Successful Blog

What Can Authenticity Create?

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This week as we recorded our first podcast (it airs Monday morning), Lorelle asked about authenticity. I answered that it’s who we are when no one is looking, when we’re being naturally and infinitely true to our humanity. Authenticity isn’t something we teach. It’s something we can see when it’s there and something we sense when it’s missing.

Authenticity is a bright harbor morning anticipating the sailboats arriving in their own time. It’s not proud, noisy, or meant to make us larger. Authenticity offers respect and shines on all things within its reach.

Authenticity is golden. It can’t be faked, borrowed, or stolen.

When our hearts are connected and other directed, we shine like that sun on the water. We show the promise of who we are and who we could be.

Nothing is more authentic than a decent human being. Authenticity creates joy, trust, and energy. It’s is our gift to each other wrapped in respect for all things living.

Share your promise this weekend. Create an authentic memory.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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From Out of Ideas to New Energy Everywhere

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I've been thinking . . .

about being out of ideas.

Oh yeah, billions of us log on to the web everyday, but I only know a few and the few I know are a lot like me. If I’m not careful I find that everywhere I go I hear people saying the same things. Funny, it’s easy when everything is too the same to start comparing things. That’s also when I start to feel out … out of gas, out of sync, out of ideas.

Yet, I think the problem may be that I’m in — not out enough.

A person, a product or a business has to stand out to perform.

When I’m tired of feeling out of gas, out of sync, out of ideas. I get out of that routine, out of my way, out the group and scene I’ve been and suddenly I discover I’m into all sorts of outstanding new things.

Sometimes the fastest way to move my mind is to move my feet off the usual path away from the usual group I’m in.

Then new energy, new ideas, and a new view surrounds me everywhere I am.

Know what I mean?

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Have You Put More Hard Work into Your Successes or Your Failures?

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I've been thinking . . .

about the hard road to success.

I’m not thinking about getting rich quick. I’m thinking about accomplishing rigorous, heartfelt dreams. What I’m wondering is

Is the road to success really hard?

I worked for someone once, who believed that if you got good grades and didn’t complain about the work, you went to an easy school. She would argue for the problem — that school was supposed to hard, that work was supposed to be taxing. That success needed to be earned by blood, sweat, and tears.

Does it really?

Every success I’ve known has come from being saturated in learning. I threw myself at every minute of my university time. It didn’t feel hard at the time. It felt thrilling. I wasn’t thinking about how hard it would be to get to the goal. I was thinking about the path to take me there.

All I saw was what new process I got to learn, which new skill I got to master, which new person I got to meet to accomplish the next step to make my way. Nothing seemed like so much work, but at the end I knew and could do things..

I realize now that every time I’ve been a success the work hasn’t felt hard — It’s felt huge, but energizing — pushing me forward. It seems that I’ve put more hard work into trying to save my biggest failures.

Seems to me, if we think the road to success is hard, then we’re on the wrong road.
Seems to me, if we choose our own right road, the work becomes less like work.
Seems to me what comes natural comes more easily.

How about you? Have you put more hard work into your successes or your failures?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

5 Ways to Mine Gold When It's Raining

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Last night we went out to dinner, the weather was unfriendly — cold, rainy, with a hard wind blowing us down the street. As we sat in our favorite pub enjoying the haven, we listened as each person commented on the weather as they arrived.

People competed for negative adjectives — awful, frightful, dismal and nasty were just a handful they chose. … And they frowned when they said them.

And each time those remarks were made, I thought I wanted to back off from the speaker. Who wants to be talking with someone who’s mad about the rain? Let’s just say we’re not golden when we’re unhappy with things we’re not about to change.

5 Ways to Mine Gold When It’s Raining Outside

This morning before I even look out the window, I could hear that the day wasn’t bringing any spring sunshine. No folks would be running along the beach. This is not picnic time. I started to form the thought, “another nasty day,” then I stopped myself thinking “nah, think like that and I won’t want to spend the day anywhere near me.”

I decided that today has every potential to be golden.

<a href="http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=469365"> Photo by Pat4 </a>
Photo by Pat4 -- Click image.

I can find gold with everything I try.

  1. I can write with my own light about the people who inspire me.
  2. I can look for the golden opportunities to help other folks shine.
  3. I can mine my archives for ideas that will become stellar blog posts.
  4. I can gather sparks of insight and energy from my friends and the wisdom they write.
  5. I can take the example of the power of the rain outside my window and apply that power in my life.

Nothing wrong with not wanting to be cold, wet, and blown around. I’m choosing not to participate in a day that’s not human friendly. If I don’t have to, I probably won’t join it. But I’ve decided it’s not at all awful, frightful, dismal, or nasty. It’s a chance to see what I make shine inside.

How do you mine gold in your life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Go for the Gold Inside You!

The Only People for Me Are Mad …

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Jack Kerouac Said

nickwijnan photo
nickwijnan photo -- Click the image

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

Awwww! and Wow!

What about you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Invest, Learn, Grow

Have a Strong — Even Silent — Signal to Rise Above the Noise

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This week was week of the same conversation. Clients — businesses and individuals — were stuck in the noise. They had lost or never found their signal. They didn’t know who they were trying to be. I kept hearing about folks being everything for everyone, doing everything that everyone could need.

When I’d say, “So what, who, does that make you?”

The answer came back in a passel of words — mushy and undefined — unfocused and noisy. The answer was really. “We’ll be whatever, whomever they want us to be.”

They were floating without direction, changing ideas with every shiny new thing. Wandering aimlessly. What they couldn’t see is that no one else has the information, inclination, or time to do the work for them. To the rest of us they are so much noise with out signal.

We all have too much noise. Road traffic, little hassles, things that break and don’t work as they should. What we look for in the people and businesses that attract us is a clear signal of who they are and what they do. That let’s us know that we can count on them to be what they say they will be.

All winter the tiny crocus only does one thing — gather nourishment so that every spring it can show us outstanding flowers. A crocus knows what it does and it does it beautifully — without saying a thing. That strong purpose — that signal — makes the noise around crocus fade into irrelevancy. People who love crocuses know them, seek them out, and bring them home to their gardens and their fields.

Have a strong signal and rise above the noise.

What’s the one thing that you want to be known for? What’s signal sets you above the noise?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!