Month: August 2017

permission to dream

I am not sure when I stopped dreaming but one of the most powerful things I have done is to start dreaming again.

As young children we are natural dreamers, we imagine and play and pretend all day long. As we grow up we are taught to get serious, told to get out head out of the clouds, to pay attention, stop daydreaming, grow up. All of these things and the growing responsibilities of being a parent or employee or husband or wife or homeowner can conspire to stifle the dreamer inside.

I had dreams, and one day I woke up and realized that I had made those dreams real. I have the bakery. I am financially independent. I can take my parents to dinner and pay. I have beautiful, unique, originals who are my children who love me and I admire immensely. I have a strong, handsome, attentive and loving partner who meets my every need. I have my lap dog. I am helping others. I experience joy and happiness as a regular state of being. I realized that everything I had once dreamed of had become my reality. I asked for it, I worked towards it, I kept it in my heart, and I received it. I created this life for myself.

About the same moment that I began to realize this, I also realized that I had stopped dreaming. Somehow I had programmed the belief into my mind that dreaming was a waste of time. I also believed that if I dreamed, I would become unhappy with the way things were and impatient to change them. I told myself that I was not good at visualizing, even knowing that I was closing doors before even allowing them to shine a little light onto my limiting beliefs.

The thing that changed this for me was listening to John Maxwell speak live. He spoke about intentionally growing every day, and challenged us to create 5 daily habits that would take us in the direction of growth. This was yet another example of the teacher appearing for the student who was more than ready to make a shift in her life. I was feeling a little stagnant, knowing that I was not doing what gave me fulfillment although I could find nothing to complain about. I committed pretty easily to the first 3- Read, Pray, and Write. Then I stalled. What could I do for the last 2 I asked myself. I sat at the table, right at the conference with John still on stage, and looked inside myself. The answer that came popping into my consciousness was Dream and Reflect. The two things I was not currently doing, and in fact avoided like the plague.

As I thought about the 2 that my intuition were sending me, I knew that these were areas that were absent from my life. I had shut myself off from dreaming, and so was cruising along with the flow, not really directing the course of my life. I do have my amazing partner and love who I am blessed to say is a very proficient dreamer, and has been an amazing guide as I floated along, so life was good. But somehow once I reached and exceeded my original dreams, I didn’t expand my vision to include a bigger dream! I actually needed to give myself permission to dream again- to trust that whatever I dream I can achieve, and that it is absolutely ok, actually even mandatory, that I continue to dream and grow! Reflecting became easy and is going hand in hand with the dreaming. I can reflect back on my life and see how every dream can and will come to fruition if it serves a greater good and I keep it in my heart.

worry

“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”- Thomas Carlyle

I don’t know about you but the battle with worry is one that I have taken years to call a truce with. I don’t say win, because it is tempting sometimes for me to find myself “concerned” or “apprehensive”, synonyms for that “w” word that my mind tricks me by using. My ears are very in tune to hear the worry word when other people speak it, and to mentally say to myself “fear”, but my tricky mind has caught on and doesn’t allow me to use the word when referring to my own feelings. Instead it subs in other terms, “I am concerned about….” or “I am scared that…” I know that worry and its many forms are caused by thinking too much about the past or possible futures. Our minds as we know are supercomputers, super creative and imaginative, look at the world we have created with our human intelligence! Anything you see was once just an idea in someone’s mind.

How do we really harness the power of our minds and take the lessons we have learned in our past with us to help us make decisions in the now without holding on to the negativity from the failures? How do we direct it’s tendency to look for all the things it’s afraid of in the future?

It begins by seeing every painful experience as a learning tool, and by redefining your past. It’s true that you can’t physically go back to the past and re-do anything, but what you can do which is incredibly powerful is to mentally go back and change how you define it. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to be able to see what possible good can come out of our past, especially if it was extremely painful. But one of the gifts we have as human beings is the ability to control our own minds and what we think about. It takes practice. It takes looking at the course of your life and how each decision and success and failure has brought you to this moment, today. It takes realizing and remembering and reminding yourself always that how you live today is the true indicator of how your tomorrows will be.

If you are worried now about tomorrow, you will be worried tomorrow about Friday. Stop the cycle and take control of your thoughts. The future is today. The best way to prepare for tomorrow is to use all of your intelligence, your enthusiasm, on doing today superbly. Worry is a synonym for fear. Look it up. The thesaurus also lists misery, anguish, pain, woe…all words that mean the same thing as worry. I for one do not want to live in that place where those words describe my life. Misery has been candy-coated into the “W” word. Let it go.

just be yourself

But what does that mean? It means stop trying to please someone else.

This became so clear to me when I met Sherry, who had just come to the realization that she had gone to medical school and become a doctor to please her parents. Her dad was a doctor and wanted her to follow in his footsteps, so as a good daughter wanting to please her parents, she did. She was in her late 30’s when I met her and all she craved was a relationship and a family. The hours required for her to follow the career path she had chosen in the medical field virtually elimnated any free time, and everyone she met was in the same boat as she was. She felt that she was in a no-win situation, no time to meet anyone other than the other driven doctors who also had no time for relationships. She wanted to have a loving relationship and a couple of kids. She wanted to teach wellness, not cure sickness. She had gotten herself stuck in a career that was taking all she had and was leaving her feeling drained and unfulfilled.

This got me thinking. What decisions am I making that are to please someone else? Is my life one I have created of my own design, or am I following the blueprint laid out by my well meaning parents? There is nothing wrong with leading your kids in a direction of less pain, but letting them know and truly believe that you will love them no matter what is the best parenting you can give them.

So be yourself. What does that mean? It means getting to know yourself. Know what give you joy, and what brings pain. Stop trying to fit into an image that you have in your mind of how you should act or look like or what you should be doing at this point in your life. Slow down and stop judging yourself. How can you truly love anyone unconditionally if you are judging yourself? You may think you are not judging others, but as long as you are judging yourself I can 100% guarantee you are also doing it to other people.

Relax, breathe, feel that place inside you that lets you know when things are not jiving for you. Get to know and love that voice, that feeling, that is your intuition. Whether you believe in God, a higher power, your inner self…trust it. That voice, that feeling, is talking to you, and your internal guidance system is the most undervalued asset we have. Give yourself a break, be kind to the little boy or girl that is still there inside you.

what is culture?

What IS the culture in my business? How do I start defining it? These questions and more went through my mind when I first began to hear the word culture. Until that point I thought culture was going to the ballet, or museums, or playing a musical instrument. The idea of creating a culture in my business was foreign. I knew that we had amazing, kind people working in our restaurants, people I had hand selected and liked working with. But I wanted to know more about this word I kept hearing, and how to create it intentionally.

When I stepped out of the daily operations role in our first location to open locations 2 and 3, it was the real test on what we had built in Dublin for our brand, our culture, and the people that worked with us there. We hit some stumbling blocks, because we were in unknown territory. Thankfully we have a strong and loyal client base and core team that rallied around us and gave us the support and the critical feedback along the way to let me know in real time how things were operating without my daily presence. Many of my fears about growing our company were unfounded, but just as many proved true. I found it challenging to continue to improve our standards, and maintaining alone was difficult at times! Too much of the first 3 years after opening our second and third locations was spent putting out fires and plugging holes.

The shift began with a final straw. I’ve said it before, I have been a slow learner. But that’s changing. For me, the most difficult thing to do as a business owner is to make the hard decision to transition someone off the team. It is hard to make the call that there is nothing more that you can do to coach someone into the position or level of performance that you must require to operate your business successfully. I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I know I need to do this, and I remind myself that I have a responsibility to my team to make the best decisions for them. Sometimes people get stuck in a job they don’t like or that they cannot do with success, and if they don’t make the move on their own to improve or move on, it becomes up to me.

The final straw was when I decided to stop looking for solutions outside of myself. I made a decision to change my mindset about how we hire, who we need on the team, and to invest my energy with the people already on board. We began intentionally coaching, mentoring, training and developing people already in our organization to help them grow. I took off the blinders and saw that we had so many diamonds just waiting for someone to notice them, give them tools and to believe in them. These people are teaching ME about the culture we are building.

What is a culture? Its a shared belief, a shared vision. It is people like us who do things like us. A culture based on LOVE. What that means is that the people in our tribe, our family, know that we care about them. It means that we respect each other and want to help each other out. We say please and thank you, and believe in empowering people to do what it takes to brighten someone’s day. We believe that growth is mandatory and its always a process. Success is defined by the fact that we are headed in the right direction, even if we have not arrived. We believe that one person can make a huge impact, and we are working towards creating a kinder, more loving world. This is our culture.

whatever you dream

When you realize that there is a network of connectivity that runs just under our awareness and that you have the power to create the life of your dreams, it is like someone opened the blinds and let the light shine into the dark room that is made of your self created limitations. It seems incredible and almost unbelievable to our closed minds, yet it is true. We can’t know how long it will take to get to our vision, but if you believe it will happen, it will. I was honored to hear the story of the journey one of the people closest to me yesterday, and it is just one example of the evidence of this being true.

When he came to this country he was 14 years old, and homeless. He didn’t speak the language, and lived under the overpass in the now affluent area of San Bruno. This young man had a strong belief in himself and a ambition to improve his life and help his family. Since he was so young he was not able to find a job, yet he was very resourceful. He noticed that the people in the homes near the overpass he was living under did not like to do their own yardwork. This scrappy young man started offering to mow lawns, plant trees, whatever labor he could do, in exchange for a meal and a little money. He knew that he wanted more than this, and he planted the idea in his mind that by the age of 21 he would purchase his own home. Not a small dream for such a young man, especially one with very little resources. He had a vision for himself, and he had no doubt in his mind that he would achieve this dream.

When he was 17 he worked his charm and stretched the truth, applying for a job at a restaurant pretending to be 19 to ensure he was hired. He started as a dishwasher, and gave 1000% to being the best dishwasher he could be. He cleaned, he stayed late, he worked hard to make his area shine. After a little time he of course want to do more, and started learning to be a prep cook during his off time. He soon moved into this role, where he again mastered and set the bar very high for anyone coming after him. True to his nature, it was not long before he was adding value to the tight knit boys club called the line cooks. These guys are a hard nosed group who resist anyone new coming into their domain. He began offering them help by restocking for them, cleaning, sweeping, and doing the things that made their life easier. What happened next was more forward momentum for him. The cooks softened up to this young kid who was so eager to do the tasks they were not as fond of. They began teaching him how to cook, and as he progressed through each station he mastered them and was soon selected to be the new kitchen manager. This pattern repeated over and over for him as he moved up the ranks, to floor manager, bar manager, and finally general manager of that restaurant. The one thing that he always practiced is to live as if he was already there. He was expanding his vision to bigger and greater dreams. He added value over and over again, without asking anything in return but to learn and grow.

So did this boy achieve his dream of owning a home by 21? His roommates when he finally found a place to live thought he was certifiably insane when he would talk to himself in the mirror, pretending to be who he envisioned himself to be. He did not know how he was going to pull off buying a house by 21, he just knew it was going to happen. And with his hard work, intention, and God’s grace it did. That first home, that cost $300,000 in the 1980’s was the stepping stone for him on his journey to where he is today, a top level executive with a passion for sharing with others the secrets he has learned, that whatever vision you have you can achieve. His life is a perfect model of my favorite quote:

His life is a perfect model of my favorite quote:

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau

over thinking

I have been caught up in over-thinking. Trying to figure out the right solution to a problem I have, one that is not ready to solve. It has caused me to lose sleep, waking up every 2 hours or so from dreaming about the issues on my mind. The dull headache I have is a direct result of the overuse of my grey matter over the last 24 hours. As I think about the 28 possible outcomes of the current problem I have been digesting, my very creative mind gives me, in hi def, technicolor 3D form the many different scenarios as they play out in my theoretical future.

From my personal experience, I know that trying to solve tomorrow’s problems from today is a waste of energy. It is impossible to predict the many moving parts, personalities and experiences that will bring the problem to the point where it is time to resolve it. At that time I can almost guarantee that it will play out the 29th way, the way I couldn’t possibly have imagined from today.

So what to do to stop the playback and misuse of my imagination?
Step one is realizing I have put myself into this state.
Step two is to remind myself of what I know, that the problem is not ready to solve.
Step three is to remember the big picture and to look for the positives
Step four is to ask myself what small things can I do right now to improve today.
Step five is to start doing the little things that make the big difference.

And Let Go.

the wall

“Resistance seems to come from outside ourselves.  We locate it in spouses, jobs, bosses, kids.  ‘Peripheral opponents,’ as Pat Riley used to say when he coached the LA Lakers.  Resistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance arises from within. It is self-generated and self-perpetuated. Resistance is the enemy within.”  – Steven Pressfield

Athletes know about this place.  It is the point in time when all of the foundation work you have done reaches its peak.  The vision that you created, the business you wanted to start, the book you wanted to write, the new career you wanted to launch… Your creativity, ambition, desire and drive helped you achieve tremendous momentum towards attaining your dream.   About 2/3 into the journey here comes the wall.  Its the point where the momentum that carried you through until now has begins to falter.   The ugly voice in your head that shouts STOP begins to escalate.  “You can’t do this-What makes you think you have what it takes?  Who encouraged you to charge forward?  Where are they now that you need them??  Those guys are more educated and equipped than you are.  Why are you going to risk what you have now for something bigger?  What if you fail?”

I have a name for the part of my personality that likes to show herself when I hit the wall, and her middle name is Resistance.  She thinks she has an important job, that of protecting me from any possibility of change or pain.  I know that there are many facets to my personality, and the one who is always afraid and doubtful doesn’t get much airtime anymore.  She sometimes forgets that I put her into early retirement, and at the beginning of her voice not taking center stage, she fought me a lot.  But the funny thing is that the less I listen to her, the quieter she gets.

What I am saying to you is that we ALL have doubts and fears.  What differentiates people who are moving forward in the direction of their dreams from those who stay stuck is the thing called TAKING ACTION.  When you face that wall that is your resistance, its time to stand up straight and send that negative doubting voice in your head on a much needed vacation.  She is not acting in your best interest.  Her power comes from your ego, not from your heart.  Her greatest fear is failure, embarrassment, and ridicule, and she is the direct opposite of the creative part of you that wants to grow, has a story to tell, wants to make a positive difference in this world and is the True You.

intuition

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.”― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

I discovered the Tao Te Ching 2 years ago, and spent about 7 months reading and reflecting on the 81 short verses in this ancient Chinese book of wisdom. It is so mind blowing to me that the messages in this book that was written in 4-6 b.c. are so relevant to us still in this 21 century. We are born with infinite knowledge of the true nature of life, yet as we grow and mature we forget our innate nature and need to re-learn all over again how to be fulfilled and at peace. There are so many guides and teachers that are available to us to remind us of the way, it can be confusing and overwhelming to know our path.

When I was studying this text I focused on living and reflecting on the verses for 2-3 days before moving on to the next one. As I intentionally took the time to look into my self, I began to be aware of a voice inside me. This was a different voice from the one that is in my head. You know the Head Voice, we all have it- its the doubting, negative, fearful one that wants to pipe in at any opportunity. No, this voice was quieter, and seemed to come from a different place in my body. It spoke softly but with calm and certainty from a place I can feel below by heart, from as my gut.

When I began to notice this voice, I recognized it. It was the voice that spoke to me when I had conviction and belief in something. But somehow I had more often than not discounted it, or ignored it due to the loud Head Voice that drowned it out. Once something comes into your awareness, however, it is very difficult to ignore it and to go back to ignorance. Once I noticed the Gut Voice, it became a little bit more persistent. Not louder, just made itself heard more frequently.

I was confused. I didn’t know whether to trust that Gut Voice, I had already learned that the Head Voice was always going to tell me to pull back and protect myself, but I didn’t know what the Gut Voice’s motivation was. How did I know if it was the Gut Voice I was hearing or the sneaky Head Voice disguising itself? This may sound crazy, but I was still learning how to trust myself. I am a thinker. I like to figure things out, and this can be a benefit and a curse, depending on the situation. I needed to have an answer key for myself to help differentiate between the voices. They were all me, that was the problem. My cheat sheet when I am hearing both voices is to ask myself- “Is this message coming from LOVE, or is it FEAR?” The Gut Voice, my intuition, always acts from love, and conversely, the Head Voice, speaks fear.

I am learning still to pause and listen, and choose Love instead of Fear. I trust my intuition, and if the choice is not clear, I know the time is not right to make the decision. When the time is right the path is clear if you listen to your intuition.

“Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear.”― Lao Tzu

slow cooking

There is a lot to be said for a cheap cut of meat. Sure, that chuck roast is tough and if you try to cook it quick it will resemble shoe leather. But give it a little time, a little love, cook it long and slow with some nicely caramelized veggies and some salt and pepper and the plates will get wiped clean with the crusty bread you serve with it. But it requires foresight, planning, and patience.

Building a team is the same. It can’t be microwaved, it requires a slow cooker. It does not come cheaply. No matter how strong your vision is, the time it takes to build the relationships with your tribe, to learn how to communicate with each individual, and that you can count on each other is a process. It requires the sacrifice of time, and patience is a quality that most great leaders have to really work at. It can be incredibly difficult to be patient when you have a clear vision of what you want it to be like, but patience is required.

Take the time to notice the little shifts in direction and attitude, these are what compound daily and as long as you are headed in the direction of your goal, in spite of the inevitable setbacks, you will get there. Look for the people that have influence in your group and start there. It begins with your inner circle, the 1-2-3 or more people that you know you can count on, and they have your back. Start the conversation with them about their inner circle, and invest the time in expanding your circle by them expanding theirs. Plant the seeds and be sure to water so they can grow.

trust

“There is no substitute for character. You can buy brains, but you cannot buy character.” -Robert A. Cook

The foundation of leadership is trust. I am blessed to be leading over 80 people in my organization, and the only way I can do that effectively is by always being aware that the trust they have in me is a great responsibility. The people I lead trust me with their safety, their jobs, their personal growth, and if I do something to break the trust, it can have a huge effect on the culture of our organization.

I personally have felt the impact of losing their trust when I placed someone in a high position of leadership that was not equipped for the role and authority given to them. The trust I have built over the past decades gave the new leader initial credibility to have an opportunity to make a difference with the team, however the leader in question lacked the character to follow through with his actions. This leader came into our organization after a thorough interview process and with a clear focus on what our values and goals were for them. I really believed they were the answer to my issues at the time. They were to come in and implement training, coaching and development for my team. What happened was the opposite of my intent.

Instead of taking the time to develop the trust and the relationships needed to implement change, this leader operated under the assumption that because of their title, any changes that were rolled out would be followed through without falter. The trust that was given at the beginning of their entry into our organization was quickly depleted as they were unable to gain traction and bond with the team. This of course flowed upwards to me as the leader and guardian of culture with my team. I began to become aware of discord in the team, and the energy I felt when walking through my locations felt off. I am very conscious of the dynamic force that occurs when you have a team working in sync and with certainty.

It was a candid discussion with one of my inner circle people that really brought to light the issues with the new leader. I had been unconsciously aware, but choosing to continue to have faith in the individual’s ability due to my nature. I believe the best of people, and really avoid confrontations. My least favorite thing to do is to transition people out of the organization, and I struggle with this each time I need to make the decision that despite the training and coaching we have invested, it is time for us to make the hard choice. As the leader it is my job to ensure that the people I place in positions of authority live and exemplify the values we stand for. This rises and falls on character, and I remind myself daily of the responsibility I have to those I am working with and leading to walk the talk and live with full awareness of the trust that they place in me.

“Character makes trust possible. Trust makes leadership possible.” – John Maxwell