Author: Denica Freitas

superpowers

We all have access to superpowers, but my favorite one by far is kindness. If we made the decision on a daily basis to choose to use this tool from our infinite arsenal of “ways to be”, can you even begin to imagine the change that would happen in our world? I came across a campaign in my hometown called “—stands united against hate”. I believe and have seen it to be true that when I focus my thoughts on something I seem to see it even more. If I look for what’s wrong, it’s all over the place. I can find the aggressive drivers, the negativity on the news, the not so subtle discriminations, but also conversely, if I focus on kindness, I can see it all over as well. I see the people helping out the girl asking for some spare change, I see someone rush over to help unload the groceries for the elderly man, I see the car in front of me paying my toll on the bridge, I see the random smiles given when a stranger’s eyes connect with mine.

If we were to choose to stand united FOR love, FOR peace, FOR kindness, and remove the word “against” from our vocabulary we could tip the scales, I am sure of it. Focus on what we want more of, the only antidote to the chaos and divisiveness that is continuing to come to the forefront is to make the love bigger. The outer world is merely a reflection of our inner world, and as we keep getting reminded there is some work to be done. We can change the world one decision, one thought, one action at a time. Choosing to be kind, choosing to unite for what we believe in, not against. Use your superpowers wisely.

yet

I am not a good dancer. I am a good baker, a good mom, a good wife, friend, boss, leader, daughter, cyclist…I can hold my own in most social settings and know how to have an intelligent conversation with people from most walks of life…so far. But dance I cannot. I have a few early experiences with major embarrassment when I tried to cut loose and boogie that left me reluctant to put myself in a situation again where I may be asked to do the salsa or the cha cha or waltz or whatever. For some reason unknown to me, however, my youngest son has immersed himself in the world of dance, and as I accompany him to the showcases and competitions, I am finding myself in settings where everyone can dance but me. The pressure is there as they try to get me to give it a go, so kind and encouraging in their invitations, yet I find myself like a shy awkward teenager at the high school dance doing my best to make myself invisible.

As I see the absolute joy and big smiles on the people that are out there dancing, I begin thinking why not? I accept an invitation, and lucky for me the skill of my partner helped carry me around the dance floor with no stumble, although I was sure if he let go I would drown! I begin remembering that the comfort zone is a comfy place, and learning something new can be like picking up a really good book. There are a lot of things I thought I would never do, could never do- run a successful business, run a marathon, cycling, mountain biking, lead, paint, write, speak…So am I going to learn to dance? I’m thinking about it. I have not committed, but instead have opened my mind to the idea that I am not a good dancer…YET.

waiting

What if you stopped waiting. Stopped waiting in line at the coffee shop, stopped waiting for your number to be called at DMV, stopped waiting for the light to turn green so you can go. Stop waiting for the time to be right to start your new business, stop waiting for the perfect moment to tell someone how you feel, stop waiting for some other moment when you can feel peace.

But how do I stop waiting, when I arrive at DMV for my 10 am appointment to find a line out the door to even let them know I have arrived? Not to mention the additional hour after I check in to even wait for my number to be called. I change my thoughts. Instead of waiting, I decide to just be. I am grateful that I am not waiting in line for a bag of rice to feed my starving family, I am grateful to have the money to be able to indulge in a fancy expensive coffee in a paper cup, I am grateful to have a car to drive. Instead of waiting I am choosing to take the opportunity to be with myself, where I am, not trying to be somewhere else. Can be challenging to be with yourself, but what’s life about but learning to know yourself better and appreciate the moments we are given.

fulfillment

We are complex human beings, and have many arteries that lead to the heart of fulfillment. It can be said that success is a science, you can find all sorts of avenues, guides, step by step instructions on how to succeed at almost anything. But fulfillment…that is an art. With any big goal I have had, whether it is losing 20 pounds, running a marathon, opening another restaurant, paying off my car…the striving was the fun of it. Once I achieved the “goal”, I felt satisfaction or euphoria or just chilled out, but only for a time. Then, as what was once just out of reach is completed and behind me, I was faced with a what next? I have a polarized way of being, one part of me yearns to strive and climb and do the hard stuff, and the other part is always telling me to relax and just enjoy where you are. Life becomes the balancing act between these two strong parts of my personality. I know that if I am nearing the realization of a goal, I had better have another one right behind it, or apathy, laziness, boredom will set in for me as the dip between climbs.

I have known myself all my life, but I am still peeling layers back and getting surprised about who I am and what drives me.
This sounds crazy, because how is it that we don’t really know ourselves? I mean, we are ourselves, our minds are our own, our body is ours, so why do we succumb to doing things that are not in our best interest? Why do I eat those Oreos when I have been so good on my healthy eating? Why do I get upset when someone projects their own unhappiness onto me? Why is it that what is just out of reach is more fulfilling than what is in my hand?

The process of learning about myself has sent me on the search to find out what brings me fulfillment, not just success. The way to really operate at our highest potential is to make sure that we are taking care of all of those pathways.

For me, I can narrow it down to 5 main roads:

  • Love and Connection- I need to love and be loved, I think this is my strongest need, and I am so blessed that I have outstanding and close relationships with people I am able to live this with and through.
  • Growth – I need to be learning and growing. I fulfill this need in many ways, by reading, mentoring, learning new skills, pushing my body. I passionately love learning and mastering new things that were for me once hard. Riding a bike, running long distance, learning to be a leader, speaking in front of people, even learning new software. Hard is good.
  • Security – I think for a lot of us this is a big one. I want to feel safe and believe that tomorrow will be okay. I want to make sure that those I love have the comfort and security I also crave.
  • Excitement – This can be the opposite of security. This is when I step outside my comfort zone and am doing things I didn’t think I could do. This comes from seeing the people I lead and love growing and excited about their lives.
  • Purpose – I need to know that I am doing all I can to make a difference in the lives of the people I interact with, and in my little part of this world.

It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit. -Denis Waitley

do it now

I am high on myself as I ride this morning, pushing just a little harder up the hill, knowing I had conquered the dreaded fear yesterday of the downhill from hell. Months of almost there but pulling back at the last minute finally gone, and my confidence back. The lesson learned that fear is all in my head. I am ready to ride that rutted path that had taken me down, and what do you think has happened? I can tell you it’s a perfect example of life happening for me, not to me. I am approaching the section, confident I can ride it again, and they have graded the path. That means the ruts are gone. It’s as smooth as a newly paved road and anyone scared of it would be a baby.

All I could do was laugh, and think of all the energy I had spent trying to cross the terror barrier, and the immense satisfaction when I finally did. I can only believe that this was another clear lesson to me from the powers that be to DO IT NOW. Opportunity comes in many different forms. I often think of opportunity as something related to money, or material success, but had I not pushed past the fear yesterday I would have missed forever the opportunity to ride the ruts and feel the incredible sense of accomplishment that sticks with me even now. Get over your fear, get out of your head, get into the place where you believe anything is possible. What is the worst that can happen? You can fall? or fail? Or you can stay in your safe little bubble, looking out at the world and wondering if you could have done more.

terror barrier

Today I rode down the rutted hill that had beat me time and time again. One fall and I was scared for months, choosing to dismount and walk down the hill instead of conquering the fear. I had had many opportunities to push past the scared voice in my head, but no matter how much I coached my inner little girl “You can do it, trust the bike”, I would get to the point of no return and stop. I reached the terror barrier.

Anytime we are trying to push past a fear, or to get out of the comfort zone, it starts with a thought. For me, it starts with a floating little thought that I end up latching on to and thinking more about. Thoughts like “I think I want to open another location”, or “I think I want to start running again”, or “I think I’d like to learn to be a speaker”. There are thoughts like these floating around in my head all the time, but until I actually focus on one, and begin to percolate it in my mind, they will float around like clouds in the clutter of my head. Once they have made it into my conscious awareness, they start to nag. They come up and remind me at the most inconvenient times that they are there, times like 4 am. Or 10 pm, as I am trying to get some shut eye.

After I have mulled over a thought, or a great idea I think I have, eventually I say it out loud. I blurt out “I am writing a book”, or “I am going to conquer that hill”, and now it’s official. As long as it was in my head it was safely esconced in the dream category, but once I verbalized it- yikes. The snowball effect. I think about it more, get excited, start researching and doing and planning…then WHAM! Some well meaning friend or loved one plays devils advocate and asks a question that plants a seed of doubt in my mind. I have even done it to myself, time and time again. I am really good at talking myself into AND out of anything subject in the book. My list of pros and cons goes on to infinity for any given idea. This is the inevitable Terror Barrier. It is the point when we reach when our conscious mind rejects the new thoughts that are threatening the status quo. This is where we step back into safety, we decide it is too risky, or too hard, or a dumb idea, or even better, “I never really wanted to do it anyway”. The conscious mind is our ambassador for stagnation. It does not want us to step forward into growth, instead it convinces us to fall back into safety.

We start feeling fear, doubt, worry, anxiety, and we think this is our signal to reverse, turn around, head back to the bunker. What if instead those emotions we are so uncomfortable with that they send us running back to mama instead were the mind’s way of telling us “Hey, get ready! Its time to expand your limitless potential and grow!” This is the beginning, or the middle, or the process of freedom. Freedom from falling victim to fear, freedom to do anything you imagine, freedom to have the exciting life you want. So that hill. Even knowing all this that I know, the hill was a real thing that I had really fallen on and there was a real possibility I would fall again, but I didn’t. I went for it, and I did it again, and I succeeded. And it felt GREAT!

failure pt. 2

“There is no such thing as failure, only results” – Tony Robbins

If you want a different result, change your activities. We all know there is a cause and effect in everything we do, yet it can sometimes be so difficult to get out of the quicksand that we sometimes step into. I keep thinking that somehow as I get older I am also getting wiser, but I find myself falling into the same traps over and over again if I am not careful. I fall into the trap of laziness, and then wonder why my weight creeps up. I fall into the trap of self criticism and wonder why I feel so low. I fall into the trap of complacency and then wake up and see I need to step it up.

I can’t count how many times I have taken control of my eating and exercise, and stepped into the zone of personal improvement. But invariably over and over again, no matter how committed I am at the time, I end up faltering and falling off the wagon. I used to be very hard on myself when I would swing to the right, but what I can see now is that there is a pattern, a swing of the pendulum, a zag for every zig.

Right now I am in a very zig place, I am eating for fuel and pleasure, not boredom and variety. I am intentionally planning out my week to include activities that I enjoy that push my body. I am not going to call it exercise, because that word is right up there with diet for me. They are the poison words that have a beginning and and end. They are the words that define activities that I no longer want to do. I am tired of learning the same lesson over and over again. I am tired of learning that no matter how much you diet, the real test is maintaining. I am tired of learning that if you don’t work your body, your body will stop working for you.

What am I doing differently this time to make it the last time I have to learn these lessons? For one I am writing about it here, and am expecting to be held accountable for my words. I have made a list of my secrets to fulfillment-the things that get me in the zone, and they are in a prominent place to remind me daily of the things I am doing that have me in my happy place:

Feed my mind
Fuel and push my body
Practice gratitude
Pay it forward

what does it take?

When our kids were younger and we had 4 under age 12, one with special needs, people would look at James and I and say “I don’t know how you do it.” It wasn’t only that we were raising our young family, but we also had tackled going into business for ourselves in one of the toughest industries to succeed at. We were well aware of the common belief that there is a 90% failure rate in the restaurant business, but we were committed to doing whatever it took to make it work. Our ambition and motivation stemmed in part from…if not eagerness, then single minded focus.

If I had to answer that query, how do we do it, we just do it. It may seem overly simple, but it really is just that. How do you do anything really? The facts were that we had no money, we actually were pretty deeply in debt and living week to week. We had 5 kids between us. But we were healthy, and we had love, and we had a strong desire to improve our life situation.

We approach our lives with the belief in doing whatever it takes. I know that this is the only way to truly succeed at anything. You cannot make a relationship work if you are thinking “Well, I will love him as long as…or until…” Being in business, or attaining success in anything is the same way. There are always going to be sacrifices, trade-offs. You have to sacrifice eating ice cream every night if you want to be fit. You have to trade off going out every night if you have kids. You have to forfeit guaranteed vacations if go into business for yourself. And you have to give up your time to grow your impact or your career.

This fact, that of sacrifice, holds some people back. They would rather stay in a static world of their own creation, where the sacrifices are convenient, and this is okay. Not everyone strives for greater things. But so many yearn for more, as evidenced by the huge industry that is called franchising. It’s a dream for so many to go into business for themselves. There are literally over 750,000 franchises in the US alone. Is this a guarantee of success? I would say no, the only guarantee is in the mindset of the owner.

So what kind of person does it take to be an entrepreneur? The same kind of person it takes to be a leader. You don’t have to be the owner, you can bring great value and attain great rewards, personal and financial, if you tackle anything you do with the same psychology. What does it take?
-It takes courage to take responsibility while others make excuses.
-It takes being dissatisfied with your current reality.
-It means being open to new ideas.
-It takes a willingness to put yourself at risk and to fail.
-It means seeing possibilities, not limitations
-It takes an all or nothing mentality when thinking of what you will do to make things better.
-It takes sacrifice.

unstuck

A grave is a rut with the end kicked out- Earl Nightingale

In my lifetime I have definitely been in ruts as far as my weight and health goes, I have been in ruts where I saw no end in sight to working 7 days a week, I’ve been stuck in thoughts that I would never find the right help I needed in my company. What else…stuck thinking I would never get out of credit card debt, stuck failing to launch a business because I didn’t think I had what it takes, stuck in my own self made thought prison of the loop of hopelessness. Stuck waiting for “tomorrow” when I would have more time, stuck doing a job that was not fulfilling because I didn’t think I could do anything else…I could go on and on.

Stuck is stuck and stuck sucks. Why do we get stuck? It’s almost like we are waiting for divine intervention, some big event or a giant hand to pull us up, something to save us and get us out of the rut. But what it takes is a decision. It takes pulling yourself up by the suspenders, and changing your thoughts. Your beliefs are what drives your behaviors, and if we are not designing our lives, we will be sucked into living our lives by default. The thoughts we think are what generates our emotions. If we are thinking we are stuck, we will feel that pain, that feeling of heavy weights on our feet, helpless to help ourselves. The feelings, the emotions, they control our actions. And our actions are what give us the results we are experiencing.
Thoughts=Feelings=Actions=Results
This will loop and loop, the results just verifying the truth of the thoughts, until we wake up and change the thought. Its a decision. A decision to take responsibility for yourself and to step up, out of the place that started out as the comfort zone, but has morphed into quicksand. Expand your image of yourself, use your imagination, there are no limits to what we can dream, and whatever we can dream we can achieve. Change your thoughts and change your life.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – E.M. Forster

understanding

“To blame someone for not understanding you fully is deeply unfair because, first of all, we don’t understand ourselves, and even if we do understand ourselves, we have such a hard time communicating ourselves to other people. Therefore, to be furious and enraged and bitter that people don’t get all of who we are is really a cruel piece of immaturity.” Alain De Botton

As we were driving home in traffic on Tuesday I noticed a white van driving kind of erratically next to us. My gaze was drawn over to the driver, who I saw flipping the bird to a car that had just pulled in front of him. As I commented to James about this guy, James put his blinker on to get over into the exit lane we needed. “Wow, that guy’s pissed about something, must have had a bad day.” This was going to put us in front of the white van, but there were few other options. As we put our signal on and changed over into the right lane, sure enough, we triggered another show with the angry driver of the van. He accelerated and pulled up beside us to give us a glaring stare and a wave of his middle finger. It was kind of humorous and also very sad that he was so upset about people driving in his lane. We joked about it “Don’t drive near me, this is my safe zone!”, but sheepishly remember times when we have also been aggravated about external things outside our control.

It reminded me that we are always attracting what we put out, and I think how sad that this guy is putting out “F-U”, so all he is going to get back is more of the same. The world operates as a mirror, and if you are spewing negativity, you will attract situations that reflect that reality into your life. If you are asking “Whats in it for me”, you will find yourself in places where the people or the universe is asking the same of you. Instead, if you are asking “how can I serve” and giving love, that is what you will attract back to you. Part of understanding ourselves involves looking at what we are putting out into the world.

If you are having issues with the people you are surrounded with, whether they are your kids, or your significant other, your coworkers, your boss…take a pause and look inside. Focus on understanding yourself, rather than the thinking and behaviors of others. The triggers, the things that annoy us, the things we judge in others…all of these are pointing to the same issues in ourselves. The reason we are bothered by these things is because we have work to do. I have a tendency to want an orderly, uncluttered environment (except my desk!), and it has been difficult sometimes as I get annoyed at my son’s messy room. You could argue that it’s my house, and I can mandate how he needs to keep his room, but what I am attempting instead is to understand that we all have very different perceptions, and maybe what I see as clutter, for him is familiar and comforting.

This work, the work of understanding ourselves, is what I believe is the foundation of all growth. You cannot give what you don’t have, so only by understanding and accepting ourselves can we truly do the same for others.

“One who understands others has knowledge, one who understands himself has wisdom.” – Tao de Ching