Wednesday Inspiration #17

Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them. -Orison Swett Marden

Most of us have at least one person in our lives that has been waiting for that perfect opportunity to do or have what they really want. The girlfriend who has always wanted to start her own business and has been waiting for a financial windfall to give her the perfect set up. The uncle who always wanted to go back to school but has been waiting until till he found a job with more flexible hours. The brother who has dreamed for years of working for a particular company but is waiting until he hears they are hiring again. Or the person in your network that has been waiting for years to be promoted to the next level and is sure it will happen when the current person in that role leaves.

It is a dangerous defeating trap to believe that our opportunities depend solely on time, people or circumstance creating the window we need. Especially when we hold the keys to unlocking opportunity. If opportunity seems to be passing you by, start with changing what you are thinking and saying about the opportunity you need. Then start talking to people about what you want to do – and make sure you are talking to the right people. The right people are those that will hear you, support you and can help you connect with the information or other people you need. Turn over every stone and explore every trail – especially the ones that seem less conventional.

Challenge: What opportunity will you create today for yourself? For others?

As “The Career Makeover Coach”, Tai Goodwin is on a mission to help ambitious individuals reinvent their professional lives by centering on their passion and purpose. Holding as a core belief that we are all called to divine purpose and gifted with a unique passion, Tai uses a results driven, spiritually grounded approach to help clients create career paths to support the lifestyle they desire. Whether it’s helping people go from embittered to empowered professionals or making the transition from employee to entrepreneur, Tai is committed to helping clients tap into their own potential for brilliance. Tai has been empowering others through teaching and coaching for over 14 years. A gifted and insightful communicator, Tai holds a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Drexel University and a Master of Science in Education from Capella University. She has completed ASTD’s (American Society for Training and Development) Coaching Certificate program and is pursuing professional coaching certification through the International Coach Academy. Originally from Philadelphia, Tai currently lives in Delaware with her daughter. She is currently working on her first book: Reclaiming Your Brilliance: Seven Ways to Take Your Life from Bright to Brilliant.

Web site: http://www.careermakeovercoach.com

There is no question that the shooting death of former NFL star Steve McNair was tragic. The question I have is why is the entire media referring to Sahel Kazemi as his ‘girlfriend’? After all he was married with 4 boys, no record of him filing for divorce. That qualifies as having an affair and she was his mistress.

McNair was cheating on his wife, and for some reason the media is giving the former NFL quarterback a pass.  As an example of the coverage, the NY Post says: ” His girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, had a single gunshot wound to her head. ”

This is typical of the coverage to date.

McNair was and still is a role model, and by referring to Kazemi as his ‘girlfriend’, infidelity is being glorified. Is that the kind of message that we want to send to our children? Is this what society thinks of the union of marriage?

How about some truth in reporting. After all, McNair was having an affair.

Do you keep breaking up and then getting back together? How many times have you done it? Be honest. If you’ve done it more than once, you are most probably addicted to the drama. Ask yourself these important questions:

1. Do you have the same arguments each time you break-up?

· Do you keep fighting about the same stuff? The day may be different, the circumstances not exactly the same, but the fight is still about money.

· If you closed your eyes, would this be the same argument you had yesterday? Are the words the same, the complaints the same?

· Do you find yourself getting angrier and more frustrated each time you fight? This means you are repeating yourself.

2. Do you take responsibility for any of it or do you think it is your partner’s problem?

· It takes two to do this dance. If you are dancing, you are part of the problem.

· Step up. Look at yourself. What are you doing to keep this going? What are you getting out of this?

· Until you take FULL responsibility, not half – only then will you begin to makes the changes you need to make.

3. Are you willing to do the work to change or do you just want to talk about it?

· Changing takes hard work and is initially uncomfortable. Unless you are brave enough to look at yourself, nothing will ever change.

· Constantly making excuses about your relationship is draining and depletes your self-esteem.

· Getting consensus for your point of view only serves to gratify your ego and does nothing to change your problem.

4. Are you addicted to drama?

· OK. Here’s the big one you need to honestly answer, and the way to truly get the right answer is to look at your life straight on.

· Do you have constant drama in your life? Because if you do – you are addicted to it.

· Your life doesn’t cause you have to have drama – it is just a life, no better or worse than anyone else’s. How YOU interpret your life, how YOU deal with it, that’s what determines the kind of life you have.

5. Are you getting weary?

· Constant breaking-up and getting back together is tiring.

· You lose your confidence and self-esteem. You keep saying you are going to do something and you don’t do. This has far-reaching effects and permeates every part of your life from your job to your relationship.

· You don’t look good and you don’t feel good. Look yourself in the mirror and have yourself a good talking to.

In a national competition, Chandra Alexander, MSW, was selected by THE OPRAH MAGAZINE as the Life Coach to deliver a series of coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their prestigious Toyota Moving Forward contest. She also spent five years on NBC/TV “DAYTIME” giving a weekly “Reality Check”. Chandra has been living and teaching authenticity for the last 30 years and is the founder of Coaching for Authenticity, a place to explore and discover the essence of who you really are.

I’ve worked hard over the past two years to change my image. I used to dumb myself down, play my looks up. It was easier that way. I didn’t have to buy any drinks in college, for instance. That was my brand, an image that wasn’t who I was or wanted to be. But it worked, so I kept on.

Until my boyfriend told me I wasn’t interesting enough. Until I came home from a meeting one day, furious for not speaking my mind. Until I had one scary frickin’ visit to the ER. Yeah, those life-threatening events, they’ll get you every time.

I sat down to think about who I really was, proceeded to have a quarter-life crisis, and made some tough decisions. They weren’t decisions that were visible. I didn’t quit my job, or become celibate, or move across the country to pursue reality television. But I did slowly, painfully, change and start to brand myself differently.

Personal branding is your personality, who you are as an individual and “the sum of other brands that you either own, work for or touch in some distinct way.” It’s about being you, and marketing the heck out of it.

You, who is reliably manipulative, can’t make a commitment if your life depended on it, and won’t go to bed until you clear the next level in your video game. You, who is only working until you have a baby, hopefully two, so you can stay at home and take care of your family. You, who works eighty hours a week and must separate your jelly beans into color-respective piles before eating.

Branding is marketing those very gems of your personality. That’s not hard to do. Just be yourself. If you’re acting like someone you’re not, then it will come back to haunt you, like when the infatuation wears off in a relationship, and it is at that moment your girlfriend finds your box of hair-regeneration pills in your underwear drawer. Whoever you are, it’s really hard to change, so you win by just being you from the start.

And sometimes, inevitably, you lose. Like this guy.

Branding is inextricably linked to accountability. If you do a good enough job of marketing yourself a certain way, people will start to believe you. So much so that when you mess up, or step out of your brand, it will make others uncomfortable.

I wouldn’t worry too much about this. Instead, focus on how you define accountability and your own comfort level with your actions.

Our lives are out in the open for all to see. Who you are at your job is who you are at the bar is who you are at the gym is who you are during sex is who you are at the company picnic is who you are at, well, you get the idea. Politicians do cheat on their wives. CEOs are bad parents. Artists are erratic friends. So, what? They’re good at their passions, and at the end of the day, we’re all doing the best we can in the circumstances given.

Your image reflects on your company, friends, and family. You, however, need to be accountable to yourself first. If you’re dancing on the tables at the bar, and worried about getting caught, either you have something personally wrong, or you need to find a different job that accepts your lack of inhibition. If your Facebook photos might get you in trouble, take them down, or decide you want to work at a place where they don’t care about that sort of thing.

The lines between work and play are increasingly blurring, and if you’re one person during the day and a different one at night you have to be proud enough to market the heck out of it. If you’re not comfortable, you need to learn more about who you are. You are in control of your brand.

My mother used to tell me, “Remember who you are,” whenever I left the house. People with integrity and confidence don’t worry about “getting caught,” because they know who they are. They know that dancing on tables is acceptable to them, or that their Facebook pictures show another layer of their onion. And if it’s not okay to them, they act accordingly.

In summary, to rock the branding/accountability boat:

1. Know yourself.
2. Be yourself.
3. Love it.
4. Repeat.

By the way, I still enjoy receiving free drinks, because I’ve realized I’m okay with using my looks… Sometimes.

Be yourself, or perish, yo.

Hercules moved away. I don’t feel left behind by Hercules, but by my own life which seems to have somehow escaped me. I am beginning to feel engulfed by this when my friend Maria Antonia comes over.

“Transition periods… they suck,” she reminds me. “I can’t think of a transition period that didn’t suck.”

“Uh huh,” I smile. Maria Antonia is incredibly practical. This sucks, but it will pass. We try on dresses, talk business and girly things, and go out for the night. I come home early. Socializing seems silly when all I can do is think of myself.

Another night I visit with Belle and her fiancé. It takes a lot of effort on my part not to be the third wheel; they are just sickeningly cute. I give myself a gold star for not being envious. I feel more grown up this past week, and I wonder if you learn lessons faster as you grow older.

Hercules left on a Sunday morning and I miss him on a Thursday. I go to the iTunes Store and download sixteen songs in a row, add them to a new playlist and hit repeat. They are mostly happy songs and soon I feel like the world is once again at my feet. Then I remember the other night, Zeus, and the five glasses of wine. We’re sitting on my couch.

“Am I your rebound?” Zeus asks.

“Of course!” I declare. I feel bad as soon as the words escape. I liked Zeus the moment I saw him and tell him so.

“Love at first sight?” he chuckles. I don’t think it’s funny since love is both the closest and farthest thing on my mind.

“Something like that,” I reply.

And I don’t want him to be my rebound, but I don’t see any other choice. I feel incapable at relationships. Zeus seems younger than most guys I date, and is both sweet and guarded. He makes me want to write, and a few days earlier, he bet that I would make a good girlfriend. This makes me happy and so now that we are alone, I kiss him. It’s not what I expect.

“Zeus, you know when you see an outfit that you really like and you have to try it on to see if it fits?”

“Yeah…”

“I’m not sure we fit,” I say. I’m not trying to be rude on purpose, but the word vomit keeps coming! We keep talking and he agrees and disagrees with everything I say, taking a middle-of-the-road approach. This is good I think and I like him more as the wine wears off.

A lesson I’ve learned though is that when men are in my life, it engulfs me. And when men aren’t in my life, I rise up like a balloon that was being held to the ground and is finally being let go.

I like both states of being despite their unequal weight on my shoulders whispering in my ear. I feel the need to choose relationships or career because it’s easier to go all-in on one side of the coin instead of trying to reach a balance. Defining your own success is indeed as rare as successfully hanging curtains by yourself. I’ve been thinking about this, and the strange feeling of glee I have to own a new beginning where everything is different, yet exactly the same.

Later in the week Zeus texts me, “So what do you think, did the clothes fit?” And this makes me a bit giddy, because that line seems to be straight out of a movie, and I think maybe the clothes do fit. And I ready myself for another stab at flourishing in life.