Who says you HAVE to feel fear right now? (And, BTW, why are you listening to them?⁠)

This isn't about the realness COVID as a disease, or that many people are losing their jobs, have lost their businesses, or that we’re in the middle of the greatest economic recession of all time, or the new hardships we’re all facing to varying degrees with #quarantinelife.

THIS IS ABOUT QUESTIONING WHAT YOU'RE BEING TOLD TO FEEL IN THE MIDST OF HARDSHIP.

Who says you're "SUPPOSED" to feel panic?⁠

Who says you "SHOULD" feel fear?⁠

YOU FEEL WHAT YOU FREAKING FEEL. ⁠

Why can’t you feel joy, love, and a deeper connection to your family right now? ⁠

Who says you can’t be excited about the transformation going on both in your life and in the lives of everyone around the world? ⁠

Why can’t you feel gratitude for this time of hibernation from the busy and allow yourself to create??⁠

Who says you can't feel excited for this time of innovation and pivoting in your bu...

“My business isn’t essential for survival.”

Ummmm, excuse me? I thought as I stared at my client last week, my mouth agape. Now, look, I know a lot of people are labeling certain businesses as essential and non-essential, so I had to dive deeper.

“Essential for the survival of whom, specifically?” I asked, “For you. For it? For the people you serve?”

“Of course it’s essential for me,” she replied, “But for humanity when people are in crisis, it’s not like I’m in healthcare or selling food.”

“What are humans starving for more than food right now?”

She paused. 

I held the space for the appropriate cinematic moment before the #micdrop came out of my mouth.

“Connection.”

IT IS ONE OF OUR ESSENTIAL HUMAN NEEDS...WE’VE GOT SIX OF THEM.

When people are isolated, quarantined, unable to talk to others unable to escape their own home, if you have a product or a service that connects them to other humans, connects them back to themselves connects them to their family and their loved

“You wanna grab coffee, sometime? I’d love to pick your brain.”

Would you ever say that to a doctor? Or a therapist? Or a lawyer? 

“Hey, doc! I’ve got this thing going on in my stomach? You wanna grab coffee, sometimes? I’d love to pick your brain about what it could be.”

No! You’d make an appointment, pay the bill, and go have the freaking doctor check out your issue. 

Yet, so often, I’ve seen service-based entrepreneurs, especially when we first start out and are hungry for clients, we allow ourselves to be deluded by the “pick your brain” verbal opt-in thinking that it’s going to lead to that person becoming a client.

More often than not, I’ve seen the “pick your brain over coffee” really be - you doing the coaching, pouring your heart and soul out, and divulging your years of information and experience onto the table...for the price of a $5 cup of coffee. Ouch.

If you’re lucky it’s an $8 venti with whip. But still, it ain’t your normal coachi

One of my favorite bands of all time is Queen. When we temporarily relocated to Australia, Spike bought me a Freddy Mercury Funko doll (you know those tiny-body, giant-headed, fits in the palm of your hand toys) for my “office” area. 

Maybe it was the sunny-still vibe of another day in Queensland, or the butterflies flying past my windows, or my run past the building named “Rhapsody” in Surfer’s Paradise that morning, but in a moment of deep introspection, I spoke to my Freddy Funko. 

Look, I owned my crazy a long time ago, so this is not too out of the ordinary. I was looking for a connection. I believe everything happens FOR a reason, for our greater learning, growth, and evolution. So all of these things, all of these signs, I just could not ignore.

“What is it about Freddy Mercury? About Queen? About Rhapsody?” I mused. 

An official word-nerd, I looked up the definition.

Rhapsody /ˈrapsədi/

1.  an effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expre...

One of my favorite things about being a mom - okay, #letsbehonest, there are LOTS of favorite things - but one of them is children’s books. Being a obsessed with the mind and knowing what I know about subconscious programming, I keep a watchful eye on what lessons, learnings, books, and knowledge Declan is consuming right now. 

After we decided to hunker down in Australia for the next few months, I knew that we needed more books than What do You Do with an Idea and the rainbow book. Both great books...but this mama needed some variety. 

We were in Big W, and I saw this one book - The Lion Inside. It’s about how a little mouse who is ignored and feels small and forgotten, admires this Lion...and his ROAR. The mouse decides that if he had a ROAR like a lion, he could have a voice. So even though he was scared, even though he acknowledges that this might mean he becomes Lion’s dinner, he musters up the courage and he seeks out the Lion to teach him his

“I don’t know how you do it with a kid.”

Eight months ago one of my clients, a dedicated corporate career woman who thrived off of routine, structure, and spreadsheets, asked me this. She had spent the past decade in the same routine within the ”safety” of a job. She’d known me through two businesses - first as a Pilates client, then as a leadership coaching client. 

Fast forward to now, everyone is working from home, if they’re able to, and every kid is staying home and every parent has also become the teacher. No babysitters. No school. No playdates.  No nannies (unless you have the fancy luxury of a live-in nanny...and if so, rock on, Queen!!)

So how do you literally DO IT ALL? 

I‘ve built my business with my baby by my side, sometimes even on my chest, working from home with my husband. With three years of training, this shizzle is simple and effortless for me.

NO.1 - PUT THE MASK ON YOURSELF FIRST

Airplane survival 101 - when hitting turbule

“People tell me I’m too direct.” 

So often people misconstrue being direct for not caring.

It is because I am direct with you and a straight shooter that I care about you. 

LET YOUR YES MEAN YES, AND YOUR “NO” MEAN “NO.” 

One of the commitments I work to live by is…

IF IT’S NOT A ‘HELL YES’” - MEANING A JUMP UP IN THE AIR, OMG-I-AM-SO-EXCITED, DANCE-MY-ASS-OFF-EEEEEEEEEEEEK-YIPEE - THAN IT’S A “NO.”

This was a hard-fought lesson when I was a people-pleasing, please-everyone-love-me, addict’s daughter with daddy issues, but as I started to listen more to my soul, my heart, and trust my gut, and believe in myself more, I saw that me sacrificing my soul to please others served NO ONE. 

So I stopped. And I started saying “Yes” only to what I thought was 100% aligned. 

And, sure, sometimes, telling a friend a “no” or a client a “no” or telling a customer a “no” feels kinda crappy… at the moment. When I told my Pilates clients that I had to close my studio (aka a “no” to training

“I tears. I cry,” he whimpered to me with his puffy lower lip sticking out as he wiped away the two tear strains rolling down his cheek.

“Everybody cries, baby. Mama cries. Daddy cries. Ma cries. Pa cries. It’s okay to cry,” I say to Declan, “It just shows that you care so deeply.”

At that moment Declan mostly cared about not having Saline solution blown up his nose and having an ow-wow-wow. But a poignant lesson, nonetheless, no matter how small or big the problem may seem.

Sometimes as positive-forward-thinking leaders we feel the pressure to always be “on,” meaning we always have to be positive and forward-thinking. 

Nonsense. You’re not an automoton. You’re human.

Feelings hit. 

They happen. 

It’s natural and normal to feel feelings - all of them. 

And, yes, positive thinkers, that includes feeling sad, angry, peeved, frustrated, vengeful, rage, shame, guilt, fear, and the rest of the glorious spectrum of feelings that we have. 

WHEN YOU SUPPRESS

It’s easy to slip into doubt and fear. Doubt and fear are normal, human emotions. Everyone, from plebeians to queen, has experienced it. A Queen, however, knows just how much weight Fear can toss and for how long, before she kicks that b*tch right back to where she belongs...in the minds of the mediocre.

Fear will sit on your throne and rule your life if you let her, as she warps and rots your dream from the inside out, like an insipid virus. 

Her spies creep in through the catacombs of doubt, where the buried voices of those long gone echo.

Her armies surround your gates, waiting, daring you to expand, to reach higher, to climb rather, to grow bigger, to go beyond where you are now. 

For at that moment you do, she is right there to push back. 

TIME IS HER WEAKNESS. 

For it is through time that she gains her strength. 

EVERY PASSING DAY YOU DELAY, IS LIKE OXYGEN TO FEAR’S FIRE. 

Every moment you allow another ghost of the past haunt the present

“You gotta want kids if you want to be with me.”

He was 19 years older than me. In his first marriage, they had agreed not to have children. I was falling in love with him. I also knew I wanted kids. And I knew he would make a fantastic father. I wasn’t about to compromise on what I wanted. But, I was willing to walk away if I couldn’t have it all. So, I figured I’d come right out with it. Why beat around the bush, right?

Yet, so often in our communication, we speak implicitly. 

We hint. 

We imply. 

We drop clues. 

But, come right out and say what you want and that you want it…

To be totally and brutally honest, well that’s just brutal, right?

Or is it or is it brutal to pretend you want something you don’t want, dance around the topic for years and then get your heart smashed because it didn’t happen. To me, the latter seems far more brutal with time, effort, and energy lost. 

It’s much easier to rip a bandaid off than to unstitch a gangrenous wound