MY BIG DREAM PART II

Last week I told you about my big dream, which was to meet and hold at least a 20 minute conversation with 10 of the most influential people of our time by July 2009.  The question you are probarbly pondering is how close am I towards reaching that goal?  Well I am about 20% there, so I still have a long way to go.  But I believe in miracles, divine intervention and appointment so my 20% can go to 100% percent in a nanosecond, well maybe not a nanosecond, but with a miracle it can happen pretty quickly.

I also requested your participation in an exercise given from one of the folks on my list and said that I will share my outcome.   So here it is:

1) What are the opportunities worth pursuing?  Surprisingly, there were plenty of opportunities that came up for my clients, none for me.  These opportunities were clear as a bright summer morning and I recommended that my clients pursue them.   I was surprised because I thought that the exercise was very personal, it was intended only for the participant and I was expecting something that will directly make it self available to me.  However, showing others the opportunities that are in front of them were so much more rewarding.  

2:  What’s missing in this picture?  What came up for me as the missing elements were tolerance and acceptance.  I feel that there is a spirit of intolerance in the world and I think it is more pervasive than ever before.  In my picture I saw people, including myself at times, being intolerant.  Interestingly enough during the week of the exercise my patience was tested in multiple ways; one being a gas station attendant who refused to provide her duty of service with a pleasing and helpful attidtude.

Another event occured which also showed me my intolerance was when I escaped a near head on collision because the other driver was going the wrong way.  At that moment, I was so angry and all I thought about was my own safety and the other driver’s incompetence in navigating the road improperbly.  It never occured to me when I was infruriated that perhaps the driver was new to the area and was desparately lost, or something even worst.  When the police (who was in the right lane across from me) pulled him over immediately I felt a sense of satisfaction.

We aren’t very tolerant of others who are different, not very tolerant of people making mistakes, people cutting us off when we are driving or waiting in line.  We aren’t tolerant of other people’s prespectives, some of us will vehemently defend our political, religious or scientific views.  We will even go as far as imposing them on others.   So what does this mean?  Should you and I tolerate bad behavior, crime, poor legislations, road rage and the like?  Well, no.  No one should tolerate bad behavior, crime or anything else for that matter that take away something of value from us. 

What it means is that we suspend judgment until we get the facts.  As people we often judge others by the way they look, act, talk, walk, work and so on.  We almost never suspend our judgments until we get to know the person.  Most of our judgments come from our own limited understanding and the lenses we see the world in.  We instantly size others up and get to an opinion even before they get to hello.  Now there is credit to be given to our gut feelings about a person.  But intuition doesn’t come from a place of judgment, it comes from Spirit, and Spirit doesn’t judge, it gives us wisdom so we can act accordingly. 

Since we are all guilty of judging others here’s something you and I can do this week.  When we are introduced to someone new before we formulate our first thought about the person, what if we suspend that thought and operate on the principles of acceptance and understanding.  What if we begin the introdutions by asking a question that will provide us with a little more information about the individual? And how about we apply those principles from here on out?

My BIG DREAM!

One of my biggest dream is to meet and have a 20 minutes conversation with 10 of the most influential and inspirational people of our time by July of 2009.  Hopefully, I don’t die any time soon as it requires much planning and plenty of time to make this happen.  I want to ask them the one question that I ask successful people (I’m sure you want to know what the question is, but I’m not telling, at least not yet, not untill I meet them all).  I believe in learning from the best and even the worst so you know what to do and what not to do.  The people on my list are mostly authors and business gurus, people that have added value to the world.

On July 2nd I participated in a teleseminar with Michael Gerber, renowned author, The E-Myth.  This teleseminar was very powerful in that he described how we as individuals limit ourselves by our own beliefs about what we can accomplish in our lives.  He said that many of us don’t want to go outside of our comfort zones.  How true. I usually think of myself as a person who takes risks, makes bold moves and challenges conventional wisdom, but after hearing Michael’s views about limiting beliefs, I have much streching to do with my vision for my business.  So I’m going to implement a very basic exercise he suggested.  He said that this exercise will awaken the level of consciousness that is needed to birth new products, services, etc. but is lock.  Beginning this week I will look for opportunities worth pursuing and make observations in terms of what is missing in the picture.  He suggested to do this for 7 consecutive days.  So please join me in doing this exercise.  In your journal this week write 1: Opportunities worth pursuing and 2: What’s missing in this picture.

I would like to hear what you’ve came up with, so please post your results and I will do the same.  Want to know whose on my list and want to work with me to help make my dream come true?  Contact me at info@indigocoachingsystems.com. 

Interested in dreaming with Michael Gerber in his Dreamingroom, here’s some information:

Greetings!As you know, for the past 31 months, small business owners. and people who want to start their own business have been gladly investing $3,000 – $5,000 for the opportunity to spend 2 1/2 life-changing days with me, Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth, in our spectacular Dreaming Room Intensive!    Many speaking opportunities have been converted and are being expanded into full Dreaming Rooms across the Globe – London, AU, New Zealand, Jersey Island, Wales, Cardiff, etc.     The E-Myth Revisited book has been introduced and implemented into a 3 year curriculum in a London University!     We have added a “Mentoring Program” which is taking Intentional Dreamers from Dream to Launch in 6 months.     We have began the process of “Duplicating the Dreaming Room System” and now have our first Licensee!     Our Affiliate Program has tripled!     We have opened new Dreaming Room Intensives in new horizons     Dreaming Room, Manhattan, NY     July 9-11, 2008 Dreaming Room, Manhattan, NY     July 25-27, 2008 Dreaming Room, Houston, TX         August 1-3, 2008 Dreaming Room, Flagstaff, AZ        August 21-23, 2008 Dreaming Room, San Diego, CA    August 29-31, 2008     AND MORE…   “A Business Without a Dream is Like a Life Without a Purpose!” - Michael Gerber “With the E-Myth, Michael Gerber created the seminal business development system for the small business owner. Now, with The Dreaming Room, he is offering us the next level-the opportunity to awaken the entrepreneur deep within us and dream bigger than we ever have before. When I heard I could spend three days with Michael Gerber and receive personal coaching from the world’s #1 small business guru I literally jumped at the chance. I experienced a total transformation that has had an immediate and explosive effect on my business. I implore you – please – don’t walk, don’t run, but sprint to The Dreaming Room. You and your business will never be the same.” Come dream with me Michael E. Gerber and The Dream Team         See You In The Dreaming Room!

Come Dream With Us In The Dreaming Room®… “Where All Great Ideas are Born”

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Simplify Your Life

“We make ourselves rich by making our wants few” – Henry David Thoreau, American writer

Most of us consume much more than what we need, whether it may be food, clothes, shelter, etc.  We buy more house than we use, eat more food than our bodies can handle, resulting in obesity and other types of diseases, and we generate so much waste which produce tons of trash that are overflowing our landfills.

If you are a “consumptionist” ( a term I like to use) the one thing you can do now is simplify your life.  To do this, you must achieve a clear understanding of your needs, not your wants.  Understanding your needs will help you choose things that are important for your survival and happiness, not for your ego or for the status quo.  Get started on living a simpler life by eliminating 2 or 3 things from your life that you don’t need.  This could be clothes that you haven’t worn in years, monthly pedicures, 2 cups of coffee that you drink to keep you awake, or what about that 5 bedroom house you purchased for your wife and one child? Eliminating the extras will also help you to reduce your expenses, a benefit in today’s recessive economy.

Living simpler changes your life.  You will not only know what’s really meaningful and important to you, but it frees you from society’s definition of what’s important in life.  When you choose to live a simpler life, the Universe will always send you exactly what you need and when you need it. But what you must realize is that what you need may not always be what you thought you wanted. Don’t reject what the Universe sends you, thinking that something better is supposed to be on the way. Live everyday with a sense of gratitude for your blessings, and yes, even what you think are curses.

Practice Positive Self-Talk

We all have said a negative thing or two about ourselves.  But do we believe it?

Think about how you talk to yourself. Do you say things like I’m so stupid, I can’t do this, I’m not good at anything, I’m too fat, too tall, or too short, I’m not very attractive; or what about I will never amount to anything? These words are negative self-scripts that someone once said to you. You have now held these self-deprecating remarks to be true about yourself.

Repeating these and other types of negative scripts reinforce negative behavior and only deminish your self-worth and self-confidence.

To overcome this mindset, try replacing the negative self-talk with some positive self-talk. Identify all of your accomplishments, no matter how great or small you may think they are and celebrate them.  Replace the negative self-scripts with positive words such as: I have everything I need, I can do this, I feel energetic and excited about my life and I welcome new possibilities, I am an attractive, intelligent person with unique gifts and talents.

Don’t be surprised if these words feel awkward at first.  They might feel completely foreign to you. You might feel like you are just making these things up, they aren’t really true, but what you are doing is reprogramming your mind to counter everything you have come to believe to be true about you.

The more you practice your positive self-talk, the more you’ll connect with your Higher Self and reveal your true authentic self.  It’s this connection that will ultimately silence your negative self-talk for good.

Want the “World”, but not the Work?

Do you often envision your life some thing different from what it is now? You may envision a healthier or a slimmer you with more disposable income; a successful career, a happier marriage, trustworthy and driven children.

If you had a magical tool that can make all of your desires come true, how would you feel? I bet you would feel wonderful, fantastic, like you’re living your best life ever! Now let’s use that magical tool and fast forward one year into the future. Are you happier? Do you feel that life can’t get any better, but it does?

Well you do have that magical tool and it’s called WORK. What I mean by work is putting forth your best effort, time, resources, skills, knowledge, techniques, life experiences, and everything else in between to get you living your best life ever!

Most people want the world but do not want to work for it. They want the quick-fix solutions to their problems. They want to lose the extra 20 lbs, but instead of applying disciple by eating the right foods and regular exercise, they opt for liposuction to get rid of the weight.

The truth is you and only you are responsible for your life (of course they are always exception to the rule). That means, you are to do whatever (within society’s moral and ethical code of conduct) it takes to create your best life. If you are mentally and physically able, then you have what it takes to do the necessary work that will position you to live the life you want.

WORK means making sacrifices, applying discipline, initiating will power, possessing determination, and most of all investing time into working on your dreams. If you’re serious about living your best life, then you must certainly do the WORK.

Based on the results my clients have received, it showed that if you do the work, you will get the “World”.

Time to Get Unplugged

We are living in a society where we’re required to be tuned-in or turned-on.  Whether it is to our televisions, PDAs, cell phones, video games, on line networks, or lap tops.  Being plugged in has become a way of life for many of us.  It’s the way we stay connected with our friends, establish friendships, network, do business, conduct research or engage in some kind of recreation.  This hidden dis-ease has control how most of us interact with one another.  For instance, instead of making a phone call, we send an email, instead of a face-to-face meetings–we do a teleconference, and the list goes on.

Being plugged in has become the new standard of living for most of us, especially if we live in the Western Hemisphere.  We place a great value on the technologies that make our life less complicated and provide us with a more efficient way of doing “things”.  These technologies have made our lives, to some extent, simplier, easier, and provide us with the means to do things more effectively.  However, we have became so heavily dependent on these systems that when they no longer work the way they are suppose to, we stop functioning altogether.  Some of us aren’t able to do our jobs the way we normally do,  stay connected to one another, or do a simple chore. 

Being constantly plugged in to our cell phones, emails, and other communication modes has in itself caused our lives to be busier and some times more stressful because we are expected to constantly respond and produce.  So we get caught in the mode of doing with very little or no time to just be–be ourselves, be in the moment, be joyful, or be grateful.  Our lives are constantly filled with tasks, we need to do that, do this, be here, be there, and we hardly ever get time to be nowhere, and do nothing.  Our lives have become a BIG-To-Do-List and somehow we think that this is okay because someone convince us that the busier we are, the more succesfful we are.  What a BIG Lie!  Although the definition of success is contingent upon each individual, the common definition is a “favorable termination of a venture, outcome, a result.”

The industrial revolution gave way to some of our greatest invention of our day.  Arguably so, the revolution provide a faster means of production and to some extent have simplified how we live our life.  But within the last 20 years or so there have been a great shift in our society.  The shift is towards a busier lifestyle, doing more with less time and less resources.  Part of this shift came from our own insatiable appetites to consume more, so we needed to produce more; hence this cyclical process.  As the world population expanded and our appetite grew, the machines needed to function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to keep up with demand.  And what happened when that demand was high?  we needed to supply it.  To fill our demand we developed more machines that were even more effecient, which produced higher units in less time.  We created more advanced technological systems for better tracking and monitoring of demand and supply.  But what happened was that we became so dependent on these systems that we couldn’t function without them.  To lessen the likelihood of failing machines, we developed other technological systems to help us keep them malfunctioning.  This began to drive the development of a “quick-fixed” society.

But it’s time to get unplugged.  Unplugged from this interdependence of our cell phones, emails, PDAs, etc.  Unplugged from this constant bombardment of information.  Unplugged from the social disconnect of friendships, marriages, businesses, and ourselves.  We need to move away from chatting with our friends with our cell phones or via a text message.  Away from excessive use of emails and other things that keep us plugged into the system.

Getting uplugged means that you begin to detach yourself from the over dependency of electronic modes of gathering, disseminating, processing and organizing your life.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying to trash your cell phones, computers, PDAs or stop emailing altogether.  But use them in moderation.  If your job require constant contact and the use of such devices, then decrease the usage of these devices in your personal life. 

It’s time to quiet your logical mind and open yourself up to hearing your inner wisdom.  That wisdom that has been quieted by all the stuff that overshawdos its voice.  All the things on the to-do list that keep you in the ”doing” mode and never in the “being” mode.  Awake your soul by limiting the use of these things that fill your awaken state of consciouness.  Streamline the information that comes to you and goes from you.  Develop a practice that keeps you attuned to your spirit and that inner wisdom that needs to come forth so badly.

The time is now to get UNPLUGGED.

TIme to Get Unplugged is a workshop that is administered by Deborah.  If you would like to offer this workshop to your group or organization, click here:

10 Tips for Holiday Sanity

In the hustle and bustle of the holidays–whether we are shopping, traveling, entertaining, or doing whatever we do for the holidays, we can become overwhelmed with the feeling of not getting it done on time.  Cindy Krischer Goodman of the Miami Herald offers some great tips for keeping your sanity during the holidays.

1. Rediscover the meaning of the holiday for you personally and decide to celebrate in a way that works for you, rather than how others say you should do.

2. Be patient with yourself and do the best you can, trusting that the holiday will be perfect however it turns out.

3. Cut back on everything, including decorations, food, gifts and activities. Think creatively about alternatives.

4. Rather than begrudge another for not reciprocating with an expected gift, keep the focus on giving.

5. Consider alternatives to traditional shopping. Buy online, send baskets, order ready-made dishes for entertaining and avoid the madness.

6. Look for ways to outsource, delegate, automate or eliminate so that you have the help you need.

7. Start a new tradition such as giving to charity or watching a holiday movie.

8. Schedule time just for you.

9. Look at the blessings in your life and actively feel grateful.

10. Let go and have some fun.

What’s The Value of Friendships?

Many years ago, I  asked someone the question, can you live a fulfilled life without friendships?  the answer was yes, but you need to be very clear about what you are giving up and be at peace with that.  I don’t agree totally with this answer because I believe friendships are important and provide a venue, aside from our nuclear and extended families for us to come together to share, connect, laugh, grow, cry, and learn.  And these are just a few benefits, there are many other great benefits of friendships.  For instance, one of my friends is a great listener, trustworthy, and honest.  She knows me very well.  Whenever I need an honest, objective opinion, she is the person I turn to.  Another friend is great to hang out with.  She is down to earth, funny, smart and posses a very realistic perspective about life.  These friendship doesn’t require a lot of my attention, because we have developed a strong bond.  However, there are some friendships that require a lot more of our time and energy and these friendships may leave us feeling overwhelmed at times.  Nevertheless, we still value them.  

I believe that friendship is an act of giving and sharing between two or more people.  There are times in our friendship when we will need to give more, and that’s okay because we are placed here to help each other.  We should give generously of our time and resources.  But the red flag should go up when we are the only ones doing all of the giving.   My red flag went up when I did an assessment of my friendships some time ago.  The result yielded that in a particular friendship, I was giving so much more than I was receiving.  That didn’t bother me, but it became explicitly clear that this person wasn’t an equal nor positive contributor to the friendship, needless to say, our relationship ended. 

My thought about the question is that I don’t believe anyone can live a very fulfilled life without good friendships.  But, I do believe you can live rather well without “unhealthy friendships”–those that constantly deplete your energy, time, resources and don’t help to replenish them.  The fact is there are some friendships that hinder our personal growth.  And it is up to us to figure out whether it is time to relinquish, or redefine them.