Blast O' Joy

Energy Suckers Stealing Your Joy? | Tolerate No More!

I did a little thing today that brought me so much joy.  Such a little thing it was, you wouldn't think it would be a big deal.  But a Blast o' Joy it surely was.  As the saying goes...sometimes it's the little things that make a big, big difference.  Remember the story of the Princess who couldn't sleep because of a pea under her mattress??

One of the biggest things we as dream-pursuers can do for ourselves is all about energy.  Cleaning it, clearing it, building it, reserving it...some days I think that's literally all I do, and if I do it well, everything else works fine.  So when I did this little thing today I realized it might be time to do some Spring Energy Cleaning.  And I wanted to share the idea with you.

It all started with wearing a different pair of shorts last week, because, hurray, it's Spring up here in Canada, finally.  And guess what, my spring shorts have a tiny pocket.  So tiny my regular set of keys and cell phone don't even begin to fit.  Annoying!  And annoying again the next day, the day after that, and again today.

So what was the little thing you did Andrea?  Well you should ask! I came right home and de-cluttered my keychain.  Wow, it was like getting a stain off a favorite shirt after five years. Or declogging an antique sink.  It released a whole bunch of energy and now everything about leaving the house is lighter. My purse. My hand-filled-with-keys.  My shorts pocket.

There's only two smart questions at a moment like this.

(1) Why oh why didn't I do this before?

I can't even remember what these other 10 keys are for.  And who needs three cute keychain thingies anyway? I kept the smallest one - a cute wee thing from Maui earlier this year.

(2) What else am I tolerating? What else - like the keychain - can I de-clutter?

Tolerations are actually a word a lot of coaches use.  In fact, even though coaching can seem like a really mystical thing that happens, a lot of times you can get a lot of great coaching done just by focussing on getting rid of tolerations. 

Once they are gone, so many of the other challenges and opportunites in life become effortless because you now have the energy to pay them their due.  Simple.  Sometimes really deep tolerations can take some time to zap, but the principle is simple, really.

So, my Joyful Friend, shall we cut to the nitty gritty?  Can you think of 10 things you are putting up with, gritting your teeth and ignoring?  Make a list now and one by one, scratch them off your list. 

Here are a few more of my tolerations which I've just dispatched...

(1) A shoerack in the mudroom that was too small for my hubby's hiking boots.  Hiking boots all over the floor creating a stubbed-toe zone for months.  Solution: An old bookshelf and no more stray shoes!

(2) Beautiful new makeup brushes rolling around on my sink, not drying properly and hard to pick up.  Slowly but surely ruining a not-so-small makeup investment.  Solution: A lovely stray red wine glass plucked from the kitchen, now doing duty in its second life as a makeup brush holder.  And so pretty and arty looking too. Phew.

(3) A piano with one broken key...doesn't it always seem like the note that's critical to your current favorite song?  Solution: Get the nice old piano guy in to fix.  Bring on those arpeggios!

Tolerations can fall into many categories. Here are just a few more to get you thinking:

- clothes that don't fit, you hate ironing or are stained and unwearable

- burnt out light bulbs, a dishwasher that doesn't clean properly

- an overflowing email inbox, junk mail, unbalanced checkbook

- a sore tooth, dry skin, haircut overdue or even a hangnail

As you can see, when the word Tolerations was born, a really great tool was created to help us increase life energy for those important things.  And all it takes is the first step.

Simply put, to release more joy, and more energy for your dream, your goal is to put up with less and less. 

Won't you make your list of tolerations now?  Post it below with your plan to zap them - choose some easy peasy ones first and feel your shoulders drop in relief, your breath deepen with pleasure and your joy-tank fill up with primo fuel that doesn't cost you by the gallon.  Yay! :-)

And hey, don't put up with any confusion or questions on this topic either okay?  We want FEWER tolerations not more, hehe.  So just submit your mullings below and we'll be happy to post back.  No question too small or silly!

Can You Smell the Joy?

If your dream had a smell, what would it be? 

Think of your ultimate vision for your life.  A life of pure joy.  Now using all your senses, what fragrance can you call up to go along with what you see? What taste? What colors?

If people could smell a corporate culture, I wonder...what would Microsoft smell like?  the Trump organization?  How about Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream or....Starbucks?

I know, it's not fair; the latter two examples are of food companies, so it's easy for them to evoke a smell in our minds.  But I'm actually serious here, I think we (individuals, artists, dreamers and big companies) overlook our senses a lot in our pursuit of joy and meaning...would you agree?

In the course of your day, do you notice your sense of smell?  How does today smell to you, for example?  Like your favorite bouquet of flowers or has it been a dank-alleyway-near-the-fish-market kind of day?  We all have those.

For me, the smell of my business when it's going well, and the smell of joy, is somehow tied to lemons.  That's a regular everyday kind of smell that I associate with my work.  And it's the smell I hope subtly, and not so subtly (as when I write about it like this) gets communicated when someone visits my website or reads one of my books. 

Tangy, thoughtful, awake and energized.

On a really great day, or when I'm blissed out and basking in the bloom of full creative flow, lemons get bumped up to peaches...but lemon is still in the background.  Yum.

Here's my favorite Lemon Yogurt Cake recipe based on one from Ina Gartner, the Barefoot Contessa. It's easy, good for you and delicious.  Exactly the way I want my life and my business to be.

Andrea's Favorite Lemon Yogurt Cake

Mix together:

1 and 1/2 cup flour, 2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt

In a separate bowl mix:

3 eggs, 1 cup plain yogurt, 1 tsp vanilla and the zest of 1 lemon and 2 teaspoons juice from the lemon.  This makes it really lemony.

Then add the dry mixture to the wet mixture until just mixed (not too much.)  Add 1/2 cup of vegetable oil and blend together.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes or until golden.  A loaf pan is best but I like it when Mike makes it in a round bundt tin too.  It stays really nice and moist through the week - perfect for lunch in the middle of a lemony day.

Enjoy! 

Recommended: A trip to the favorite sections in your most glorious grocery store or market.  Leave your grocery list alone for a moment and let your senses be your guide. 

Ask: What attracts you?  Where do you find yourself most wanting to linger?

After you leave, how might you recreate the energy you feel when connected to your sense of smell? 

Shared Joy is Double Joy | Here's to Friendship!

Pssst --- over here.  Shhhhh.  Suzanne's on holidays.  Or, er, that's vacation, rather, since she's American.  Hey, I know!  Let's talk about her while she's gone, shall we??  Hehe!

As readers of 'The Joy Letter' now know, I have the distinct pleasure of joining Suzanne as writer-in-residence, contributing both to the bi-monthly letter and this delight-of-a-blog. 

Who am I? My friends call me 'a,' short for Andrea (Lee), and I'm a writer, or at least I like to think so, most days.  And I'm a business coach and consultant too.  You know, it's what pays the rent.  But in this first post the thing I'm most identifying with is the word friend. 

I know friendship is an old-fashioned word these days.  We don't talk about it much at all, especially on a business level.  But what's bringing me immense joy these days is exactly that - friendship.

Have you thought about friendship lately?  Do you have great friends?  Any new ones, along with the ones that go 'way back?'  How about in your work - have you risked becoming more than just 'work people' to anyone lately?  Like the seasons, I think every year should bring a new crop of friends, ones that reflect back to you where you are in your life - how you're growing and changing with the days.

As a business owner, this is a new discovery for me.  It used to be that I thought friendship belonged in partitioned-off section of my life, designated for 'after hours' when all the work was done.  But here are two things I've learned of late about friendship:

(1) You can mix friendship with work, for surprising effects.

Miuch like when you add the pinch of salt to a meal, a good friend in your business can make everything come alive.  The problem is, many of us don't use friendship as a guide in our work.  But what if we did?

What if this week you decided to follow the energy of friendship in your work - gave a real smile to a customer as you said hello or asked a genuine question with a desire to find common ground?  How about pausing to connect on a human level with a joint venture partner before diving into the nuts and bolts?

The thing about Suzanne and I, in our new business partnerships...is that I liked her from the start.  We began as strangers, drawn to share desserts and tea a couple years in a row, and followed that friendship energy, not any sort of business agenda really.

But it's a funny thing - based on a foundation of friendship, we've found all sorts of wins in our work that we couldn't have predicted.  My energy to expand on Suzanne's great work on Joy allows us to keep this moving - where previously it may well have disappeared.  Suzanne's affection for what I do for coaches makes it possible for me to take a break - grow myself creatively.  Shared joy in this case has really become triple and quadruple the joy, not just double.

So who's a friend you think you might like to do more with, perhaps on a project, as a business partner, or on a shared dream?   How could a new purposeful activity embellish your already joyful friendship energy?

Who's someone you're working with and how might you enrichen your relationship by exploring a friendship? 

For those of you with websites and ezines, what if you treated the people who read your newsletter, or blog, or listened to your podcast, as sincerely great friends?  Look out for your readers by recommending fabulous tools and resources, just like a friend would.  Point out possibilities and make connections, as a friend would.  Even helping out when times are tough, and ask the tough questions, the way a great friend would.

(2) The quality (number, type, etc.) of your friendships can tell you a lot about yourself - where you are right now, and where you're going.

I don't know about you, but I just love the way Suzanne has helped us all navigate using Joy as a guide.  We really *can* live the life of our dreams using just five simple words: 'I want to feel good!'  (Thank you Wayne Dyer!)

But that's the thing - sometimes former friendships can start to *not* feel so good.  They are constraining instead of opening; they small-ize us because of what these friends think of us, instead of giving us permission to do and be anything we dream of; sometimes these outgrown friendships even begin to feel like anchors around our neck - they sap our energy.

Are there friends in your life right now that are doing these things to you? 

What if there was a way to say a graceful goodbye, and free your energy up to become the next iteration of you?

Shedding old friendships and the growth of new ones is a reflection of our growth.  When the energy in a friendship becomes misaligned, the relationship becomes heavy.  Perhaps you've come to value different things.  The things you find important aren't even on your friend's radar.  How can you continue to have a thriving energetic communion if this is the case?

Just as your tastes change and you throw some clothes out after awhile, you begin writing a new genre, or paint in a new medium, friendship has a life cycle.  If you look carefully at your past relationships, I'll bet you discover that your friendships were a reflection of where you were at, in that moment of time.

Accordingly, let's be happily purposeful about our friendships shall we? If you've been feeling at all lonely in your life, make a pact to get out into new social circles and pay attention to who you're drawn to...again, this is a reflection of you.

Maybe you've never been attracted to the very ambitious type - successful and surrounded by others admiration.  But now, maybe this person is fascinating to you - the chemistry is right - you click and a new friendship - suitable for the you of today, is born.

If you let it, this kind of 'follow the friendship' energy will lead you to more joy and give you more energy.   

So do we have a deal?  Will you make a point to consciously allow more friendship into your life? 

I can hardly wait to hear how friendship has changed your life.

And hey, Suzanne?  You're off on vacation awhile, but when you're back, I know you'll be looking for how I christened this new beginning on Blast O' Joy.  I hope you like it, and you know what?  I meant every word:

Shared joy is double the joy and I thank you so very much for your friendship. 

Recommended:  Take 5 minutes to try the Likeability Factor quiz by author Tim Sanders and see just how friendship-ready you are.  It's a great one to send to your friends too.

P.S. Until we figure out how to activate my guest author status, I'll post under Suzanne's name. Ha, I promise not to smear your reputation, S.

Yep, You Really Can Think Yourself Thin

I wanted to do a quick follow up to an excellent call I had with Dr. Roberta Temes last night. She's an expert on hypnosis and weight loss. According to Roberta, if you are overweight, it's because of

a) conditioned beliefs that are buried deep in your psyche
b) genetics that pre-condition you to accumulate fat
c) habits, like sleep deprivation, that make us eat even when we're not hungy

... but here's the good news: each of these can be changed with hypnosis!

Dr. Roberta shared some excellent tips with us on how hypnosis works to get deep into our psyche and convince us of healthy lifestyle choices - like choosing vegetables, or removing the bread basket in restaurants.

Wouldn't it be great if that kind of thinking was just automatic? And you didn't have to dredge up will power around food?

That's all possible, if you work with a great hypnotist. Conveniently, Roberta has a CD series that does just that AND she's making it available to you for an insanely low price. I've managed to procure a really excellent deal for you, my joyful friends.

But first - if you missed the call and you'd like to listen, here's a link to the recording: http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WJSrBt94

And here's the special offer. Buy 'Enjoying Weight Loss', Dr Roberta Temes' special weight loss-hypnosis CD program before Monday night, May 15. You'll get a whopping 60% discount on some amazing goodies - for only $97.

You get Roberta's CD plus a special product bundle we put together for free!

You'll get...
Bonus 1: Managing Stress and Anxiety hypnosis CDs (regularly $69) FREE
Bonus 2: The Coping wth Stress and Anxiety System© (ebook; value $39) FREE
Bonus 3: How Much Joy Nurture Yourself Bundle (ebook; retail value $27) FREE

Total retail value: $254     Your price: $97 (over 60% off)
Offer expires at midnight on Monday night, May 15th

Take advantage of this offer at www.hypnosisnetwork.com/102

Here's to a healthier, more energetic you ... ready to live your dreams!

Tags: Weight loss, hypnosis, finding more energy

The Answer to the Towering To-Do List

Want to gain control of the overwhelm that sweeps into our lives and threatens to task us to death? Tired of the towering to-do list? It's time to set aside a few days, sweep your system clear, and institute David Allen's 'Getting Things Done' system. (This starts an amazing book.)

Man - this guy has SO got it going on! I'm a new woman since I overhauled my office. AND even better, I bought his Getting Things Done Add In for MS Outlook's Task manager and now use it religiously. And an interesting thing has happened. I'm no longer feeling haunted by how much I have to do.

I've been careful to put a date on every darn thing I could possibly ever need to do WITH the understanding that unless it's written on my schedule, I can reset those dates and adjust to suit my needs each day. And it's working! I'm getting two to three times as much done in my 10 hour work day. Best of all, I leave the office and shut the door with a sense of completion - which I hadn't had in over a year. Somehow my tasks always seemed to multiply in the night.

You don't have to implement Allen's Outlook Add In to make this work, of course. You can just carefully use the Task Management's own date setting option on your to-do's… I just liked being consistent with his program.

It's all about emptying your head and going by the book (or task list in this case.) So you whip along once you get a pace going, and tasks fly by. I'm lovin' it!

Procrastination Tips from Neil Fiore

Those who attended last week’s jam packed free call with Neil Fiore now understand a few fundamentals about why they procrastinate and what they can do about it. Here’s what I learned:

1. Procrastination is actually, on a subconscious level, all about fear. Layer upon layer of fear – which is why you really need to ‘unplug’ it by observing it and making a conscious choice not to listen to it
2. One of the best ways to do that is repeated hypnosis which reprograms the neural pathways to respond differently over time
3. We live in a language of victim-ness, survival response, resistance, etc … what Fiore calls our ‘old hypnosis.’ And actually, when you consider the fact that you’re always habitually reinforcing these language patters … it IS a type of hypnosis
4. You need to spend a minimum of 5 hours per week moving towards where you want to be – even if that time is spent listening to hypnosis tapes to reprogram your mind to get with the program

Whew! Who knew we were such collectors of negativity? I now have new appreciation for just how entrenched my negative self-talk is. Fiore takes the view that we should be kind to ourselves and not reinforce negativity by getting mad at ourselves over it. Sounds easier said than done. But ... (pitch warning!) ...

Until tomorrow, Thursday, Neil’s selling his ‘Productivity Engineering’ CD series at a seriously reduced price to my readers. Plus it comes with bonus-a-rama – and you save 65%.

By the way, if you want to get on free calls like this, just sign up for my Joy Letter. We’ll keep you in the loop!