I had a recent health scare (a recurring prostate issue) that landed me in an ER in the middle of Iowa early on a Sunday morning.

I knew the drill—that I was going to be wearing a catheter for a week or so, and that my upcoming visit to my 87-year-old Mom’s was going to be impacted.

I thought I was past these issues—they go back to 2019, to a surgery in 2020, and I really thought I was done with them for a few years. It was frustrating and scary.

As I was panicking (when you can’t pee, but really need to, you panic a lot), I was noticing a lot of thoughts.

While I was pacing in my room at 2 am, I was noticing a lot of thoughts.

When I was thinking about how soon would be too soon to wake and ask my host to drive me to the ER, I was noticing a lot of thoughts.

We Tend to Think That Life is Happening TO Us

The thoughts that I was having were things like this—

Why did this happen AGAIN?

Shouldn’t my doctor have warned me?

Should I tell my mom? Will she worry too much if I do?

And mainly—

WHY ME???

Most of the time, life looks like it’s outside of us and happening TO us.

This is an illusion.

When we believe the illusion, we feel helpless. Especially when bad or difficult things happen.

I think that there must have been something that I could have done to avoid it.

I feel bad about myself.

I feel like I am being a burden and that people don’t want to help me.

What is Life, Actually?

But what if it didn’t have to look like this?

Questioning what your life is, and who you are, is the first step toward making a GIANT change on how you approach things.

How you feel about your life and what is happening in it.

First, notice one thing—

You are never directly experiencing anything outside of yourself. You can’t.

You are only experiencing two things—

First, whatever your sense organs and brain tell you about what is going on, both inside and outside your body.

Second, whatever stories you tell yourself about those sensations—whether they are good or bad, whether you like them or not, whether or not in your view they “should” be happening.

All of this is happening in your mind. Only in your mind.

So, from that perspective, your experience of life is always and only internal.

Always and only a model of your life that you are creating. It is never the “real” world, the “true” reality. We are not capable of experiencing that. Ever.

Most of us are not aware of this.

And even when we are, most of us create most of our experience of life unconsciously.

But consciously or unconsciously, we are always creating.

And when we see this, we can choose to create our experience differently.

One way, a highly leveraged way, is to look at what assumptions we make about life itself.

What if Life is Happening For You?

If I assume life is “out there,” happening “to me,” that leads me to other assumptions that may or may not be true—

That I am a victim.

That my problems are caused by “other people.”

That I have little or no control over most of the aspects of my life.

But what if I experiment with a different assumption? What if I experiment with the idea that life is happening FOR me?

What assumptions does that bring?

That there is something bigger than me that is looking out for me, that is presenting lessons for me, that is in some larger sense, taking care of me.

That there is a plan, even if I don’t understand in every moment what the plan is.

I want to be clear. I DO NOT KNOW if either if these assumptions—that life is is happening to me or for me—is true.

But what I do know is that when I look for that level of care, for the teaching, for the lessons, and for the gentle way in which they are presented, I can easily find them.

Take my medical emergency.

Yes, it is easy to think WHY ME? WHY NOW?

But had it happened at any other time or in any other place it could have been a lot more difficult.

I was with a friend, rather than at my mom’s (I would have had to call an ambulance there, and she would have completely panicked).

I was at a small town ER on a Sunday morning. I was literally the only patient there. Talk about feeling cared for by life.

I had already blocked a week off my calendar, other than a few calls. And I was with my 87-year-old mom, where life is already very slow. I could not have been better prepared to have a week of limited mobility.

After getting the catheter out, and talking with my urologist, I am now more prepared for future occurrences, without really suffering any more than was needed. The only suffering that I really had was my hesitation to wake my friend in the middle of the night. And that was my choice.

I have learned, again, that despite my constant hesitation to ask, that I can rely on people and that they want to help me.

Just that is a tremendous gift.

What Would It Mean To You To See This?

This week, take a look at some of the difficulties in your life. The things that you say you didn’t want, or that you wouldn’t wish on anyone.

A personal health crisis. The illness or death of someone close to you. A chronic challenge.

What was the learning? What was the gift? What was the blessing? What was it that you could not have learned in any other way?

Want To Go Deeper In This Conversation?

I am dedicated to the idea that all you ever need or want to be is YOU.

You with all your gifts. And all the things you instinctively hide, too.

What would that be like? To fully embrace you and THEN create, rather than thinking you have to create to someone FIX yourself?

This is what I write about. For founders, for original thinkers, at all stages of their journey.

The world needs YOU, in all your brilliance and imperfection.

If you are a founder wanting to scale and sell your company, there are three shifts in identity that can help you do so with twice the impact and half the stress. Take a look at this video.

If you want to build a coaching business where you get to be yourself, help amazing people, and replace your corporate income in the process, here’s a video where I share the top three mistakes I see coaches make when trying to build a sustainable business—

http://bit.ly/creatingextraordinarycoaches

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

You can follow me on LinkedIn to make sure you never miss a post by hitting the bell on my profile.

If you want to subscribe to this Creating Extraordinary Futures newsletter, you can do so here.

 

I spend so much time thinking about how to do the things I do better.

How to do more of those things. How to do them more efficiently.

And then I catch myself.

I miss one critical fact when I do this. And seeing this can change everything.

What We Miss In All Of Our Doing

There is no doubt that expertise counts. There is a path of mastery that leads to great things—for your business, for your customers, for your own satisfaction.

But, for the vast majority of people, in the vast majority of situations, the first thing that we notice about someone isn’t their expertise. It isn’t even more superficial things like their appearance.

It’s their being.

How they are being in any given moment.

For me, it is simply noticing how often I am showing up the way I think someone else wants me to show up, as opposed how I actually am.

If I am showing up with some kind of mask on, that comes across. In a field that is built on trust and connection, masks get in the way.

I could pretend that I have it together, but if I actually don’t, that will come across.

I could pretend that I am capable of something I am not, but if I do, that will affect my credibility.

You might think “that doesn’t apply to me and my skillset—people hire my expertise, not my personality.”

But how often have you not hired a doctor, or an accountant, or a contractor, because you didn’t trust them? Or because there was something that was just “off”?

That’s their being.

Being is everyone’s profession. And you can get hired because of it, or in spite of it.

Being Is Not About Being “Better”

There are people who will tell you that “Being” is about being BETTER.

“I am being positive!”

“I am being hard-working!”

I disagree.

To me it is about willing to be exactly who you are in any given moment.

You do have the capacity to cultivate and call forth different aspects of yourself. And that can be helpful, to see that there are different ways of being that are available to you.

But generally, to me, the more powerful part of the being journey is more about your awareness of who you are than it is about trying to be something that you are not.

It is being all of yourself, rather than covering up something you don’t like about yourself.

To the extent that I able to do that, it opens up something else entirely.

The Power of Full Connection

Have you ever had a relationship where you fully trust the other person? Where you understand that what you are getting is a flawed but lovable human being? One who you can rely on, and who can rely on you?

What would that be like in a work relationship?

In any relationship?

As an aside, I am astounded at how often the business owners that I work with say that the most difficult relationship they have is with their spouse.

That’s the one place where they know they can’t hide behind their expertise.

You’re Not Actually Hiding Anything

Have you ever known anyone who has an aspect of themselves that they try to keep hidden, but in the hiding, it becomes all the more obvious?

I worked with a business owner who had a temper, and always seemed on the verge of exploding. He would very rarely express his anger, but it seemed near the surface all the time.

He didn’t see that his attempts to “hide” his anger actually made it more apparent. And that his employees would never tell him the truth because they were afraid the consequences of doing so.

What do you try to hide?

Ask someone you trust about it.

Now ask who could you be if you owned and accepted that part of you?

All You Really Ever Need To Be Is You

The opportunity here is to see that the only person you ever need to be is you.

Am I saying that expertise does not matter? No.

That you don’t need to improve your skills? Absolutely not. In fact, I would argue that the skills you are drawn to master is an essential part of your being.

But in any moment, the skills you have is a given. Whether you are able to connect with the right people for you is up to your willingness to be you, in all the polish and, sometimes, all the mess.

Authenticity, vulnerability, is something that we admire in others because it we know how hard it is.

But are you willing to try?

Try It

What I am pointing to is simple, but not easy.

But what would it be like to just be you and trust that you are enough?

That wherever you are on your path of mastery, there are people who want to work with you? Who want to be with what you offer?

The beta of your new product.

The coaching group you are starting for the first time.

The relationship where it feels really edgy to be vulnerable?

You don’t have to do this all at once.

When I was starting my coaching business it became even more clear to me how much I wanted people to like me. There would be things that I would want to point out as a coach that I was afraid to say because they other person might not like them and therefore me.

There was a distinct feeling in my stomach when I knew I SHOULD say something out of service, but I didn’t WANT to say it out of FEAR.

So I experimented. I started saying that thing, and noticing the reaction.

It was overwhelmingly positive. It was the difficult things that were most helpful.

People starting hiring me because of my willingness to say hard things to them.

My fear had pointed me to something that became my strength.

What is that thing that is getting your way?

Create a small experiment, and let me know how it goes.

How to Keep Going Deeper

If you are a founder wanting to scale and sell your company, there are three shifts in identity that can help you do so with twice the impact and half the stress. Take a look at this video.

If building a sustainable coaching business that will replace your corporate income is calling you, here’s a video where I share the top three mistakes I see coaches make when trying to build a sustainable business—

http://bit.ly/creatingextraordinarycoaches

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

You can follow me on LinkedIn to make sure you never miss a post by hitting the bell on my profile.

If you want to subscribe to this Creating Extraordinary Futures newsletter, you can do so here.

And when you’re ready to go even deeper, send me a private message or an email. I’m happy to help you in any way I can.

When you are creating something, where are you creating it FROM?

It can seem abstract to ask that question, but let me give you an example—

If I call you from an intention to “sell” you coaching, to convince you that you need me, I am guessing that will feel very different than if I call you from an intention to connect and get to know you better because I am genuinely interested in you and care about you and am happy to help you whether you hire me or not.

I am also guessing that you will FEEL that difference immediately.

When you are building a business, no matter how far along you are, there are at least two places you can come FROM.

Maximizing income or maximizing impact.

Coming from Maximizing Income

There are times when I really feel like I NEED to generate some income, fast.

And it feels AWFUL. I feel bad for the people on the other end of those conversations. I talk faster, my breathing is more shallow, and I am willing to say just about anything, to try just about anything, to get to the next stage of the conversation.

AND, it has the opposite impact that I intend. I almost never get new business when I am coming from this place.

I have a former client who was convinced that he had to be the low bidder for jobs that his company did. He found himself begging for work, tap dancing through every proposal, giving up his profit to get the work.

He was so worried about losing business that he had trouble winning the RIGHT business. He was so worried about losing people that he had trouble keeping the RIGHT people.

He was not willing to take a stand for the impact that he wanted to make, and for the customers and employees that made sense for him.

Because he did not stand for anything he also did not STAND OUT.

Most companies are like him. It feels awful and ironically does nothing to grow your income.

Coming from Maximizing Impact

But things can be different.

You can grow your business by being MORE TRUE to yourself and your vision.

I understand, for example, that I have a message that may not resonate with everyone.

That message, that we are living in a world of our own thinking and that when we see that we can create our results more consciously, is easy to get intellectually but hard to really FEEL.

I have to BE that message in order to have any kind of impact. It’s not about explanation or desperation or talking about a bunch of benefits.

It’s about my being.

If I come from my message, my ideal client FEELS that.

People may not be able to explain exactly WHY they want to work with me, but they WANT to work with me nevertheless.

No matter what your business or your message, the same is true for you.

I have a client who comes from a place of top quality and long term relationships. For him to proclaim that would probably undermine his business. But he is a stand for that in every conversation. He is almost never the low bidder. He talks long term. His current clients give him raving references.

And it has an amazing impact on his work. The RIGHT people, those who value his commitment and long term focus, are WILLING to pay more for that.

The wrong people, who are simply looking for the lowest price and really don’t care about quality, run the other way.

The same is true for his employees.

He has used his COME FROM to grow his business (and his people) the right way.

And now he has a business that is growing and that he feels good about.

He has a business that, more and more, is succeeding without him.

He has stepped into a powerful freedom to create more of that both in his business and his personal life.

Where Are You Creating From?

Are you willing to work with anyone? At any price?

How’s that going?

What if you got really clear on the IMPACT you want to have?

And what if, because of that, the right people came to YOU?

How to Go Deeper

If you are a founder wanting to scale and sell your company, there are three shifts in identity (thought) that can help you do so with twice the impact and half the stress. Take a look at this video.

If building a sustainable coaching business that will replace your corporate income is calling you, here’s a video where I share the top three mistakes I see coaches make when trying to build a sustainable business—

http://bit.ly/creatingextraordinarycoaches

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

You can follow me on LinkedIn to make sure you never miss a post by hitting the bell on my profile.

If you want to subscribe to this Creating Extraordinary Futures newsletter, you can do so here.

And when you’re ready to go even deeper, send me a private message or an email. I’m happy to help you in any way I can.