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The Expression of Love

Here’s what I know about love.

Unex­pressed, love is:

a paint­ing unrealized,

a gift not given,

a tal­ent not shared,

a song unsung,

a good idea, that no one will ever know.

Yes. It may exist, but until it’s been shared, it’s merely the lonely tree falling in the for­est. Irrel­e­vant whether it makes a sound or not.

Express­ing love is risky. There can be no doubt.

The paint­ing may not be admired. The gift may not quite fit. The tal­ent may not be appre­ci­ated. The song may not res­onate. The good idea may “good” but “not for right now”.

Painful, to be sure.

But once you BELIEVE in the value of the whis­per­ings of you heart?

Magic ignited.

Once you believe your paint­ing is the answer; the gift is trans­for­ma­tive; the tal­ent will heal souls; the song will endure in hearts for­ever; the idea IS the change, then you’ll shout it from the high­est moun­tains, right? Loud and right­eously proud.

What will it take for you to believe your love into expres­sion with wild abandon?

by Tanya Geisler

Filed Under: Creative Expression, Jungle Writers
By 9 Comments

Love and Health: 10 Love Tips for Electrifying Health

Just one from all the gems

Love is beau­ti­ful. Love is essen­tial for elec­tri­fy­ing health. Love is essen­tial for life. With­out the act of mak­ing love, life does not exist. This is beau­ti­ful, don’t you think?

The fol­low­ing is a list of ten love tips that will allow you to live your life with elec­tri­fy­ing health. You want to live as long as pos­si­ble, right? More impor­tantly, you want to feel alive dur­ing your time on beau­ti­ful Earth and not suf­fer from any dis­ease or can­cer. This is cer­tainly pos­si­ble and the fol­low­ing tips will help.

1) Love your­self. You are the most impor­tant thing in your life. If you don’t take care of your­self then how are you going to help others?

2) Love oth­ers. My sis­ter just got mar­ried in Key West. The love she shares with her hus­band is infec­tious. If you are deeply in love then you will make sure your lover is in grand health. You will make sure you are in grand health as well. You want to be with this per­son for as long as possible.

3) Make love. Yes, that means have sex. Sex with some­one you love. Sex is phys­i­cal activ­ity. It gets your blood flow­ing. It’s fun. It’s play. And, of course, it cre­ates life. Mak­ing love with some­one you love is one of the world’s great­est de-stressors in the world. Exces­sive stress is one of many play­ers in dis­ease and can­cer. You want to avoid both, right? Find a lover and make love with him or her!

4) Love to cook and/or pre­pare food. Unless you live with a pro­fes­sional chef, make cook­ing a hobby. If you hate to cook or pre­pare deli­cious raw food such as a smoothie then you are more bound to buy pack­aged junk food at the gro­cer or to pass through a drive thru. If cook­ing becomes a hobby, some­thing you love engag­ing in, then your health will improve. Home cooked meals are almost always bet­ter than pack­aged crap at your local gro­cer. Start with cook­ing meat and veg­gies with lots of spices and herbs and then go from there.

5) Love nature. Where do you spend the major­ity of your time? If you work, eat, relax and get enter­tained indoors then you are prob­a­bly nature defi­cient. Get out­side. I don’t care how cold or hot it is. I hate the cold but I still feel out­ra­geously relieved when I step foot out­side in the heart of the Win­ter. It’s dif­fi­cult to explain the incred­i­ble phe­nom­e­non behind the heal­ing prop­er­ties of nature. If you are con­stantly inside and stressed then it’s time you spend more time out­doors. Go for a short walk. Take a long hike. Play a sport. Go to the beach. Ski or snow­board. Don’t be afraid of the sun. Vit­a­min D3, aka the Sun­shine Vit­a­min, is essen­tial to all life. A burn is too much but a tan is per­fect and pro­tects you from dam­age. Maybe you need a non human com­pan­ion to join you on your walk?

6) Love your pet. We own a lovely Boston Ter­rier. I’m deeply in love. I LOVE tak­ing him for walks. The longer the bet­ter. If I never looked for­ward to putting the leash on him and step­ping out­side then I would feel stressed every time I had to do this “chore.” This would prob­a­bly lead to bad habits that could lead to poor health.

7) Love move­ment. Any form of move­ment is bet­ter than no move­ment at all unless you are com­pletely exhausted or have a strong desire to relax. Every sin­gle time I decide to lift my butt off the chair and do a few push-ups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, leg swings, hip exten­sions, arm cir­cles, etc. I feel alive. My con­fi­dence soars. Just a few min­utes of this many times through­out the day can do won­ders for many folks. Love the move­ment you are engag­ing in and feel your health improve in an instant.

8 ) Love sleep. Sleep is impor­tant. If we all know this is true, then why do we fail to place an impor­tance on it? We instead watch hours of TV on a daily basis. Ditch the tele­vi­sion. You think you love watch­ing the screen when in real­ity you don’t. You love being out­doors. You love to play. You love to sleep. Love it more. Under­stand that it is vital to your health and be grate­ful every time you place your head on your pil­low and pull the cov­ers over your body. Love the energy you gain from sleep.

9) Love to smile. Are you feel­ing stressed out? Smile. Try to laugh a lit­tle. How are you feel­ing now? If you actu­ally com­pleted this small task then you should have felt alive for at least that brief moment. The sim­ple act of smil­ing is one of the sim­plest, yet one of the most pow­er­ful and con­ta­gious actions you can take to improve your health. A fake smile won’t work unless a real laugh fol­lows. But if you make smil­ing a habit then it will all of a sud­den hap­pen auto­mat­i­cally. You will find your­self laugh­ing more. Your hap­pi­ness, and thus health, will increase at a rapid rate. It may take some prac­tice but it’s worth it. It’s so sim­ple folks. Just smile! :)

10) It’s your turn. Leave a com­ment below with at least one tip that deals with health and love. What do you love that improves your health? Maybe its giv­ing a hug, play­ing a sport, med­i­tat­ing or engag­ing in yoga. What­ever it is, share. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts.

by Todd Dosen­berry

Filed Under: Health, Jungle Writers
By 6 Comments

Do You Love Your Money?

When I tell peo­ple that I write about money, some respond by crin­kling their nose and say­ing, “Money? But that’s not what mat­ters in life!”

And then — more often than not — they’ll repeat that famous phrase, “money is the root of all evil.”

Well, that’s not exactly how the say­ing goes. Although that phrase is ingrained in main­stream pop cul­ture today, it takes its roots in a Bib­li­cal verse that reads: “The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.”

Since this month’s Jun­gle of Life theme is love, let’s take a sec­ond to explore the love of money.

What Do You Love?

If I asked you to make a list of things you love, what would you write?

Fam­ily, friends and pets come to mind imme­di­ately, of course. Then peo­ple start list­ing objects and activities.

“I love ice cream,” — an object.

“I love to swim,” — an activity.

“I love that cozy sweat­shirt I’ve had since high school,” — an object.

“I love to paint,” — an activity.

No one thinks its wrong to love an object or an activ­ity — unless that object is “money” or that activ­ity is “mak­ing money.”

When peo­ple tell me that money is the root of all evil, I reply that money is sim­ply an inan­i­mate object, like a cof­fee mug or a gar­den hose. It has no innate good or evil. That qual­ity comes from the mean­ing we assign to it.

Accord­ing to the “root of all evil” expres­sion, money itself is fine. Lov­ing money is not. But why?

It’s okay to love ice cream, cozy sweat­shirts, warm socks, Van Gogh paint­ings and the orange tea ket­tle that your sis­ter gave you six years ago. Why is money sin­gled out as the one object that it’s not okay to love?

I picked those exam­ples for a rea­son. I’m bet­ting no one objects to lov­ing “ice cream and warm socks,” but some peo­ple would object to lov­ing sports cars, glitzy man­sions and emer­ald neck­laces. Why? Because those objects remind peo­ple of money.

This is usu­ally the point where some­one says, “Hold on. A mega-mansion uses tons of envi­ron­men­tal resources.”

True. But so does ice cream pro­duc­tion, from the methane-emitting cows to the cost of main­tain­ing a sub-zero freezer truck.

The tea ket­tle you use to drink Jas­mine Green Tea required some­one to build a fac­tory, pro­duce a ket­tle mold, inspect the ket­tle, pack­age it, deliver it, mar­ket it, account for its rev­enue and loss, and legally pro­tect it.

Every­thing uses resources and costs money. Why pre­tend that it doesn’t?

I believe that “love of money is the root of all evil” is only half the story. I believe that phrase is talk­ing about a blind, jeal­ous, pos­ses­sive love. The phrase “love of money” is refer­ring to the type of co-dependent love that causes the two part­ners to become lesser, instead of more whole.

But I do think we owe it to our­selves to cre­ate a healthy love for money.

Here’s a rad­i­cal idea: Why not “love” money by being a good stew­ard over it? Nur­ture and pro­tect your money, in the same the way you might nur­ture and pro­tect your garden.

Steer clear of pos­ses­sive, co-dependent love, the kind that causes you to stag­nate. Move towards a whole­some love in which both you and your money are able to grow freely.

Money, after all, is a tool that can buy acres of rain­for­est, send your nephew to col­lege with­out stu­dent loans, and pay for the vet­eri­nary appoint­ments that your puppy needs. It’s okay to love money for the life it gives you.

by Paula Pant

Filed Under: Jungle Writers, Personal Finance
By 25 Comments

14 Super Fun (and Thrifty) Ways to Say I Love You

Valentine’s Day is the hol­i­day of love. Well, at least accord­ing to Hall­mark. The stores are sat­u­rated in pink and red, the cal­en­dar has that pesky lit­tle fine print next to the four­teenth day of Feb­ru­ary, and the pres­sure is huge to com­mem­o­rate the big day with your sweet­heart. That often means roses, choco­late, a din­ner out…zzzzzz…oh, sorry, I drifted off there for a sec­ond. Valentine’s Day may be one of those oblig­a­tory hol­i­days, but it’s never a bad thing to show some­one how much you care, and it needn’t be bor­ing. Your honey deserves more than ho-hum! And the fun ideas that fol­low won’t break the bank, either.

1) Fill your sweetheart’s car or office or closet with bal­loons. Lots and lots of balloons.

2) Some­where between a mas­sage and a tickle is what I like to call “back skat­ing.” It’s like hav­ing your fin­gers ice skate across the back of your part­ner. Take turns draw­ing sim­ple pic­tures or spelling out words and see if they can guess the message.

3) Write a love mes­sage in soap on the bath­room mir­ror. Dry erase mark­ers also work beau­ti­fully (and wipe off eas­ily) on glass. Don’t for­get about adding lots of hearts. Or a funny mustache.

4) Get a box of those cheap kid­die valen­tines and hide them every­where: in the car, under the pil­low, in the lunch bag. Or make one grand ges­ture by fil­ing the sink or a briefcase!

5) Make break­fast in bed. But make it fun! Fash­ion a face out of the fried eggs and bacon. Or make heart-shaped pan­cakes, topped with sprin­kles or candy hearts. (And don’t for­get to use the good china.)

6) If you’re in the car together, kiss at every stop­light, or any­time you see a red sports car.

7) Slow dance to “your song” in the liv­ing room. Clothes are optional ;)

8 ) Meet your honey for lunch with Happy Meals in hand.

9) If you live in a colder cli­mate, write a love note in the snow. You could use snow­balls, your foot­prints, or a spray bot­tle filled with col­ored water. Hooray for food coloring!

10) Replace the Chee­rios with candy con­ver­sa­tion hearts.

11) Get your sweet­heart a gift inspired by their favorite child­hood toy. It could be a t-shirt, cuf­flinks, a poster, or the toy itself, pur­chased on ebay.

12) Get a roll of cookie dough, but instead of bak­ing a dozen cook­ies, use it to make one BIG one!

13) Rent and watch a clas­sic love story from child­hood. Some­thing like Princess Bride, Beauty and the Beast, Lady & The Tramp, or one of my favorites, Karate Kid 2. (Fun trivia: Glory of Love by Peter Cetera was the first song Kim and I danced to as hus­band and wife.)

14) Make a pizza together — includ­ing the dough! (There’s some­thing roman­tic about being cov­ered in flour.) Arrange pep­per­oni in the shape of a heart and have a pic­nic in your liv­ing room.

What is your favorite FUN and THRIFTY way to say “I love you?”

by Jason Kotecki

Filed Under: Fun/Recreation, Jungle Writers
By 16 Comments

Does Love Mean You Shouldn’t Leave (An Argument)?

In an issue of Oprah mag­a­zine Jerry Sein­feld talks about mar­riage. He says that one of his ground rules in an argu­ment with his wife is that they both have to stay in the room until they work their dif­fer­ences out.

“In fact,” he con­tin­ues, “I said this to my wife the other day: ‘I under­stand that you’re so upset that you just want to walk away. But, you know, I don’t care that it’s hard. You stay in the room until you feel bet­ter. Then you can leave.’ ”

I couldn’t dis­agree more. When I feel things get­ting heated I sug­gest that my hus­band and I both leave the room and take a break. It always helps. I used to stay and try to work things out, think­ing that if we loved each other we should be able to work it out quickly and feel bet­ter sooner.

But the sit­u­a­tion got worse more often than it got bet­ter, and resent­ments lin­gered longer. Then I learned a few things, and I real­ized that leav­ing has a lot going for it.

I believe there are two rea­sons that walk­ing out (of an argu­ment) is a good idea. One is the pain body, as described by Eck­hart Tolle in A New Earth. The other is the 90-second rule, as described by Jill Bolte Taylor.

I don’t know why the pain body, like some alien from another planet, chooses to inhabit our psy­ches and make us mis­er­able, but I do know that once it takes over, research sug­gests that it will invade every­one else in the room as well. (Ask me in the com­ments if you want to see the studies.)

I can gen­er­ally tell when my I’ve been “snatched” by the pain body, and I can lit­er­ally feel it feast­ing on the neg­a­tive energy in the room. If I don’t get out quickly I know that it will set­tle in for a grand buf­fet. The only suc­cess­ful means I have found for starv­ing it is to leave the room. My hus­band now under­stands and sup­ports this tac­tic too.

I learned about the 90-second rule when I read Jill Bolte Taylor’s mem­oir My Stroke of Insight. Tay­lor is a brain sci­en­tist who had a stroke when she was 37 years old. She received sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to her left hemi­sphere, the part of our brain that is respon­si­ble for orga­niz­ing infor­ma­tion and lan­guage, remem­ber­ing the past, and pro­ject­ing into the future. (The right brain is all about being right here, right now and feel­ing joy­ful in the present moment.)

For­tu­nately she recov­ered and doc­u­mented her expe­ri­ence in her fas­ci­nat­ing mem­oir. My Stroke of Insight. She pro­vides us with a sci­en­tific under­stand­ing of why it’s always a good idea to take a break in a heated situation.

Some­thing hap­pens in the exter­nal world and all of a sud­den we expe­ri­ence a phys­i­o­log­i­cal response by our body that our mind would define as fear.

So in my brain some cir­cuit is say­ing some­thing isn’t safe and I need to go on full alert, those chem­i­cals flush through my body to put my body on full alert, and for that to totally flush out of my body, it takes less than 90 sec­onds . (empha­sis mine)

So, if it’s my fear cir­cuitry or my anger cir­cuitry [that’s being trig­gered], the 90-second rule is totally empow­er­ing. That means for 90 sec­onds, I can watch this hap­pen, I can feel this hap­pen, and I can watch it go away.

When you are in an argu­ment with some­one you are usu­ally choos­ing to stay stuck in your anger or fear. You’re choos­ing it by con­tin­u­ing to think the same thoughts that cre­ated it, thus re-triggering it.

Maybe the Dalai Lama or Eck­hart Tolle can choose to think dif­fer­ent, peace­ful or lov­ing thoughts when they have recently felt hurt or angry, but I’ve yet to meet a mere mor­tal with this ability.

I’ve learned that my abil­ity to choose a better-feeling, more peace­ful or lov­ing thought always depends on get­ting away from the scene of the argu­ment. Once I’m away I usu­ally embark on some heart-thumping car­dio or take a walk out­side and look up a lot.

Only then do I start to feel the neg­a­tive hor­mones flush from my sys­tem. And then I can look at my husband’s side and bet­ter under­stand his needs and how to meet them. I write about it often, but it bears repeat­ing that all of our under­ly­ing needs are really the same: We all want to be seen, heard, and loved for exactly who we are — warts and all.

When I am in a peace­ful, cen­tered place I want for all of us to get our needs met. The rea­son that my mar­riage has enjoyed such won­der­ful longevity (19 years this March!) is that my hus­band wants that too.

by Stacey Curnow

Filed Under: Jungle Writers, Personal Growth and Spirituality
By 9 Comments

Live A Life Of Love

I am giv­ing a speech in a few days at the TEDx event at the Uni­ver­sity of Florida and they have asked me to talk about “The MOST Impor­tant Thing I Have Ever Learned.” I plan to share three key ideas with the 1,600 or so attendees…

1. You become what you focus on and like the peo­ple you sur­round your­self with. What­ever you fill your mind with — what­ever you watch, read, lis­ten to, and think about… and who you choose to spend your time with, will pretty much deter­mine what your life will look like a decade from now!

2. Ask For HELP.  It is NOT weak to admit that you are in over your head, that you are con­fused, that you do not what to do… that you need some help. It takes a great deal of courage to finally face that fact that you can­not do it all alone. But here is the neat thing… once you learn to ask for help your life will get much eas­ier and more enjoy­able because peo­ple who love and respect you will will­ingly offer you all of the help they can give — and that is a beau­ti­ful thing my friend, a beau­ti­ful thing indeed.

3. The ONLY mea­sure that counts in life is how much love you can give, cre­ate and receive. The amaz­ing thing is that you can give and give and give love… and you will have even more love left to give away the very next day.  You have an end­less sup­ply… and you always will. Is that cool or what? And lest you think that receiv­ing love is self­ish, some­times the great­est way to show love is to allow oth­ers to give their love to you. That is really cool too!

So I leave you with my favorite pas­sages on love from “The Prophet” by the amaz­ing Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran.

Love has no other desire but to ful­fill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a run­ning brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much ten­der­ness.
To be wounded by your own under­stand­ing of love;
And to bleed will­ingly and joy­fully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of lov­ing;
To rest at the noon hour and med­i­tate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at even­tide with grat­i­tude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

by John Spence

Filed Under: Career, Jungle Writers
By 22 Comments

Love Will Keep Us Together

Love keeps us together, right? But what hap­pens when our soci­ety por­trays love through per­fec­tion, wealth, lust, and greed? What do we teach our chil­dren about love? With a skewed def­i­n­i­tion in place, it is even more impor­tant to share with our fam­ily the true mean­ing of love: which encom­passes hope, pos­i­tive behav­ior, strength and giv­ing unconditionally.

Some­times to achieve the pos­i­tive effects of an emo­tion, we must let go of other emo­tions that are tak­ing up too much energy. So to let Love in, We must let other emo­tions OUT. This means get­ting rid of anger, guilt, resent­ment, and judgment.

L= Let Go of neg­a­tive destruc­tive emotions

1. Raise aware­ness of when you are putting your­self or oth­ers down

a. Carry a note­book for a day, and write down when a neg­a­tive thought comes in

b. Carry a golf clicker and keep track

2. Notice where you are feel­ing these emo­tions in your body: your chest, shoul­ders, neck, stom­ach? Where do they seem to con­cen­trate the most?

3. Breath….as you exhale, prac­tice see­ing those thoughts dis­si­pate into thin air, as you inhale, prac­tice replac­ing those emo­tions with a pos­i­tive one, such as joy, hap­pi­ness, love, life, forgiveness.

When we hold on to destruc­tive emo­tions, we hold our­selves back from the many ben­e­fits of love. Let go of neg­a­tive and destruc­tive emo­tions. Let LOVE in.

O=Open your heart to new possibilities

1. Start with HOPE and let go of JUDGEMENT

One can be hope­ful or judg­men­tal, but you can­not be both at the same time!

2. Act like a kid. Kids don’t think too much about going into new sit­u­a­tions, they just go with the flow, open to any out­come because they don’t have any pre­con­ceived ideas about how it is “sup­posed” to flow. Next time you enter a new sit­u­a­tion, try to clear your mind and let what­ever hap­pens unfold with­out plac­ing any undue expec­ta­tion on the event. See what happens.

3. Rec­og­nize that open­ing up can be painful but also heal­ing. Heal­ing takes TIME

Open your heart to new pos­si­bil­i­ties. Let LOVE in.

V=Visualize

Heal­ing just isn’t going to hap­pen with­out love. See your­self being loved. Take note of every source where you feel your­self being loved. See your­self being wor­thy of triple the love you cur­rently feel.

There is almost always more love for us to encounter than we can ever imag­ine. Visu­al­ize love. Let LOVE in.

E=Educate your­self on Emo­tional Intelligence!

Emo­tional intel­li­gence rep­re­sents an abil­ity to validly rea­son with emo­tions and to use emo­tions to enhance thought. We are not used to this in our soci­ety. Most of us were taught to sup­press emo­tions at a young age, but edu­cat­ing your­self on how emo­tional intel­li­gence can help you gain clar­ity and enhance emo­tions such as love.

EI has poten­tial to bring in more love and mean­ing into our daily inter­ac­tions at work, fam­ily, and in our community.

Edu­cate your­self on Emo­tional Intel­li­gence. Let LOVE in.

Love, the right kind of love, will not only bring us together. It will, indeed, keep us together. Let LOVE in.

by Jen Slay­den

Filed Under: Family and Social Life, Jungle Writers
By 8 Comments

The Paradox of Focus

I’m going to be hon­est. Decem­ber is his­tor­i­cally my slow­est month in terms of client ses­sions. (That’s hon­est, yes, but that’s not my con­fes­sion). So, to make good use of the space cre­ated in that time, I had fab­u­lous inten­tions to map out 2012 in a truly pow­er­ful way dur­ing the month. Well, I did set some excel­lent goals, shared them with the world (or at least, my cor­ner of the world), then…oof. (Annnnnnd, here’s the con­fes­sion). Instead of strate­giz­ing and schem­ing, I baked and dec­o­rated. I shopped and sang. I cooked and vis­ited. I hosted and wrapped. And it was bliss.

Regrets = 0. Mem­o­ries = ~ 1,000.

I’m rested, recharged, and rar­ing to go in my busi­ness. It’s already been a wildly fruit­ful cou­ple of weeks.

So as I have been refo­cus­ing, it’s not sur­pris­ing that my entre­pre­neur clients are want­ing the same. Over the past cou­ple of weeks, they’ve been com­ing to ses­sion say­ing: I want to focus on focus.

YA BABY! Let’s get started! Let’s get spe­cific! Let’s clamp down!

Ah…but wait.

The para­dox of focus, is that to be focused, we need step way, WAYYYYY back and take a meta-view of who we are and where we are going.

Who are you?

Who are you in this world? Your val­ues will tell you. They are the bricks in the glo­ri­ous and utterly unique house of you.

Know­ing what your val­ues are will help you to make soul­ful deci­sions for your busi­ness. {And soul­ful deci­sions gen­er­ally trans­late to cash.}

I’ve writ­ten before about some val­ues clar­i­fi­ca­tion tools that will help. Also notice who you admire and why. What do they stand for? Likely rooted in there are some of your values.

Once you’ve gained on your val­ues, start to notice what might be miss­ing for you right now.

Lean into the val­ues that aren’t being hon­oured in your busi­ness. Notice how excit­ing that feels. Pretty hard to not focus on some­thing that feels excit­ing, non?

Where are you going?

If you don’t know where you are head­ing, then you don’t know which way to go.

This ain’t rocket sci­ence (and yet…)

Get clear on your vision . What do you want for your busi­ness? What feel­ings do you want to expe­ri­ence? What is your dream for your busi­ness? Get as gran­u­lar as you like (say, a vision for your prod­ucts or ser­vices, your employee rela­tions, your com­mu­nity con­tri­bu­tion, etc). What­ever works for you.

Cre­ate a vision state­ment, a vision board, a manifesto…SOMETHING to keep your vision top of mind.

Now your action is inten­tional and keeps you pointed in the right direction.

So we’re fired up, we have our vision. It’s com­pletely aligned with our val­ues and we know where we’re going. We are stoked and ready to try it all! So many shiny things…where to start?!!

VROOM VROOM

Action and moti­va­tion are like two bud­dies egging each other on at a frat house keg­ger. Being in action is moti­vat­ing and this moti­va­tion stim­u­lates the urge for action. We surf this pow­er­ful momen­tum and pile on the action because it’s all so tasty: new oppor­tu­ni­ties, new part­ners, new projects, oh my!

And THEN?????

OOPS hap­pens

Like another 4-letter word, it is messy stuff. OOPS = over-operational plan­ning syndrome.

Our momen­tum takes a nose­dive. Action and moti­va­tion part ways to down some aspirin and snore off the effects of the kegger.

Call it the Das­tardly Dip, call it what you will.

As a coach, my role is to be aware of that effect and help my clients to trim the wings before the nosedive.

Here’s how.

Yes’s and No’s

Mak­ing room for your vision to flour­ish, you prob­a­bly need to start say­ing “no”. Most of us do. So you can say “yes” to the bright­est pos­si­ble ver­sion of your life and business.

Ele­gant in its sim­plic­ity. (And yet…)

You may choose to get rid of the ugly chair, to make space for the stun­ning one you’ve always wanted. Is that a part­ner? A prod­uct? A supplier?

You may need to say “no” to some cus­tomers. If you find that you are not giv­ing the best of your­self, get curi­ous about why. And know that your indus­try is too small for you to not be giv­ing the best of your­self. It may well be them, or it may be you, but if there’s not a fit, the out­comes will be dire. That = bad business.

Lov­ingly and sup­por­t­ively release them into the arms of a col­league who may be bet­ter suited to them. And spend that found energy on find­ing your RIGHT peo­ple, and hav­ing them find you. Moti­va­tion restored. Back to action. But what actions?

Decision-making Matrix

A while back, I was in a pro­gram with Pam Slim and Chris Guille­beau. I was intro­duced to another ele­gantly sim­ple exer­cise. I’ve adapted it to suit my busi­ness and share (with per­mis­sion) with my clients. Feel free to email me for a copy.

Draw a table. 6 columns by 6 rows. In the left hand col­umn, list the projects that are sit­ting on your chest that may or may not want to get started. (Only con­sider projects that are in align­ment with your values…but you knew that already, didn’t you?)

Fill the next 5 columns with fil­ters that work for you. I use Vision (how aligned with my vision is this project…see why vision is crit­i­cal?) + Inter­est (how excited am I to tackle this project?) + Prof­itabil­ity (how much cash will it bring in?) — Effort (how much time and energy will it take?) = Grand Total. Swap/add fil­ters as you like (Reach may be more impor­tant to you than Profitability).

Sub­jec­tively rate each project on a scale of 1–5 (5 being high­est). This sim­ple exer­cise is intended to get you clearer on what wants to hap­pen in your busi­ness soon­est. If you need to cut a project or two, pick the low­est. If you can only take on one right now, pick the high­est. The rest can be put on a shelf with no remorse…you get to revisit them when the time’s right. So that “no” can become a “not right now”.

Buddy up

Hold­ing a vision as big of yours is pretty weighty stuff. Who else can help you to hold it? A coach? Mas­ter­mind group? Account­abil­ity part­ner? Advi­sory Board? Assess your sup­port net­work and con­sider how hav­ing some­one else help you hold your vision will keep you on track.

You are one lean, mean, focused machine.

Vroom vroom, indeed.

 

by Tanya Geisler

Filed Under: Creative Expression, Jungle Writers
By 13 Comments

Visit Your Local Farmers Market Today for Vibrant Health

Farmers' Market
Creative Commons License photo credit: Natal­ieMaynor

You want to be healthy. You want lean­ness. You want to feel awe­some as much as pos­si­ble. You want per­fect diges­tion if pos­si­ble. You want to avoid sick­ness. You want to be dis­ease and can­cer free.

You can have it all. The most impor­tant step is feed­ing your body what it desires.

How do you do this?

Buy food at a farm­ers market.

Here is what you may find in abundance:

  • Fresh veg­gies
  • Fresh fruit
  • Pas­tured eggs
  • Grass-fed meat (includ­ing the nutri­ent dense organ meats like liver!)
  • Fish/seafood
  • Nuts and seeds
  • Extra virgin/cold pressed Olive Oil

Local food. Sus­tain­able food. Per­haps cer­ti­fied organic food. Food that nour­ishes you. Food that will pre­vent sick­neess, dis­ease and can­cer. Food that will make you come alive.

Food that will make you healthy.

You will meet farm­ers and will be able to learn exactly how your food is grown and raised. You will build rela­tion­ships with the farm­ers you buy from.

You will NOT find crap. You will NOT find CAFO meat. You will NOT find col­or­ful boxes.

Begin to focus your gro­cery shop­ping efforts at your local farm­ers mar­ket start­ing NOW!

Then thank me later.

You need to begin feed­ing your body whole food if you want vibrant health. You will find this at the farm­ers mar­ket. Sure, you can buy whole, real food at your stan­dard gro­cery store. But, most of the “food” that is avail­able is crap unless you are shop­ping at a place like Whole Foods. Farm­ers mar­kets are not per­fect either but it is by far the best place to start. It is by far the best place to focus on.

Go ahead and buy coconut milk at your areas stan­dard grocer.

But, if you want to make it easy on your­self then just visit your farm­ers mar­ket. There are count­less ben­e­fits in doing so.

If you have no idea where a farm­ers mar­ket may be in your area then why not do a quick google search? Or, visit LocalHarvest.org for farm­ers mar­kets or EatWild.com for grass-fed, wild meat.

Do you shop at your local farm­ers mar­ket? Why or why not?

by Todd Dosen­berry

Filed Under: Health, Jungle Writers
By 9 Comments

Quit Spreading Yourself (And Your Money) Too Thin

Want to save money? Focus­ing on ONE spe­cific goal can be more effec­tive than spread­ing your­self (and your money) too thin.

Con­ven­tional wis­dom says that the best way to save more money is by ear­mark­ing small amounts of money towards a wide gamut of goals.

For exam­ple, your monthly sav­ings might look like this:

  • My next car pur­chase — $75 per month
  • A “rainy day” fund — $100 per month
  • A down pay­ment on a house — $150 per month
  • A trip to Italy — $50 per month
  • A new dish­washer — $50 per month
  • Total Sav­ings — $425 per month

But this spread-yourself-too-thin strat­egy can be dis­heart­en­ing. After 1 year of sac­ri­fic­ing con­cert tick­ets, restau­rant meals and cute new clothes, you’ve only man­aged to save $600 towards that trip to Flo­rence and Rome. That won’t even buy your air­line ticket.

What’s wrong with this sav­ings strat­egy? Lack of focus.

(Now, a quick dis­claimer: I’m not say­ing this is a bad strat­egy. If it works for you — awe­some! This post is writ­ten for peo­ple who have tried this strat­egy, felt dis­heart­ened by their lack of progress, and — as a result — have given up on their dream trip to Italy.)

What’s the alter­na­tive? Focus on ONE goal at a time. Stop spread­ing your­self thin.

Here’s what that model would look like:

  • A “rainy day” fund: $425 per month

After 8 months, you’d reach your goal of a $3,400 “rainy day” fund, at which point you turn your com­plete, unadul­ter­ated focus to another goal.

You start putting $425 per month away for that trip to Italy. After 6 months, you have enough saved to go there.

When you return from Italy, you start focus­ing on the next goal: a new dish­washer. Within 1 month, you’ve got it.

Isn’t that more sat­is­fy­ing than spread­ing your goals too thin (and there­fore need­ing a longer time frame to reach those goals)?

This idea comes from the “snow­ball” method of pay­ing off your debt. It’s a the­ory that states that you should pay down your small­est debt first, regard­less of its inter­est rate. Focus all your money on just one spe­cific debt. Once that debt is repaid, focus all your money on the second-smallest debt. And so forth.

That the­ory has many crit­ics who argue that you’ll pay a lot more in inter­est by focus­ing on your small­est debt, rather than your highest-interest debt. But its sup­port­ers say that focus­ing on one small goal at a time is more effec­tive than spread­ing your­self too thin.

The hyper-focused method may (or may not) be the best method for repay­ing debt — but it’s cer­tainly a great way to save for a goal.

by Paula Pant

Filed Under: Jungle Writers, Personal Finance
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