the sound of the plane. It's fearsome.

Mary tells me that folks down here say: "Listen to the sounds of freedom." To me, they sound more like the sounds of war.

Blog Review

Last week, a girlfriend sent me an email, which said:

“So, I took a look at your website! I love the blog entries - if someone didn't know you, they might find it all self-indulgent, but I find it quite interesting, amusing, thought-provoking!”

Over the weekend, I went to an oyster roast where I saw a neighbor who told me: “I have been reading your blog. I get to know you much better than I do by talking to you at dinner parties.”

Just today, I was talking to another friend in our community who said to me:

“Why do you write your blog? It’s very interesting. I know more about you than I do my best friend.”

So, why do I write this blog? There are many reasons…

This life transition is a HUGE one for me – from single to married, North to South, urban to rural, everything is different. As I may have written before, when I came down to the Lowcountry to be with my husband, I decided to be happy. Yep, I just decided to be happy. I believe that you can choose to focus on the good in your life, from the way the sunlight shines through the trees to the kindness of new friends to the excitement of learning about a new place and its experiences. Or, you can decide to be unhappy and focus on all the things from your old experience you are lacking in your new one (like Starbucks’ lattes and the home delivery of the New York Times).

Having said that, I knew that despite this decision to be happy, it would be challenging sometimes because the life shift is so big, and it is occurring on so many levels – mental, emotional, spiritual and professional.

I wanted to chronicle that shift, to capture the newness of it all, to shine a Yankee light on the Southern ways in order to give a fresh perspective to people of the Lowcountry who are so familiar with this way of life down here that they might not see certain things, in the same way that tourists used to give me fresh eyes to see New York, and to give Yankees a view into the Southern lifestyle which, in their eyes, is like the movie Deliverance. I wanted to describe the hilarity of my new life -- , especially when you compare that life to my life in the city. (BTW, my husband is especially hilarious. More on this in another email…I’ll be showcasing his hilarity!)

Finally, I know I’ll learn and grow and transform in the process and I would like to share that process with my readers. I have accepted that my new life will probably be a ride, and that there will be scary as well as exhilarating moments. Come and join this ride with me. It will take us places, I know.

My Little Secret

Don't tell anybody this, but...

I love to eat at Chick-Fil-A! It's one of my favorite places to eat. I've had lunch there twice this week.

Yum....

PS. It's one of the few places that serves "grilled" chicken, as opposed to "fried"...

Clearing Clutter Stuff

Last weekend, my husband went to North Carolina to attend a business meeting and to ski. Our house is about a 6 hour drive.

I had a decision to make. To join my husband or to stay here in South Carolina where I could continue my nesting process -- unpacking boxes from my apartment in New York, rearranging furniture in the house and creating that sense of home for us. (Here's my office, where I've been sorting through boxes and papers! Can't believe I'm showing you this!) It seems like just as I'm about to get into a rhythm here in the Lowcountry I launch off somewhere else-- to New York or elsewhere. This feels disruptive to my settling in and establishing rhythms.

As a newlywed, I don't like being away from my husband. After all, it took me a half a lifetime to find him. And, we have so much fun together -- on an hourly basis -- that I miss the laughter and lightness when he's not here. I also LOVE to snowski, and I knew the weather reports were for about a foot of snow in the North Carolina mountains. It's so romantic to be in our NC house with the fireplace blazing, the snow falling, and sitting in the overstuffed leather chairs that face the floor to ceiling windows that look out over the valley and the mountains in the distance. Ahhhhh....

That house has a special resonance for me because it was in that house that Landon and I really started falling in love as it was a rendez-vous place during our courtship, a convenient location between New York and South Carolina. But, at some level, I knew that it just felt right to stay in our South Carolina house so that I could create order in our home, especially in my office. I still had 7 boxes of papers that I brought from New York that had to be sorted and filed or tossed so that I can really start building my business from a clean platform. There was a symmetry to our decision. My husband got to spend time going through 'stuff" and recreating space in the mountains as I went through my "stuff" in the Lowcountry.

Going through stuff connects you to memories of the past -- what you did, what you didn't do, the decisions you made. the things that were important to you. I went through pictures, laughed when I saw the big hair and shoulder pads of the 80's and smiled when I went through all of the family shots. I kept a lot of those. Going through stuff inspires you to consider the things you saved, to think of the reasons behind why you held onto something, and sometimes to realize that you have outgrown the need to save something that used to be precious but now is not.

Going through stuff helps you to get perspective on life's journey. It gives you a snapshot of your past -- in the context of the present. It gives you a sense of how you have grown and changed and evolved and transformed.

Going through papers led to mixed emotions. There were the half-written articles, the unfinished books, the coaching program I had planned to do but didn't. Lot's of unfinished work. Why, I wondered? I was filled with a sense of regret that I didn't bring more things to completion, but then was reminded by how much I did accomplish -- the consulting project with the British Film Association, the long-term coaching of a CEO, my first telesummit event. I finished all of those projects. And, then I realized that the only unfinished projects that I had were the ones where I was exercising my creativity, sharing my insights and theories about the workplace. Was I afraid to put them out in public for the world to see? I'm looking forward to bringing them into being now. Because now is the time.

That clearing process was cathartic. It brought me in touch with where I have invested my energy in the last 10 years, where I diverted energy, and where I would like to place my energy going forward. Now I can make a decision to bring some of these creative projects forward, if I want to and if it seems right. I'll finish some of those articles and maybe complete a book or two.

Making decisions about what to keep and what to toss is empowering because you get to choose what is important, what to clear away and that process of conscious elimination brings clarity. You get to decide what is important in your life. You get to decide what you need to move you forward. You get to decide what to strip away that is holding you back. You get to streamline and bring into focus all of those things that will impel you forward. You get to decide.

And, that is empowering.

Ride 'N Dine Tonight

Tonight is the Brays Island Ride 'N Dine. I'm more "dine" than "ride" these days, but I'd like to change that. Just this morning I spoke to Jim at the Equestrian Center about starting my riding lessons again. I haven't been on a horse since the end of January. Think the ladies at Brays are giving up on me?!

My husband will ride Comet, the Wonder Horse. Isn't he a cutie? (I meant my husband, of course.) :o)

Comet is a Marsh Tacky, a type of indigenous horse that ran wild on plantations down here in South Carolina for centuries. Marsh Tackies can actually trace their bloodlines back to Spain and have their origins in the 16th century when Spanish colonists sailed to new lands with ships full of animals and supplies, which they would unload on islands to be used for provender for the next trip. They had a different logistical long-term planning approach from the English settlers who preferred to take with them what they needed for that trip.

The Marsh Tacky horse has been an endangered species, there are less than 200 left in this country. You can read all about them here: http://www.marshtacky.org/

Qualities or traits of a marsh tacky? According to the website, Marsh Tacky horses are "excellent on trails, sure-footed and swamp-savvy " Alligators don't spook them. The heat doesn't bother them. They know how to forage on grasses down here.

My husband selected his horse from a group of wild horses that used to run on a plantation down here in the Lowcountry. When he was a little boy, he used to climb up a fence and then onto the back of his childhood horse and together they would ride bareback down the deserted beaches and into the rivers, where his horse would roll over onto her side, while my husband, as a boy, would scamper off her back to sit on her other side so that she could scissor-kick and propel them both to the other side. Marsh Tacky horses can swim!

Hopefully, that won't be necessary tonight.

BTW, have I told you that in the last 3 times that my husband has ridden Comet, he has bucked? What do you think Comet is trying to tell my husband? Please offer your comments in the section below...

It's Tuesday...

...and that means it is my day to write my post for the Beyond the Stuff blog. Except for one thing.

The BTS gals are on a break.

Well, we tried.

After 5 months of blogging, conversations, recorded podcasts, and an off-site, the Beyond the Stuff gals have decided to “take a break.” We are going to let everything lie for 6 weeks and see where we are.

On one level, it felt like a relationship break up. On another level, it felt incredibly freeing.

You see, there were two very divergent points of view emerging within the group. One perspective was that we should organize and push for our brand, our "business" to get viewers, to develop an audience, to "become something." We had roles, responsibilities and deadlines. There was a lot of pushing, driving, "going for it" energy.

The other point of view was that we would all commit to show up for a podcast recording each week. Beyond that, each of us would pursue opportunities for the group as each one of us individually felt impelled. One of the women began to consider book ideas, another one looked into caricatures. There was a sense of staying in flow, letting each member follow her daily inspiration and take action only when feeling that internal impulsion from something outside of oneself, divine guidance. This group believed on letting whatever it would be, emerge, and, that would be sufficient, in fact, beyond sufficient, and better than what they might have created without what felt like divine guidance. It would be what it would be...a manifestation of faith.

So, you can see how disparate these perspectives were and are. After receiving an email from one of the women who wanted to "drive" the enterprise forward, we concluded that these points of view were irreconcilable and so, short of breaking up completely, decided to take a break. Well, you know what happens when couples try to do that. It usually portends an end to the relationship. Not always, but usually.

And, so it is with us. I am very curious to see what happens from here. I sense that the women who want to drive, push, make something happen will work towards their vision and that perhaps, the women who want to stay in flow will experiment with how, staying true to themselves and their internal vision, will let something emerge. Something precious and unique.

We'll see...stay tuned...

PS. I haven't decided what to do with my blogposts over there at the BeyondTheStuff website. Think I'll migrate them over here...

The South is Burning...

Really.

I know that I'm making it sound like the Union troops are coming through and burning like they did on Sherman's March during the "War Between the States" or the "War of Northern Aggression," depending what side you were on. That's not what I mean.

But, everything is burning here. I'm writing this sitting on the upper porch, right outside my office, and I can smell the smoke in the air. Sometimes the smoke is so thick that the air looks cloudy or foggy or misty and it's really acrid to breathe. ACK!

I've been told that you burn the fields before you get ready to plant. I guess that makes sense, but to this silly Northerner, it seems strange, if not illegal. See, I came from a town that would fine you, send the police to issue a warrant, if anything smelled remotely smoky. Why, you can't even burn your leaves that you rake up after the leave come down in the fall. It's illegal. Bad for your neighbors health.

When I'm driving to town, along the marsh, I see smoke billowing up in the air and wonder what country I'm in. It is so alien to my sensibilities. Up north, in my hometown, if I saw such a fire or that much smoke, I would call the authorities, the Police and Fire Departments, for them to check out the situation. In the city, a fire meant disaster. Now, I just kind of keep driving, realize that it's a part of the rhythm of the land, and if the smoke gets real bad, I plug my nose and press the pedal to the metal to go faster and faster and faster until I can break through the greyish cloud to the fresh marsh air beyond.