What's Up Buttercup? |
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*This post is specific to Purposeful Practitioners who have the option to participate (or not participate) as In Network provers with health insurance companies.
To participate In or Out of Network? That is the question most licensed practitioners find themselves asking at least once (or a thousand times) in their career. There are so many factors to consider in this decision. Here is what I can share, based on my experience. First, there are a lot of folks out there selling you the idea that going private pay is quick and easy. It’s not necessarily either 🤔 Second, we are “Helpers” and “Nurturers” and so we have to deal with our money shit. Why? Because we want to help people and people have money shit including not managing it well and, well, just not having it. (More on this topic another time…) Here are my suggestions if you find yourself in that, “I want to cut my ties with Insurance Companies” quandary. Let’s actually start with the Pros of participating with at least one insurance company. People have been trained and trained people are predictable. We (meaning the collective of licensed professionals) worked really hard to get insurance companies to recognize our areas of expertise outside of just recognizing and including medical doctors for coverage in people’s insurance benefits coverage. (Be careful what you ask for 😳) Humor aside (just for a moment), there are a lot of people who do have access to services now who truly are not in a position to pay for services out of pocket. That is not a bad thing. The challenges, especially for us seasoned and experienced practitioners, is that the Insurance Companies choose not to recognize us as more than a “number" so we don’t usually have much leverage in getting a “raise”. Doing business with Insurance Companies can be extremely frustrating as it seems as if they get to make all of the rules. That’s because they do 🙄 OK, so here are the advantages of at least starting out your private practice days in a relationship with at least one insurance company.
Again, we can dream about how easy our business would be if people would just show up, pay us a shit ton of money to work our magic, and not have to jump though the insurance company hoops and cross our fingers that they are going to pay (and not audit us)….AND….that is just an escape fantasy 😬 Sure, we have all heard the “horror” stories about dealing with insurance companies AND being in business for yourself, whether you participate with insurance or not, is not EASY. If you have found a way for money to just show up in your bank account without doing some amount of work for it, let’s go get coffee and chat (SOON). 🧡 I get it, you still want to simply your life and it seems like cutting ties (at least eventually) with insurance companies would be one way to make this dream of simplicity come true. If you are determined (and I admire you for being determined) then ask yourself a couple of key questions:
If you haven’t run screaming from the room yet, let me share my answers to these questions AND how I navigated the process of going from paneled to private pay. My “Why” for going from participating with three insurance companies to fully private pay did have to do with making more money AND I’m a nurturer so I knew that could not be my sole reason for the change. I had to dig deeper to find a “Why” that would feed my soul. The answer I found was that I was ready to “do it differently”. Over the years I found that the clients who found me (and responded well to my approach to their Anxiety Related Issues) were not looking for “traditional therapy” AND I found that these were the clients that, when I looked at my calendar and saw them on it, brought a smile to my face. So the short answer to my deeper “Why” is the ability to “do it differently” 🙌 When other practitioners share that it seems “ludicrous” to be doing notes like “someone is watching me”, I nod my head in agreement AND am grateful that I no longer feel that angst. Does that mean that I don’t do my notes in a responsible manner? Nope, remember that just because you cut ties with Big Brother Insurance Company, you are still a licensed professional (and are required to adhere to the standards of your license) and can still get called into court! So here is the short version of how I made the transition:
That leads us back to your answer to the second question: "What encourages people to pay for your services without using their insurance (or being willing to jump through the hoops of OON)?” What can you convey to your Ideal Clients so that they know you are The One for them AND they are willing to choose you OON 😍 When you can answer both questions with confidence, that’s when you start cutting ties 😘 P.S. - Pop a comment below with your main "Why" for choosing to cut ties with Insurance Companies 🤔
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As 2019 winds its way to a strong finish, it’s time to take a breath and begin the planning for 2020.
What do you vision for your business in the New Year? I’ve noticed a few (dozen) posts on social media about finding the perfect planner. Paper planners must be a multimillion dollar industry. Which is saying something in this age of technology! Hours and hours of time spent on researching all of the options. Here is my take on this time consuming ritual: The Perfect Planner is one that you use! See, one thing that I have noticed is how our VOD drives what I call Procrastiplanning. I have actually named that part of my VOD Polly Procrastiplanner 🙄 She’s the one that will get me caught up on Amazon reading reviews of planners or following the rabbit hole of threads in FB groups about getting organized and planning for the next year. It all seems like a valid use of time, until we step back an realized that we are just being played by our VOD as it keeps us “safe” from actually taking that next step in our life and business! Here’s my Ass Kicking Action Step suggestion: Pick one and then commit to creating a system and habits that will actually support you in using whatever planner or notebook that you choose. There is no “right” or “perfect” one. There is only the one that you actually use. That is the one that will propel you out of procrastination and into the next phase of growing your business 😘 Bullshit 😳
Yeah, that’s right, I’m gonna call Bullshit on that statement 😬 We like to tell ourselves that the reason we don’t get more shit done is that there are too many things and too little time 😫 It makes us feel better, less like we are failing... It’s still Bullshit 😜 There are Things and There is Time, those words are true. The trick is that we don’t know how to choose and how to focus. Basically, as Mark Manson (Author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”) and so many others are pointing out to us, we don’t know how to decide what to give a Fuck about 🙄 We want to do all the things, chase the shiny objects. It all looks so fun and lucrative. Except it’s not. No one can do all the things. At least not on their own. One of the challenges with social media (OK, media in general) is that it is an illusion. What we see is not necessarily what is real or at least it’s usually not the “whole story”. One of the most impressive blog post that I have read in the last year was by Denise Duffield-Thomas (aka “The Lucky Bitch”) and was how while she may have been the sole “employee” of her business while she was building it, she wanted to be transparent that she was not doing “everything” herself! See she has a business that makes 7 figures yearly. She built her business from scratch and has worked hard to make it so successful. It would be pretty easy for her to only share her highlights and let her followers and students think that she is some super woman. Doing that wouldn’t actually help anyone recreate what she has done, it would most likely just lead to a lot of people feeling pretty shitty about themselves for “failing”. Thankfully she regularly shares a few things:
Yes, I did just “shout” that last part at you….because it’s the important part 🙌 When I say that she outsourced, I mean that she has an assistant (who even makes her breakfast), a nanny for her kids, a housekeeper, a deep cleaning crew, a landscaper….you get the picture 🖼 We are not meant to DO IT ALL! I could rant about this for awhile AND that wouldn’t be super productive for either of us 🙄 so here are the highlights of my random rambling rant: 🔸Stop believing that there are too many things and too little time. 🔸Stop believing that you are meant to do all the things. 🔸Decide on your “Why." Wait, what? Yes, one of the most important questions for you to answer if you want to be successful in your business pursuits (whether you work for yourself or someone else) is to determine why you are considering doing what you think you want to do 🤔 I can’t tell you what your “Why" is. I can tell you some “Whys" that won’t work out well for you: ❌To get more clients/customers ❌To make more money Look, if you are reading my shit then I know that you are a Heart Centered Helper, Healer, and/or some type of Creative Entrepreneurial Soul 🧡 We are Givers and Nurturers and all around Kind and Compassionate Anxious folks with very loud VODs (Voices of Doubt) 🤦♀️ So “making money” does not cut it as a “Why" for us! It just doesn’t. Making money to support ourselves, our family, and the causes that are important to us is necessary on some level AND we just can’t use that as a means to motivate or inspire ourselves. “Get more clients/customers” doesn’t work either because it’s too vague. Why do we want more customers? What kind of customers do we want? It’s too closely tied to “more money” and we have already established that reason doesn’t work as well as we want to think that it will 🤷♀️ We have to have another “Why" 🤔 My “ Why" is to reach as many people as I can who like to say “Fuck” (or would like to learn to say it more), have a loud VOD, and have a desire to do things differently. Why? Because I like to say Fuck, have a loud VOD, do lots of things differently AND I believe that I have some serious mad skills to share that can help the aforementioned people deal with their VOD and be fabulously successful fuckers by doing it differently! Do I have a FB Business Page (yes), Instagram (yes, but not super active), Twitter (yes, but never tweet), YouTube (yes, but not up and running), podcast (not exactly, it’s a long story), book (not yet), group practice (nope), any other shiny object that floats your boat (I don’t know, your shiny objects and my shiny objects may not be the same). I’ve gotten caught up in the Shiny Object Syndrome and then used the excuse of Too Many Things Not Enough Time myself 🤦♀️ How did I start my recovery from SOS? By taking the advice of some very smart people about how to ask myself my “Why", decide what to give a fuck about, and to focus on my One Thing. What’s this One Thing of which I speak? Tune in next time for more details on that. Why? Because this is getting long and rambley (yeah, I know that is not a word) and I don’t want you to get lost or fall asleep….this shit is important 😘 We don’t like 😝
We do just about everything we can to avoid it. Our VOD (Voice of Doubt) beats us over the head with the idea of it. How did all of this resistance and fear of failure come to pass? I have no fucking clue 🤔 What I do know is that failure is important. Don’t believe me? Think about it. If you didn’t embrace failure at some point in your life, you wouldn’t be walking or talking or just about anything you learned how to do as a toddler 😂 Toddler’s lives are filled with failures AND successes. I’m currently reading (OK I’m listening to it on Audible) Scott Adam’s book “How to Fail at Just About Everything and Still Win Big” and he actually points out that Success’s favorite place to hide out is in lots and lots of Failure 😳 Still not convinced? Ever heard of X Development? From 2010 to 2015 it was known as Google X or maybe even as The Google Project. It is a subsidiary company where some of the best and brightest minds are recruited and paid and rewarded for failing. Sign me up! Aside from Meteorologists, I don’t know anyone who gets paid directly for failure, except the folks at X. See what the folks at Google (and now the folks at whatever company currently owns this X Development) know is that Innovation cannot happen unless the Innovators are willing to fail 😬 Yep, these folks are learning how to tackle big deal projects in a whole new and different way than what our societies and cultures tell us is OK. They are learning how to jump right in to the hardest parts and then figure out next steps based on their failures rather than their immediate successes. OK, this is not really a new idea. We all know the story of Thomas Edison failing a bazillion (yes, that is an exaggeration) times before he figured out the light bulb and that J.K. Rowling was turned down a bazillion (yep, another exaggeration because I’m not going to take up my precious time to look up the actual details) times on her draft of Harry Potter. My question is this: “If we know this about failure, then why are we still so fucking sensitive about it?” 😫 For those of us prone to Anxiety and a loud VOD, we have to work more diligently at recognizing that while we may not like how shit like fear of failure triggers our flight or fight (or freeze) response, it’s time to deal with it. Time to be willing to be uncomfortable. Time to even Fail something on Purpose (GASP 😲) so that we can prove to ourselves that it is not life or death, just merely uncomfortable. What are you holding yourself back from because you are avoiding the idea of failure? What will it take for you to take one uncomfortable step forward? Those are not rhetorical questions, I actually want to know. Drop your answer in the comments or email me lynn@thecompassionateasskicker.com Have you ever heard this phrase before? I have lots of times and it totally resonates for me 🙌
New clients walk into my office on a regular basis with a request that I help them to “get rid of” their Anxiety 😲 That’s when I get to deliver the News (I’m not gonna label it “Bad” news or “Good” news, it’s just News 😉) that the goal is not to get rid of their Anxiety 😳 The goal is to learn to embrace and deal with their Anxiety. The goal is to change their relationship with Anxiety 🙌 This is where I begin the process of teaching what Carl Jung spoke about (and that people have been paraphrasing for years, ‘cause us humans just love us a short cut 🙄) that “What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size” 😬 What the fuck 😫 Yes folks, we are talking Law of Attraction stuff right here. One of the fundamental Laws of how the Universe works is that what we put our focus on is what we attract. Now that sounds pretty simple and yet I know that I sure as hell don’t like all of the shit that comes walking through my life’s door 😩 So why isn’t it so simple and easy as “Hey Universe I want 10 million dollars” and 💥💰💵 Well let’s think about that…. You see way back when humans lived in survival mode every minute of every fucking day (unlike how our comfortable and cushy asses live most of the time today), the humans who relaxed and danced around the fire and shit were the ones who got to be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or midnight snack for some hungry carnivore 😬 That means that the rest of us descended from the humans who were alert and vigilant. The ones who expected to be eaten and so took action to survive rather than fill a hungry beast’s belly 😳 Our ancestors are the ones who figured out how to Plan for the Worst AND Expect the Best 👊 except that in so many cases they left off that last part OR they rephrased it to something like “Expect the Worst and Hope for the Best” 😬 Can you see how just that little flip and tweak totally fucks up the meaning and intent AND leads us down the path of some pretty overfocused negative thinking? Guess what fucks with The Universe and The Law of Attraction? Those fucking “minor” changes in how we are actually putting our thoughts, feelings, and overall energy out into the world 🥴 Yep, so we run around every day focused on:
All of that shit is coming from our resistance to accepting and embracing WHAT IS so we are the ones who just keep perpetuating our perceived negative situation 😳😬 For most of us when we think “I want 10 million dollars” instead of actually embracing and attracting the cash, we actually start thinking about all of the “negative” responsibility type stuff that our subconscious believes comes along with having money. What do you believe about money? That it is “the root of all evil” or how miserable lottery winners end up because they have no idea of how to actually manage all of that money or how your distant relatives will come out of the woodwork looking for a hand out or that you won’t be able to trust your friends because they will just be hanging around ‘cause your rich? So, instead of getting completely overwhelmed and throwing up your hands, take a moment to get Curious with me 🤔 What is one truly shitty thing that has happened to you that actually made you stronger, wiser, or more compassionate? What is one overwhelming or scary thing that you once thought about yourself (think along the lines of believing that you were stupid or incompetent), that, by taking action, you have proved to yourself was not true? Now, what is one thought or feeling that you are resisting (and, according to Carl Jung, growing out of proportion) that you are ready to accept, embrace, and flip that fucker so that it is working for you rather than against you? OK, it is action step time 👣 Choose one of your examples from the questions I just asked and share it with me in the comments. I want to know what has been holding you back, what you have been resisting AND I want us to decide how you are going to flip that fucker and take some action on moving forward toward being The Boss in Your Life and Your Business 👊🙌  Motivation is a Myth 😳
The belief that we have to feel inspired or motivated in order to do something is complete bullshit! For the past couple of weeks, no matter whether the weather is “good” or “bad” I take my morning walk. Now, I know you are smart and paying attention and you noticed those quotation marks around those two annoying words. See the weather isn’t “bad” or “good”, the weather is just the weather. We get caught up in judging the weather and then using those judgements to make decisions. What my VOD (Voice of Doubt) says: “I can’t take my walk because the weather is bad and I don’t feel like walking in bad weather” 😳 What I say to myself in response: "Um, well, you can choose to use that fucked up VOD ‘logic' or you can decide that walking is an activity that you have committed to for a multitude of reasons (I love to connect with nature, walking clears my head and grounds me for the rest of the day, walking is healthy and I see myself as a healthy person, one important way to deal with my Anxiety is to practice being uncomfortable, etc.) and that you are going to take your walk regardless of the weather conditions." 🙌 Let’s be clear I don’t actually feel motivated to put spend an hour (that is an extreme exaggeration) putting on multiple layers of clothing on and go for a walk with my dog when the outdoor temperature is below 30 degrees. 😬 I don’t usually feel motivated to do things I find boring or tedious either. If I waited until I felt liked doing any of these things, my family would be on the front page of the newspaper for having been buried alive under a mountain of laundry and my business would be in the toilet since I would have no clients because I wouldn’t have done any marketing or systems maintenance to keep my business running smoothly 😜 I am not posting pictures of my morning walks when the wind chill is -10 🥶 to Inspire or Motivate you to take bone chilling walks or to cause your VOD to shame you for not walking in the shitty weather. I am posting these pictures to share my experience in learning how to take Actionwhether I “feel” like it or not! We talk a lot about all of the amazing things that we “want” to do, so why aren’t we doing most of it? We feel inspired easily enough some times, but where we hit the wall is that we wait to feel motivated so what happens is that the most important part of the equation doesn’t happen, we don’t take Action 😩 Since I deal exclusively with clients who are experiencing Anxiety including a very loud VOD, chronic worry, and Imposter Syndrome, I see the Mental Masturbation ALL.THE. TIME. 😲 We (and I say we ‘cause I am a Master Mental Masturbator Myself 😉) get so stuck in the “thinking about it” phase and the “I don’t feel like ALL of the conditions are RIGHT” phase that we definitely find ourselves challenged in the "where the rubber meets the road" in the TAKING ACTION part! How does this apply to business? To begin with, we start applying this Taking Action First idea to our personal lives. When we are willing to apply it to our personal lives, it will also make a positive impact in our business lives 🙌 Second, we focus on how our VOD really digs at our core beliefs about not being good enough, smart enough, tough enough, or whatever enough to take the Action steps necessary to either start or stick with our hopes and dreams of building our own business. 👣 When I first started being willing to talk about leaving my agency job to be in business for myself, a few of my colleagues expressed a similar interest. We even went to so far as to look at office space together. It was exciting to me to think about not having to do this business thing alone. My VOD was loud and clear that I “need” others to do this with me so that we could “make sure” that it would work. 🙄 So why am I a solo practitioner in business for myself? Because, at the time, I was the only one of the three of us who was ready and willing to take the uncomfortable Action and move forward. I talked back to my VOD and took the Action steps necessary to move forward AND I proved to myself that I did not “need” the others and that “making sure” is just an illusion 😜 Hey, we all take Action in our own time. No judgement here! I get that there are a lot of factors (financial, emotions, physical to name a few) that go into our decisions about our futures AND I am challenging you to consider whether your Anxiety, VOD, chronic worry, or Imposter Syndrome Bullshit have you convinced that you have to “feel Motivated” and that you have to “make sure” all of the external conditions are “right" in order to take the Action steps necessary to move forward. 🤔 This is pretty big deal so I suspect we will be chatting about this on the regular. For today, hit reply and share one thing that you “want” to do, but have been putting off the Action steps waiting to “feel Motivated” to do them….😘 A few days ago I heard someone mention that by January 12th the majority of the population who got themselves all worked up and followed the crowd by making a New Year’s Resolution have, in less than two weeks, blown those resolutions 😳
Are you a resolution maker? Do you get caught up in the hype and make a New Year’s Resolution? If you do, have you broken it already? Now don’t get me wrong (and don't let your Anxiety tell you that I am shaming you 😝). I get how easy it is to get caught up in this seemingly harmless yearly tradition! Identifying old habits that are not working for us and committing to make changes is top shelf shit 👊 However, most of us go about making those changes at the “wrong” time and in the “wrong” way 🤔 (yes, I put the word "wrong" in quotes because I do not believe in right/wrong AND I got your attention, yes?) For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere at least, this time of year (Winter) is a time of slowing down, reflecting, and hibernating. Why would we expect ourselves to commit to a daunting new exercise regimen or have the willpower to go from stuffing our faces with Christmas cookies to allowing them to sit on the counter for more than five minutes🙄 The other thing that I noticed in December was all of the business folks yammering about how they were doing all this planning for the new year. 😩 They were all like, “Buy this complicated planner, and then plan your whole year out to the most minute detail, and then turn around sixteen times, stand on your head, and now you will have a successful year in business" 😬 Yeah, there was this thing called Christmas barreling down on me (oh and my daughter’s birthday just before it) so I was kind of focused on those important family commitments 😳 Why do we insist on taking a time of year when we can so easily be stressed out dealing with commitments and obligations and decide to judge ourselves as not good enough so we have to resolve to better ourselves all the while knowing, on some level, that we are just setting ourselves up for “failure” and self flagellation? Yeah, so while you may well have forgotten this by next year (unless you write it in your fancy planner and are still looking at it next December 😉) I’m going to advocate that we focus on reflection and self care during the Holidays and then calmly and with curiosity look forward to that bright and shiny New Year with excitement rather than the dread of “fixing” ourselves. While I did work and did do some amount of planning (like buying the simplest planner I could find with the best cover quote I could find), it is actually the first few weeks of January when I get my best planning and goal setting for the year done 🙌 January is historically more “quiet” and I embrace the quiet, do my best say “no” to too many social obligations, and take every chance I get to hibernate. It is during this quiet hibernation time that my best ideas make themselves known. This is when I can start to discern which of my amazing ideas will get the attention and focus that it deserves. How do I do this magical and elusive “planning” thing? By being less caught up in the goals (to grow my business) and more focused on the incremental steps I can take toward that goal (talk about my business offerings in person or email or on social media one time each day, spend 15 minutes each day taming my email inbox). James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” points out that it is the daily 1% incremental changes that support us in making our way, one step at a time, toward our bigger goals. This explains why resolutions “fail” 🧐 It is because we don’t put the habits into place to support ourselves in actually taking the steps from where we are to where we aspire to be. For those of us with a very loud VOD (voice of doubt) it can be overwhelming to have so many sources of pressure to set specific goals, use a specific planner, or even to make a resolution. We get caught up in what everyone else is doing, or using, or telling us we “should” be doing that we lose our Connection to our own Inner Guidance system 😔 Our Anxiety loves to convince us that it is in charge and then get us lost in the spinning wheel of indecision, making choices based on obligation, perceived failure, self judgement, and just that overall sucky feeling of stuckness (which is not a word AND I am using it anyway because I am the boss of me 😜). Your turn ... How are you going to talk back to your VOD and cut through your cloud of overwhelm and choose one incremental step to move toward your goal this year? Shoot me and email (click here) and share your One Thing 🙌 I’m eternally curious AND I answer every email 😘 This is my time of year to party 🥳
It started 52 years ago when I made my arrival on the planet for this incarnation. I’m an Epiphany Baby, so Happy Birthday to me! Then five years ago I took the leap and went full-time into Private Practice, so Happy Anniversary to me! More recently, like as of Friday, I added another thing to celebrate: a successful premier workshop in my Demote Your Doubt: Be the Boss in Your Business series, so Happy Successful Workshop for me! I’m feeling a bit like a Queen at the moment….or at least a Duchess 😜 It hasn't always been easy to toot my own horn or call attention to myself AND today I am more willing to do just that 🙌 Anyway thanks for hanging out with me on my birthday 😍 What shall we talk about? It has to be something a least a little deep, because I am not a fan of small talk 😝 How about what it takes to make it to a 5 year Anniversary in Business? Let me tell you that story 🤓 Once upon a time I was a girl with a dream. That dream was kind of blurry, but from what I could make out (and what I was experiencing in real life) was that most of the people in charge and bossing me around were morons (don’t get your panties in a wad....not all of them and not all of the time...it just makes for a good story 😜) What I took from that was I had two choices: 1) I could stick around, bitch a lot, drink a lot, and be miserable or 2) take action and be my own boss. I chose what was behind Door #2 and haven’t (often) looked back. Does being my own boss suck sometimes? Why yes, yes it does. I don’t get to blame shit on my boss or coworkers, ‘cause I’m a one person show. I am solely responsible for it all, the good, bad, and the ugly. Would I ever consider (more than briefly) throwing in the towel and finding a job where I just have to show up and someone else is in charge? Nope, not a chance 😉 For all of the shit sandwiches* that I have had (and will continue to) eat , the freedom and ability to be responsible for the good, the bad, and the ugly makes it totally worth it for me. *Mark Manson "Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck" reference Isn’t it interesting that so much of this can be boiled down to perspective? It reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago (I am so about to date myself 😳) where two kids were outside of a school room banging chalk erasers on the brick wall. One kid says to the other “What bad thing did you do to get this punishment?” while the other kid looks confused and replies, “I volunteered to do this fun job!” (You have no idea how much time I spent attempting to track down the original cartoon, to no avail 😩). Yes, being our own bosses when Anxiety and it’s whole clan of misfits (Worry, VOD, and Imposter just to name a few) want to run the show can be exhausting AND when we put the clan members in their place at the foot rather than the head of the table, owning and running our own businesses can be Totally Kick Ass! So how have I made the past 5 years successful? A whole lot of “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I’m going to do it anyway” 😳😬😂 What did that actually look like? Having ideas, reseaching ways to make the ideas happen, taking the action steps to make the ideas into reality, and then wash, rinse, repeat. So many coaches are on the scene doing their best to appeal to our desire to take shortcuts. Now I’m not saying an occasional shortcut isn’t awesome AND I’ve learned my best lessons by going the long way around. I have made a shit ton (which is more than a ton and less than a fuck ton) of mistakes AND turned each and every one of them into an opportunity (even if the only opportunity was to tell a great story about what not to do 😬). Have I stumbled and even fallen? Yep, I have experienced a range of emotions including joy, jealousy, sorrow, stubborn, fear, frustration, anger, and anxiety (just to name just a few 😉). When the members of my Anxiety clan show up (and they drop by unannounced regularly 🙄), I deal with them. No avoiding, no procrastinating, no running and hiding (OK, that’s kind of a lie, ‘cause every once in awhile there is a coup and I go hide in a corner and regroup and then come back out and get back in the driver’s seat 😲) and no quitting! When shit gets real and I’m feeling on shaky ground, I rally my troops both internal and external 🤗 One of the best investments in myself and in my business (and has contributed to my success) has been my own coaching. 🤩 Having a coach as part of my support team (along with my family, friends, accountant, bookeeper, biweekly housecleaner/organizer, and part-time office assistant) has been the #1 Best Investment (yes even better than any technology or book or course or workshop) that I have made as a business owner 🙌 Coaches keep us focused, accountable, and moving forward. They listen to us vent and then help us problem solve and get back on track. They put fresh eyes on our blurry bump in the road and suddenly the path gets clearer. They kick our ass and cheer us on as we navigate our journey. So, while I might be a wee bit biased (since I am a coach myself 😊) about coaching, I do believe wholeheartedly that hiring my coach was the #1 best investment that I have made and that it has brought me the highest ROI (return on investment) possible 😘 Alright, that’s deep enough. I’m off to celebrate my day with an awesome brunch buffet with part of my support team (my family). Thanks for celebrating with me 🤩🎉🤩🎉 Hey if you haven’t noticed, 2018 is about to take it’s leave and 2019 is crouched and ready to take its place 🥳
With all of the “shoulds” being flung around out there (picking your word for the year, making resolutions, setting goals, taking down your decorations, eating all of the leftovers, losing weight, and any other thing someone out there is shouting that you “should” be doing) it is easy to fall down the rabbit hole of overwhelm! I, on the other hand, spent the week seeing how long I could go without showering or knowing what day of the week it was 😳 Yeah, I could be “trying” to see clients (nope, learned my first year that while clients have “good intentions” when they make appointments between Christmas and New Year’s that it gets shot to hell and they cancel or no show, so no client appointments that week, I just build that into the calendar every year 🙌) or frantically “planning” for 2019 AND I have chosen to take the week to decompress, enjoy family time, read, watch movies, eat (a lot 😳), and paint my bathroom. Now, don’t misunderstand, I have worked in time to do some work and planning for my business. I just did it with intention rather than feeling some external pressure from something that I read on the internet about what I “should” be doing right now. You see, I figured out pretty quickly that when I let someone else be the boss of me I was really letting my Anxiety, Worry, and VOD (Voice of Doubt) be in charge. Any time I hear about or read something that someone else says I “should” be doing, I stop being the CEO of my business and let Anxiety, Worry, and VOD take the reins. Guess what? Anxiety, Worry, and VOD are not very good Leaders. Interestingly, they do make good employees, managers, and even advisors (once you know how to train them to be your super powers), just not good Leaders! Now you can try to run your business with managers, employees, and even advisors, but it won’t be successful unless you have a clear Leader who actually knows how to Lead! So how does one go from letting VOD be the CEO to being the type of Boss you might have actually stayed at a salaried job for? You know, a real Leader Boss? (That is why you left a soul sucking job, or are deep into the fantasy about doing so, right? To be your own boss? 👊) Why would you be a Boss that sucks? Think about that. We work hard to step into the arena and become our own boss, and then we just let Anxiety, Worry, and our VOD run the show…WTF? That’s fucking crazy and yet, it’s exactly what so many of us do 😳 I did it early on (and still have my moments when they attempt a mutiny and take over 😳). What did that look like?
Yeah, it wasn’t exactly pretty or, in the end, productive 😩 You know what actually worked to move forward in my business? Taking one step at a time 👣 What did that look like?
Now that may seem obvious or even simple AND it’s not. I hope you know by now that I don’t sugar coat and I don’t lie, I just cuss a lot 😜 Ever day I wake up and recommit to being the Boss that I want to be for myself. I remind myself of my “Why” I do what I do and then I get on about doing it. I make mistakes and I do my best to learn from them and see them as opportunities. I don’t quit, no matter how scary or shitty the situation, I keep going. I might pause for a moment to cry, cuss, or catch my breath, AND I get back off and get back to kicking ass as soon as I can. Oh, and I throw in some compassion for myself once in awhile too 😉 Who are you? Over the past week or so I have been making posts on FB asking what appear to be simple questions:
Now those may seem like simple questions AND if you know me at all, you know that I tend to be a shitstirer (is that even a word 🤔). Who the fuck only wants two choices for answers? Not me! (Not to go down the rabbit hole of politics and shit, but look what only having two choices got us in the last Presidential Election 🤮) When we ask for permission or forgiveness we are giving our power over to others. No one else has your answers. You can ask for advice from those you trust and you can do a mea culpa if something you are doing breaks a rule and you get caught, but being a Leader Boss in your Business means making your own decisions and dealing with the consequences of those decisions. I didn’t realize how often I was saying “sorry” until my daughter started saying it regularly 🤦♀️ While I have taken the stand in the past that it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission (we got married on a mountain where we found out 2 weeks before the date that we were supposed to “get permission” and make a donation….we made the donation after the fact, but I was not going to be told “no” for some random reason, so we just didn’t ask! I had my “oops” speech all ready 😜), I put a disclaimer on that when it comes to randomly saying “Sorry” for shit that we have no control over. What we really mean to say is “I feel empathy for you right now” 😔 What do you think might happen if we all started saying that instead? 🤔 Baking tends to be more about following the rules while cooking allows for more flexibility if you want to go off the recipe. Leaders have to know how to do both. Once you know the “rules” in baking you can go rogue and make substitutions, but you have to be willing to deal with the consequences. Cooking inherently allows for more creativity AND you still have to know that substituting the same amount of cayenne pepper for chili powder is going to end rather explosively 💥 Introverted or Extroverted (and the follow up HSP question 😜)? Well now, that’s just all about how important it is to know yourself and to work with your strengths. Both Extroverts and Introverts and Highly Sensitive People can make great leaders as long as they are being authentic to themselves and not “trying” to be someone they are not. Know yourself, know your peeps (clients and customers), and you will figure out how to use your personality and sensitivities as super powers 🙌 So what’s it gonna be? Are you going to Bust into 2019 committed to being the Best Boss you can be for yourself? Even if you aren’t currently in a position to be your own boss at work, you can start practicing being your own boss at home by demoting your doubt and getting to know your super powers 🤩 Just take it one step at a time….😘  Keeping it a simple as possible is great in theory AND can be hard to do in our current reality 😩
As a means of leading by example, I am going to keep this email short and (hopefully) sweet 😘 This holiday season I have worked on taking it one step at a time 👣. You see, not only do we have Christmas to gear up for this time of year, but I went and had a baby 6 days before Christmas, just because having one celebration in December wasn't enough 🙄 Anxiety and my VOD (Voice of Doubt) can get all up inside of my head, especially this time of year AND we have had lots of productive conversations like: VOD: "Your (home) office is a fucking wreck! There is shit laying everywhere. You are so disorganized and you are going to fuck something up!" Me: "Hey, thanks for pointing out that it would be a great idea for me to put an hour on my calendar to sort through all of the boxes and bags and check to see if I have any last minute shopping to do. Oh, and so what if something get's missed. No one is going to die!" VOD: "There is way too much stuff coming into your house right now, you better start controlling, telling everyone what to do, and losing your shit so they know you are in charge!" Me: "Ummm, yeah, no thanks. I've done that before and it just fucks up my relationships. Besides I have systems in place and ways to deal with all of the stuff. Oh, and I'm learning how to let the other people who live in the house manage their own stuff." VOD: "If you take time off from work, it's all just going to fall apart. You don't have every last detail worked out for your workshop, your new online TCAK Mastermind, and everything else you are offering in 2019!" Me: "Thanks so much for pointing all of that out 😜 You know I actually work better when I work smarter and take some time off. It recharges me and I am way more creative when I slow down on occasion. Oh, and I have a couple of hours scheduled here and there throughout the Winter Break where I will get my creative on and be ready for some kick ass workshops and groups in 2019!" 🙌 VOD: "Damn, I got nothing left right now!" Me: "No worries, it's been fun playing our game. I know you'll be back, and I'll be ready for you!" 😂 So now that I've given you a glimpse into one of my favorite games with my VOD 🙄 I have a favor to ask of you.... On Friday I got a wild hair up my ass and posted what I thought was a simple question on my FB Page (what you don't follow me on FB? Heres' the link: AuntieAnxiety The Compassionate AssKicker ) and what followed was an amazing conversation that let me know that the question was not as simple as I had intended 🤔 OK, so here is what I want from you: Email me and tell me your answer to this "simple" question (it would be like a really inexpensive Christmas Present from you to me)... Are you more likely to ask for Permission or Forgiveness? I am quite certain that there will be a blog post about this...so answer the question for me and then stay tuned 😘 |
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