MONDAY MOTIVATION: My Book Recommendation For Releasing Hurt & Disappointment in Your Life

 

Yesterday morning, I checked out Oprah's 'Super Soul Sunday' and she had author Don Miguel Ruiz on. I have to say that his book The Four Agreements is one of my favourite and one of the most impactful personal development books that I've read. It's one of those books that I've read at least 5-6 times and have found / learned something new from it each time because there was a part that spoke to my current situation.

The premise of the book is to basically realize that how you feel about your life and the people around you is based on how you observe and interpret the world. I like the message of the book because it empowers its reader to realize that we are in control of our lives - not the person who hurt us, anyone who made us upset, the awful situation that happened. We can flip our interpretation of the events that happen in our lives in order to free ourselves from the emotional struggles that we commonly face.

Ruiz outlines 4 agreements that you should follow:

Be Impeccable With Your Word
I love this one! To be impeccable with your word is to not use your words to spread emotional toxicity - not speak badly about yourself or to not gossip about others. This agreement recognizes the power that words have in creating the world around us. Spreading office gossip will only make your life at the office miserable. Speaking badly about yourself will only make you feel worse and will perpetuate the cycle of people treating you with the same lack of respect. Speak with integrity.

Don't Take Anything Personally
Probably the most important of the agreements is the ability to not personalize every action and word towards you. It's a difficult one but a very important one to achieve. Make yourself immune to the opinion and actions of others. Ruiz says that we take things personally because on some level we believe about ourself what others have to say. Release yourself from personalizing people's words otherwise you can walk around getting hurt by everyone and everything.

Don't Make Assumptions
You can completely transform your life if you learn how not to make assumptions in your relationships or in your interactaction with people. How many of us, before even asking any questions, assume that a person tried to hurt us or had ill intentions towards us? You took something that they said to you personally without asking them what they truly meant by it. We make the assumption then that everyone is judging us, victimizing us, or abusing us. Which is more so a reflection of how we view ourselves.

Always Do Your Best
Plenty of the hurt and disappointment that we feel is based on our own feelings of self-judgment, self-abuse, shame and regret. Release that and instead vow to ourselves that we will always do our best in the current situation that we are in - keeping in mind that your best today may not be your best tomorrow. Learn to have patience with yourself. The hardest thing to do and something that I'm learning each day to do better is to be kind to myself. Tell myself that it's okay if I didn't do all that I set out to accomplish for the day or if I didn't say the right thing to someone - striving for perfection is the quickest road to stress and disappointment.

Did you watch 'Super Soul Sunday' this weekend? Have you read the book? If so, tell me about the lessons that you've learned. Would love to hear it!

Nobody Knows My Name! The Value of Personal Branding with Shannon Skinner & Artist Challenge Day 4

When it comes to personal branding, Shannon Skinner has managed to create a brand that is authentic to her passions and purpose. Her resume is quite extensive: creator/ host of a talk show, author, inspirational speaker and public relations professional. When it comes to introducing yourself as an artist to the world, Shannon understands the value of being your own promoter, showing the world exactly who you are and going for what you want despite the fear that may try to convince you to sit in standstill. I’m so happy to have Shannon come speak at The Millionaire Artist workshop on February 2nd!

Here are 3 lessons I believe Shannon will be able to offer you all:

On pursuing your dreams despite the fear

When I had the idea of creating my talk show Extraordinary Women TV with Shannon Skinner, I had a lot of fear and, although I knew I would do it "one day," I was waiting for all the conditions to be right. I had envisioned doing something like this since I was a child, as I was born and raised in a family of television broadcasters. I spent much of my youth in a television station. But instead of doing it, I sat on the idea. Fast-forward...one beautiful summer evening in 2010, a good friend of mine gave me some bad news: he had less than one year to live. Shocked and saddened, I later asked myself a question: "If I had one year to live, what would I do?" That quality question pushed me past my fears and other obstacles, and within a short time I birthed my show -- and my new career was started. I since realized that conditions will rarely be right to follow your heart, so you just have to do it.

The importance of having an inspirational source to continually refer to when needed

"The Whispering Heart: Your Inner Guide to Creativity" is a book I wrote a few years ago. It is my favourite book, not because I wrote it, but because I keep re-reading it to take my own advice when I need a courage boost or clarity.

Putting your best foot forward & creating a great impression is just as much about creating the right appearance as it is about your talent.

The best advice I’ve received in this industry is to never wear short skirts or dresses for television interviews.

Artist Tip #4: Nobody Knows My Name! Tell the World Who You Are!

It's never too early to tell the world what you do and who you are! Usually when I start working with my coaching clients, their first complaint and biggest concern they share is that no one knows who they are! They then proceed to tell me they aren't "big" enough yet, to have a following or it too soon to think about branding themselves!!! 

Well, how do you think you are going to start to build a following unless you start today??? 

When I first started in the business, my first show was in a Brampton Public Library, I had about four people in the audience! And two of them were family members who felt sorry for me, so they showed up! But even back then I knew the importance of branding and building my audience. I faithfully mailed out flyers, and newsletters monthly! Yes mailed them! Licked envelopes! Remember those days?! There was no internet or Facebook back then!  

My shows eventually grew from 4 people to 10, to 100, to 1000, and now 'da Kink in my hair theatrical show has been seen by over 125,000 people! Not bad for a person who had four people at her first show!  

START TODAY--- start to think about how to build your audience and how to find clients for your work. Start by buying your domain name, start a fan page on Facebook, get a twitter account, get a Youtube channel, create a website, start a blog...  Let people know what you are doing!

At the workshop I will give several valuable tips on how to grow your audience and how to let the world know who you are! I will also let you know a secret tip on how to immediately make your brand/ yourself look more professional! It works every time trust me! See you there! 

****** Today's give away, the seventh person to Facebook me and say, “I want to know how to get paid and paid now!” will win a ticket to my Millionaire Artist workshop! 

Monday Motivation: Who Are You?

This past weekend I had the chance to catch the premiere of Iyanla Vanzant's 'Fix My Life' on OWN Network. Have you all been watching OWN? My girl Oprah has been bringing consistently rich content to feed our viewing souls.

In the premiere, Iyanla worked with 'Basketball Wives' star Evelyn Lozada to help her fix some of her deep rooted anger issues. Evelyn has been no stranger to controversy - from bottle throwing, bitch name-calling, jumping on tables and the recent head butting incident involving her husband NFL superstar Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson. Evelyn has become a name associated with negativity, so she decided to take the step to seek counsel and turn around her image.

What stood out to me about the interview was not Evelyn's "mean girl" image or analysis of her marriage but the focus on the essential question, "who are you?".

No matter how we were raised , the path that we've been on or the image that we choose to project to the world, the most important question that we need to ask ourselves is who am I?

Asked who she would be if all of her material possessions and public image were taken away, Evelyn struggled to find a definition outside of this.

We all, similar to celebrities, have a public image as mother, daughter, sister, wife, girlfriend, friend, insert job title here, and so on. Our lives are broadcast over social media for people to Like or comment on. But when you strip this all away and sit alone with yourself, do you know who you are? And, is your “authentic” self being portrayed to the outside world? Most of us are living separate identities between the person who people see and our truest self.

When we are unaware of who we truly are, it is easy to be led into someone else’s vision and live the life that they want. We then attract people into our lives that continually lead us in a direction away from our authentic path.

Starting this week off with a fresh slate, let’s all learn from Evelyn and start defining ourselves by our own terms. Work on aligning your deepest truth with the womyn that you show to the world.

So, who are YOU? I would love to hear your own personal statements. Please leave comments and fill in the blank – I AM…

Check out a clip from the episode below:

Happy Monday!