Sell yourself to yourself.

We’re looking for a new car right now so I’ve met several car salespeople recently.  Because there is a stereotype that car salespeople are pushy, I walk into the dealerships ready for a fight. I admit it. But yesterday I met James. He was low key and pleasant. As we looked at *gasp* a minivan to fit our family of six, we pointed out everything that was wrong with the car. His response was the same in every instance.

“Yes, you’re right. That’s a downside.” He would agree with us and then he would gently counter us with a reminder of the positive. “But it has the best mileage in its class.”

I bet we can win our battles against the Inner Critic with the same tactic. Agree gently, to keep the beast calm. Then counter with the upsides again and again.

“Yes, you have put off that project for a month now. But look! Today you’re sitting down at the desk to work! Yay!”

“Sure, you haven’t cleaned the house in a week, but hey, everyone is fed, happy and healthy.”

“Sure you lost your job in this sucky economy, but have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re hot! You’ll get a new one in no time!”

This week, take after James and sell yourself to yourself.

Program yourself for wealth.

Worried about money? Who isn’t these days, right? Well…I’m not anymore because I spent the last 99 days working with neuro-linguistic programming to train my mind and spirit to view wealth in a new way. My husband and I completed a Feng Shui wealth ritual that lasts 99 days. We focused our intentions on having plenty of money. And we began talking about money in a new, more positive way.

During the process we worked through our superstitions, childhood beliefs, limiting thoughts, and fears of not having enough. We battled the Inner Critic. We brainstormed ways to make more money and to do more with what we already have.

One of the most powerful transformations of the exercise was how we ended up thinking about ourselves. We began to see ourselves as wealthy people regardless of what we actually have in the bank. That in turn, has changed how we interact with the world. It has changed our behavior by giving us that extra ounce of courage needed to make a phone call or ask for help or promote ourselves.

Here’s an exercise for you to try. First write this: I am wealthy. Then finish these two phrases in as many ways as you can as specifically as possible:

I have money to…

I have money for…

The more real you believe the possibilities are, the more you’ll begin to see yourself having money. And then you’ll start figuring out ways to make it.

Smackdown Your Inner Critic Workshop Announcement

Dear friends:

I have an important announcement regarding the upcoming workshop I’ve created: Smackdown Your Inner Critic and Live the Life of Your Dreams.

Due to the state of the economy I have decided to reduce the fee of the workshop by half. Instead of $495 for the two-day intensive workshop, the fee is now $250. If you have lost your job, I would like to offer the workshop to you for $100. 

For those of you who have already paid for the workshop, you will receive a refund for the amount you overpaid.

Why? Because I feel that I must do what I can to help during this rough transitional time.

The Smackdown Your Inner Critic and Live the Life of Your Dreams Workshop is for you if:

• You have a dream but your Inner Critic keeps you from doing it.
• You desire a life that balances inspiring work, deep friendships, and a loving partnership.
• There’s something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too afraid to try in your personal or professional life.
• You want to create a fulfilling and inspiring career.
• You want to find ways to make money that allow you more time with your loved ones.
• You have graduated or lost a job and don’t know what to do next.
• You’re dissatisfied with your body, your job, or your relationships and you don’t know how to create change.
• You want to develop a greater sense of self-confidence and ease.

Upcoming workshop dates are: 

February 21 and 22

Or

March 21 and 22

OR

April 25 and 26

What do you get for $250?
In addition to the two-day in-depth workshop you will receive:

• A FREE one-on-one personal telephone conference with me to discuss the particulars of your situation. As a personal development coach I will help you apply the techniques you learn in the workshop to your life in specific, actionable ways. Valued at: $150.00
• A 10% discount on future one-on-one personal development coaching. Valued at: up to $1,080
• Two FREE follow-up email consultations to ensure you are well on your way to creating the life of your dreams. Valued at: $60
• The Smackdown Your Inner Critic and Live the Life of Your Dreams Workbook. Valued at: $29.95

Find out more at: http://101smackdowns.wordpress.com/the-workshop/ If you’d like to reserve a spot, email me or call 612-618-4330.
 
I would be grateful if you would pass this link along to anyone you think might be interested.

Best wishes,
Jacque

Managing the Inner Critic after you’ve lost your job.

In the last few days I have been in touch with many friends and readers of this blog who have lost their jobs. While having lunch with an extremely talented friend who was laid off from a job she loved, she described how the Inner Critic had more power over her than ever before. With every emailed resume she didn’t get a response to and every minute she waited for the phone to ring, the Inner Critic leapt into the communication void to whisper in her ear.

Do any of these phrases sound familiar? “You don’t have the right experience. You’re too old! You suck at interviews! You’ll never find a job! You’re not talented enough to get a job in this tight economic market!”

If you’ve lost your job, or are a freelancer like me and have to create jobs on a daily basis for a living, then we must battle that Inner Critic minute-by-minute. My Dad always use to say, “It’s easier to change lanes when you’re in the traffic than when you’re stopped at the side of the road.” True. But what if you are stopped on the side of the road by forces outside your control? Here are some things I’ve been stewing on lately.

Get dressed. I’ve written about this one before, but it’s so important. Put on the clothes you would wear to work so you’ll feel more confident. If you’re in your pjs or sweats, it’s easy to slip into inaction. Right now? I’m in my pjs. Whoops. One moment please.

Persue every lead. How do you figure out which opportunities to take? I believe it’s my job to put myself out there in as many ways and as often as I can. What comes back to me, is not up to me. So when doors open, I walk through them to see where they lead. Even if it wasn’t necessarily the right thing for me, I always learn some valuable lesson that serves me later in unexpected ways.

Face the worst-case and plan for it. What is the absolute worst thing that can happen? You’ll lose your house? And then what will you do? Lose your car? Then how will you get around? Though your circumstances may change in unpleasant ways, there is always a way through. Sometimes you have to change your career or your attitude, or your living arrangments. But there is always a way.

Be proud of yourself. Make a list of the moments in your life when you have been most proud of yourself. What did you do? What did you achieve? How did you handle a situation? Remember those moments now.

Do something that makes you feel confident. Make another list of moments when you have felt the most confident. What were you wearing? How did you walk? What are you really, really good at?

Find allies. If you have people in your life who take energy from you instead of helping you feel courageous, then ditch those friends or family members for a while. Call up the confident people you know and align yourself with them. Instead of hanging out with people who are scared and in fear spirals, find those who are scared and are rallying themselves for the fight with optimism and hope.

Use this time for self-exploration. Last week on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, they ran a story about a 40-year-old woman who was in the financial industry and lost her job. Instead of returning to the same industry, she decided to go to school to become a chef. These stories abound during times like this. But if you view this time as an opportunity, then you will not only survive this turbulent era, you will thrive.

How about you? Let me know how you continue to smackdown your Inner Critic while you hunt for work or have to make a scary transition so we can all benefit! And please remember to do something kind for yourself every single day. This is especially important right now.

Summertime

I’ve been thinking a lot about the balance of opposites lately, the reliance of yang upon yin and yin upon yang, how a wheel can’t move forward without friction with the ground resisting it, that kind of thing.

I’ve especially been thinking about how maybe a government’s job, economically, is to behave exactly opposite to the financial market at any given time. If the financial market is going wild with investment and risk-taking, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s the government’s job to be saving money at that time, not running up a giant deficit for no reason. Likewise, if the financial market is frozen in fear, it’s the government’s job to spend and spend a LOT to keep the economy moving and liquid.

The same principle applies to winter, especially the Inner Critic’s idea of Inner Winter. When things get cold and bleak, the Critic thinks you’re supposed to knuckle down, grit your teeth, hammer at the ice, and struggle for survival. Of course action is important, but without balance, you’ll probably choose the wrong actions!

So what’s your personal opposite of the Inner Winter, and how you can create it? Mine is dancing, just shaking mah butt! If that sounds good to you, here’s a link to inspire, from Gabriel Alegria with his wife Laurandrea Leguía on sax…

http://www.saponegrorecords.com/mp3/nuevomundo02.html

 

http://www.gabrielalegria.com/

The spiral of negativity.

I have to be honest. This week has sucked. Last night I could feel the pull of the whirlpool of negativity grasping at my legs and I was too tired to fight it. For most of the evening I had a scowl on my face that I tried to keep on the inside since my stepchildren were over. It’s rare that I get into that bad of shape since I’m an optimistic person by nature but like I said, this week has sucked. The voice of the Inner Critic was loud with messages of fear, anger, grief, fear, anger, grief. Like most everyone else in this country I had some really bad financial news. And that was only one of the crappy things that has happened within the last four days.

But last night my youngest stepdaughter impulsively came in and gave me a hug. “You’re the best stepmom anybody could have,” she said. ”I’m so glad Dad married you.” And a few minutes later, “I’m so happy you’re my stepmom and I have a little sister now.”

Out of the mouth of babes, right? This girl is 8 and she is one of the most intuitive people I’ve ever met. When she was three if I was in a bad mood but had a smile plastered on my face, she would walk over to me and start petting my hand. She wouldn’t say anything, but she somehow knew that I was a human being in need of comfort.

Her hug and words of appreciation helped me climb out of the spiral. After she went to bed I made a list of all the really wonderful things that have happened this week. I was asked to teach at my favorite place in the world: The Loft Literary Center. I found the perfect location to hold the Smackdown the Inner Critic Workshop (More on this later!). My daughter held my hand while she fell asleep. My husband volunteered to take this Friday off so I can work while he watches the baby. My stepdaughter hugged me.

It’s a complex world. We can feel happy and sad, angry and appreciative all at the same time about the same thing. So if you’re feeling like sh*& this week, what is the flip side? What good things have happened, too?

 

Unpack your safety nets.

Guillermina, Shrine Circus

When I was a kid, I went to the Shrine Circus several times. And though it was long ago, I have sense memories about the experience if I close my eyes. I can smell the animals, the popcorn, and the cotton candy. I can hear the echo of the amplified voice of the ringmaster bouncing off the walls of the stadium. Without a doubt, the trapeze artists and tightrope walkers were the highlight for me. While I watched them perform their impossible-looking tricks far above the floor, I barely noticed the giant nets below them. It was only when they fell into them that I even realized they were there. Even as a kid I realized that those amazing feats were only possible because the performers knew that if something went wrong and they slipped, they would be saved by the net.

It’s amazing what feats people can perform when they know they have a safe place to fall if they trip up. In the past few days I have heard several people close to me voice their fear about the amount of money they’ve lost in the stock market or what bad shape they are in financially. One reader of our blog was up all night in a panic because of what the stock market has done to her retirement account, and she’s already past the age of retirement. These are scary times, indeed. But living in fear is not healthy. And it’s not how you project an air of confidence that draws opportunities your way.

Determine what your safety nets are so you can look for work, create your new home-based business, sell your services, or pitch an idea with confidence. Other people can detect desperation. So how can you feel safe enough to take risks?

Perhaps all you need is the knowledge that you will still have the love of your family, your health, and your faith even if you have to sell your house and downsize to pay the bills. Perhaps you need to know that your extended family would take you in if you lost your job. Maybe you need to remember that you are willing to do whatever it takes even if that means working at a temporary job that is not totally ideal until things are better.

It’s easier to take risks if you feel a base level of safety. So unpack your safety nets and make sure they are strong enough that they allow you the ability to extend yourself. Take a moment to make a list of your options. Write down every fear you can think of in this format: What if such and such happens? Then answer your questions with the actions you will take.

Unyielding Hope

“Change has come to America.” Regardless of your political views, Obama gave a masterful victory speech. He said many powerful statements, but I’d like to bring up one that in my mind applies particularly well to family life. When Obama said our ”unyielding hope,” is part of the true genius of our country, I thought of the many couples who are out there struggling every day to create a home that feels good to be in. I thought of the high divorce rate, the falling marriage rate, the number of couples breaking up because the economy has highlighted tensions. I thought of all the people returning to relationships after being hurt because of that same sense of hope. We hope we can create a family life in which conflict is not a way of life, but a rare occurance.  We hope that love, respect, and healing will overcome the differences between family members who don’t share blood, who are lost in rebellion or depression or addiction.

But as Obama said last night, “We are one people.” If you have a high-conflict home life, can you readjust your thinking so that you can unite your family just as Obama wants to do with our country? What holds back your progress as a happy, healthy couple? Can you create a bond with your partner that is so strong you can withstand any challenge that comes your way?

How? How will you do these things? How will you turn your unyielding hope to action? To a way of life? How will you create a partnership that is everything you hoped for and more?

Put down the paintbrush?

Yesterday I went to a panel discussion that included George Soros, Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia U.), and Nouriel Roubini (NYU, the economist who predicted our entire economy would collapse back in the late 90s). These are some of the brightest financial and economic minds in the world, and they had come together to answer the question, Can we save the global economy?

It was beyond inspiring. The world is very much in dire straits right now, but there are ways that we can rebuild the world, and this time, make it better. It will take sacrifice, especially including the sacrifice of the distinctly American mindset that we can all be individualistic, independent cowboys. The truth is, we need other people and they need us. Everything we do affects everyone else, and we have to start being responsive and responsible.

But the first question from the audience after the panel discussion was, What is the role of art in the effort to save the global economy? It was asked in that particularly plaintive tone typically used by an artist who lives in his or her head, and there was a wave of anger and annoyance from the audience and panelists at the asker. I felt it, too! It seemed so damned self-serving of this person to look at the absolute mess the world is in and still her first thought was, do I still get to do what I want? She seemed criminally frivolous.

Roubini answered the question. The gist of what he said was, To save the world, we need builders. We need real growth, not superficial tinkerings. We need engineers far more than we need artists.

Uh oh. Doesn’t that sound like something the Inner Critic would say?

It’s an old question (I can’t remember where I first saw it), but what would the American people be capable of doing, if we harnessed all the mental energy that we currently spend on memorizing sports statistics? Have Americans turned into the useless, airhead debutantes of the world?

I’ve learned that when I hate something, I have to look at it closer, because there is usually some golden treasure hidden beneath my knee-jerk, but deeply passionate, reaction. After all, I’m a writer, I’m an artist – do I need to give up on that and go be an engineer of some kind? Isn’t that what the world needs from me?

So, I really have to face that question: Is there a role for art in saving the world?

I came up with a couple answers, but a distinction has to be made. Not between high art and pop art, but between private art and bare knuckle art. Private art is still worthwhile to make – for yourself. It clears your mind and balances and eases you. But bare knuckle art is very, very hard to make. It takes questioning yourself, your purpose, your mission, your worth, and anything you ever thought was true. Not to say you have to be a tortured artist, but you have to be willing to break yourself open to make it.

I think I can see a role for bare knuckle art in helping to rebuild the world… 

• Bare knuckle artists are skeptics. They never take anything at face value, whereas it was people who took things at face value (how much money do I make in fees if I grant this sub-prime mortgage?) who drove our economy down.
• Bare knuckle art tells the truth. Bare knuckle artists are B.S. spotters. If every investment bank had had an artist with a blog on staff, maybe the truth would have been exposed before the banks collapsed.
• Bare knuckle art tells the truth in ways that are new enough and surprising enough that our poor eyes and ears, scarred over and stuffed with so much mindless entertainment, can see and hear it.
• If you spend your time making bare knuckle art, you will spend less time gorging on the crap that the world wants to sell you.
• If you spend your time looking at bare knuckle art, your defenses will be down and you will have to feel. And if you are spending time really feeling, not shutting down or veg-ing out, then you can feel compassion for the rest of the world.

So what do you think? Are these reasons simply justifications for my personal, self-serving choices in life? Or do you think artists can help in this day and age?

Recession Proof

My grandparents survived the Great Depression. They lived and worked on a farm. They knew how to make do. Which in my mind translates to what Susan Jeffers calls in her classic book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, the ability to smackdown fear by knowing you can handle whatever comes your way. In the current turbulent economic times, when financial fear is in the news 24/7, it’s time to bolster ourselves against the negative current washing through our culture.

Try this: Make a list of all the jobs you could do if you had to because you lost your current job and couldn’t find another in your chosen field. What would you do to make do? Then make a list of all the jobs you’ve always wanted to try but never have because your parents told you not to, they didn’t make enough money, or they weren’t grown-up enough.