Good Friending

I have friends of all kinds.

Friends who are always there for me,even when I disappoint them.

Friends I can not talk to for years, but call at the drop of a hat.

Friends who feed my soul and spirit, 

and friends who are just plain fun.

The common denominator?

Unending support and positive energy.

I am lucky that way.

Don't get me wrong...I have had my share of friends

who chewed me up and spit me out.

Fortunately it has been a long, long time since I have 

played that friend game.

To me,

friendship means, simply, lifting each other up.

Realizing that the petty jealousies, the things that

supposedly "offend" you about the other

(please don't get me started on the whole "I'm offended" thing)

are really, and only, about you.

Not them.

It takes so little to be kind.

It eats you up to be envious and cruel.

Yes, cruel.

To me, cruel is a harsh sounding word for things people do every day

to so-called friends.

Back-handed compliments and passive aggressive comments.

Cruel is "unfriending" someone and not telling them why, but making sure everyone else knows.

Telling them what "bothers" you about them and what they are doing.

Or being nice to their face and turning around and ripping them to shreds behind their back.

OMG...are we in Junior High again? 
Cruel is injecting your past issues and hurts into the relationship and expecting them to fix them for you
and being angry at them when they don't.
Taking your self-loathing and disappointments and blaming them for them somehow.


In full disclosure...I know I have done some of this in the past.
I am not sitting on any high horse here.
Maybe I didn't know any better, or maybe I did but I didn't know
how to DO any better.


I have found that my world is a much happier place when I think and act abundantly for all.
When I assume no motives and believe everyone is doing the best they can given what they have been given.
Naive? Maybe.
But I will take naive over pessimism and suspicion any day.


We all have expectations and old wounds that we project onto our
current relationships. 
We all take things personally that were never personal
in the first place.
And that is what gets us into trouble.
Causes all of our heartache.
Causes all of our pain an poor self-esteem.


Sure, I may get hurt and trampled on from time to time.
Sure friends may be mean and nasty.
Hurt my feelings and snuff out my spirit some.


But I know that is really their own pain and it has little to do with me.
It gives me some compassion for their struggle,
and reminds me to balance the scales
by choosing grace and gratitude.


It's a short life we have...
We can choose our experience here...good or bad.
We can't always control what happens, but we can choose
how we live through it.


I am choosing the good stuff...
Here's to good friending.

It's a Dangerous Neighborhood

My mind, that is.

Is a dangerous place.

It can get a little scary when I go in there alone.

Many of you know I work in the direct sales industry.

I am an absolute believer in the industry...the business model,

the opportunity for anyone to be successful if they want,

the grassroots way it exchanges products and services is 

the most organic way to doing business I can think of.

I am in...hook, line and sinker.

But...

doing direct sales, or any entrepreneurial venture, for that matter,

has a way of exposing that part of ourselves

that lurks in dark alleys of the neighborhoods of our minds and waits to

 pounce on our self esteem when we least expect it.

I have always been a master of getting in my own way.

If there were a class in it, I could teach it.

I would have emeritus status on the faculty.

I have the potential, I have brains and I have a personality

(at least I think I do...if not, it is time for someone to come clean)

Most of the ingredients I need to mix up a perfect little batch of achievement.

Many an opportunity has come my way in the past twenty years.

People thought I had exactly what it took to make it a go.

Sometimes I even started strong.

But it never failed, that at some point, I would start to make the journey.

Back into the old  neighborhood.

Walking in there alone, with all those demons and doubts.

And I almost never came out the same.

 I knew the monsters were there...waiting...patiently, waiting to pounce.

Even if they didn't jump out to get me, the simple knowing that they could

was enough to make me run.

And sure enough...another potential success story

was history.

When I started my most recent venture, I knew things had to be different.

I knew that this particular opportunity was a once in a lifetime one,

and I was sitting on something that COULD be really special.

Something that could change my family's future forever.

I had all the drive...I had to make this work.

The only excuse I would have for failure was ME if this thing didn't fly.

So...what to do?

I had to make the trip back home to the old neighborhood.

Its  hard to  keep constant company on my walk through the back roads.

Ty learned a long time ago that a trip through my head could be a Titanic-type adventure.

He steers clear, poor guy!

Would I let those lurking fears derail me again?

I have become fascinated the power of the mind and our mindset.

I have gobbled up books about the subject...both spiritual and practical books.

I knew that changing my mindset in order to succeed meant I would have to get out of my comfort zone, and essentially out of my own way.

Holy crap...I was shaking in my brown leather riding boots.

( I DO love clothes, you know...could there be any other way of putting that?)

However...I also truly believe that to succeed, I need to be authentic.

I need to be ME.

So...the $24,000 question...how to get out of my comfort zone AND still be myself?

I had always assumed the two were mutually exclusive.

 If I got OUT of my comfort zone, I couldn't be me...

But to be me is where I am comfortable, so I would have to be someone else

in order to leave it.

And that is uncomfortable.

Told you...

A person could lose their mind in my head :)

And then I had a realization.

An epiphany almost.

Getting OUT of my comfort zone...my neighborhood,

isn't about becoming someone else.

It isn't about being inauthentic and putting on a disguise in order to fool the demons.

It is about ALLOWING myself to be the best part of me.

Allowing the real me to come through, in spite of all those lurking doubts.

Walking by the dark alleys.

Sometimes even looking in, but continuing on my path.

Knowing that they can lurk,

but they only can jump out at me if I let them.

When I ALLOW , I am one with the flow of the universe.

(very New Age sounding, I know, but I do believe it)

Our purpose in this life is to be ourselves...and only ourselves.

The best part of ourselves.

And how does that relate to my business?

Or to whatever is holding you back from YOUR best life?

It doesn't really matter WHAT we do.

Or if we do anything at all.

What matters is how we walk through our own neighborhoods.

Yep...my sweet little direct sales business

has forced me to learn one of the most profound lessons of my adult life.

Getting out of your comfort zone is frightening.

Sometimes paralyzing.

But it doesn't mean abandoning who you are,

it means letting yourself become really comfortable with the 

best part of yourself.

It means believing that that part of yourself

is a luxury gated-community with 24-hour security and an infinity pool

of knowledge.

That's where I have decided to live from now on.

Out of the old neighborhood, and onto a better one.