Well, I did it!  This morning I finished my very first run doing the Couch to 5K program.    I used to be a runner in my late teens and early 20’s and somewhere along the way it fell by the wayside.  But I think that probably explains why my youngest daughter loves to run.  It’s in her blood.

 In our search to find active things to do together, the subject of running often comes up.  But what immediately shoots from my lips are phrases such as, “I’m too old to run at this point” and “The last time I tried it, my knees hurt,” or “I don’t have a good place to run.” 

 Well, these are actually excuses.  You know what excuses are, right?  They are stories we tell others (and ourselves) to justify not doing something. 

 How do I know it’s a story I’m telling myself?  Well, first my close friend and accountability partner Susan Davis is almost done with her nine weeks of the program and she’s in my age neighborhood.   And my friend, Patrick McIntosh, just wrote a blog post using me as an example of someone who wasn’t letting age stand in the way of physical fitness because I was doing P90X.  Sigh! 

And if that wasn’t enough, I was checking out the website (www.c25k.com)  and read that the author of the program, Josh Clark, actually wrote it for his mother who at the time was 50 years old, didn’t exercise, always hated it, and need to workout.  Okay, I get it!  If I can do P90X, then I can definitely do this running thing.  So I finally decided to snuff out the excuses and just do it! 

So I ask you, what stories are you telling yourself that keep you from going after your goals and dreams.  I challenge you to question those stories, face the truth, and go for it.  You can do it!  I know you can.  Share what you discover with me, I’d love to hear all about it.

Do your best and forget the rest!

 If you are a Tony Horton fan, the trainer from P90X, then you will be familiar with this saying.  It’s very powerful.  Here’s why.  One of the truest measures of success in life is to be a person who puts your best effort into everything you do.

 You don’t do it for love.  You don’t do it for money.  You don’t do it for acknowledgment.  Nor do you do it to beat an opponent.  You do it because that’s just who you are.

 When you use the benefits of achievement as your motivation for success, it will stick.  But if you strive for excellence because you simply can’t imagine being any other way, then you know you are a true leader, one with integrity and character.

 Did you know that most people lack this essential leadership trait.  The average person will lie to themselves, cheat themselves, steal from themselves because they don’t appreciate the tremendous benefits of just going for it, not settling for the scraps of life, doing their best, being true to their word and forgetting the rest.

 That’s what I aspire to be, a person who always does my best simply because it’s the right thing to do.  So let me ask you, are you proud of your efforts?  How are those efforts molding you?

 When you automatically function at this level . . . where you don’t need acknowledgement to know you did a good job, you will easily and happily achieve any outcome you desire without strain, anxiety or fear.  

 Commit to it today . . . do your best and forget the rest!  That’s truly living in the moment!

Are you a worrier?  Do you have regrets?  Were you able to find satisfaction in the little things in your life today?  If not, you may be struggling with “living in the moment.”

 I’ve been thinking a lot lately about ‘living in the moment.”  Along with being the Queen of the Universe, I was also the Queen of Worrying and the Queen of Regrets.  But you see, when you worry you are living in the future and regrets are living in the past.  We can’t really do anything about those, and when we live that way we are crowding out our opportunity to live in the present and most likely are missing some great moments.

 Yesterday was one of those days.  I had a million errands on my to-do list.  I find that if I have a to-do list that is impossibly long, this also prohibits living in the moment.  Well, anyway, at my second stop, my car wouldn’t start.  My first thought was to throw my hands up and react in frustration.

 However, I caught myself and just decided to take care of the problem and go with the flow.  I called AAA and in just a few minutes, the wrecker driver arrived.  Because I changed my perspective and was relaxed, the drive to the mechanic was relaxed as well.  I had a lovely conversation with the wrecker drive who offered to stick around to give me a ride home.  I graciously thanked him and declined.  And went on inside. 

 I had a book along with me and, at first during my wait, my nose was in the book.  I had the sensation that someone was watching me.  I looked up and a little toddler boy who was sitting with his parents was looking at me.  So I smiled and waved.  He smiled and waved back.  We did this for a few minutes.  His parents spoke, so I walked closer to speak with them.  The little boy reached out for me.  The parents let me hold him.  I can’t tell you, the feeling of joy and happiness just for the few minutes of holding this precious little boy.   I’m tearing up right now thinking about that feeling.

His parents were amazed and told me that he never lets strangers hold him.  But I knew that God sent him my way today as my little miracle and to remind me again of what I miss when I fail to live in the moment.  You see, I didn’t get my to-do list done.  But in the grand scheme of things, that isn’t always that important anyway.  It’s people that are important and I connected with three people yesterday.  What are you missing when you fail to live in the moment?  Try it out and see what miracles happen in your life.  Share with me your living in the moment experiences.

That Feeling of Success

 Whenever you complete a task, however big or small, you are given an opportunity to receive a gift.  Many times, in the case of small accomplishments, your only reward may be a feeling of satisfaction and a confidence boost.  Obviously, bigger, more challenging achievements bring larger rewards – the feeling should be bigger since the achievement was bigger, right?

 But sometimes people with “average” achievements or sometimes even those with “above average” achievements seem to get no pleasure from their successes.  Even though they receive a lot of external rewards, they have no joy.  Many experience a feeling of lack or jealousy of others.  There are never enough pats on the back, enough money, enough thanks, etc.  Did you know that the most successful, happy people feel happy and successful.

Those people win a lot, have self-discipline and enjoy every step of the way to the top.

 I was reminded this week of a little secret that I’ve learned.  Living in the moment.  We can do nothing about the past and the future is not here yet.  The only thing we can really do anything about is the right now.  It’s a gift and that’s why it’s called the present.

 To the extent that you love what you get from each and every victory in life, whether it be the external rewards like awards, money, affection, fame or the internal rewards like your feelings of achievement from a job well done or the confidence boost you gain from your effort, the more likely you are to keep doing it. 

 Because the truth of the matter is this, if you don’t live in the moment and appreciate your little victories, you’ll be miserable.  And you’ll make other people miserable right along with you.  This misery is what causes addictive behaviors (such as overeating), family strife, and increased stress.

Every victory in life, whether it be the “outer” stuff like awards, money, affection, fame or the “inner” feelings that you get from reaching a goal that took serious effort and sacrifice indicates the likelihood that you’ll keep doing it…

 So just stop right now, and think about all of the little things that you have accomplished today, relish that feeling of success, live in the moment and be happy.

 When you regularly and sincerely take conscious notice of and appreciate what your successes do for you and for others in every way, you will feel like one of the luckiest people in the world… every day of your life.

There was a time in my not-so-distant past, when I would let every little problem that came along send me into a tail spin.  Can you identify with that at all?   

 Well, how quickly you can “cool down’ and recover from these problems (negative situations) actually tells you a lot about yourself.

 Here’s why I say that.  No matter what you want the most, if it’s a big enough goal, you can rest assured that, sooner or later, you will meet with resistance from the outside world.  I have seen this happen in my own life again and again.  The resistance could come in the form of little delays, mistakes by you or someone else, criticism, jealousy, accidents, temptations, cancellations, lost opportunity – big and small failures alike.

 In order to be the most effective, you need to get solving things within milliseconds – that means no rages, no yelling, no crying and no delays.  Just take it all in stride and get moving on the solution. 

 The solution starts by asking yourself empowering questions such as, What does this mean?  How can I fix this now?  What is the best thing to do this very second?  How can I help?  What can I do to get back on course quickly? 

 In addition, your self-dialog should include such statements as I’m fortunate . . . it could have been a whole lot worse.  I can still get to where I want to go.  This was just a speed bump.

 And if you really want to be high effective, you will plan for problems before you even begin.  That way you won’t get blindsided so easily.  The key is to mentally practice what you will do in all kinds of sticky situational scenarios long before they ever happen.

 Tell yourself that all setbacks are small and temporary.  And when you believe this, down to the very core of your being, it will take something enormous to dampen your spirit and make you quit.  Think of this as developing a mental ability – the ability to shrink and quickly move past your challenges.  This will make you virtually unstoppable in your pursuit of your dreams.

Have you ever thought about success as being a process that you can duplicate over and over again and routinely transfer to every area of your life?   Really, success is no happy accident.

 I am a people-watcher.  I love to observe other people.  One thing I’ve noticed is that nearly everyone, even some pretty effective, “successful” people, spend a fair amount of their time wandering around making some good decisions, some bad – never analyzing and understanding what they do right or how they do it. 

 Without that understanding, you can’t duplicate what’s right and apply it to other areas of your life.  This lack of understanding can cause years of laboring at it in order to get it right. 

 While knowing what works is important, knowing what doesn’t work is crucial.  If we don’t know what isn’t working, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over. 

 We all have the intelligence we need to achieve practically anything we desire.  But our lack of attention to small details makes even smart people look and feel inadequate much of the time.

 I’m no exception to this and being an analytical person by nature I am intrigued by the idea that I can analyze my way to success!  But if you are not an analytical person, don’t quit on me now, because the steps are really very easy.

1. Become aware of your actions which bring success.
2. Make yourself aware of what hurts your chances of success.
3. Be on the lookout for ways to improve, to do things faster and easier, and to make better decisions.
4. Affirm to yourself that your knowledge of your subject is growing quickly.
5. Tell yourself repeatedly that you learn as much as possible from every mistake and from each success no matter how small.
6. Apply what you learn. 

Once I left the land of denial, I realized that I was holding onto the material things that reminded me of my family and my past.  But in many ways holding on to these things was getting in the way of my success, future, and happiness.  I have learned that the memories are mine with or without the physical things.  I am applying this by getting rid of most of the things and moving on to my future, my success, my happiness.        

If you take these steps, nstead of getting upset by mistakes, your belief will truly be that they are simply a part of the process of reaching your goal. So you won’t fear mistakes, setbacks and delays so much, if at all. And instead of making the same screw-ups again and again, you’ll look for the problems, find them, fix them and move forward more intelligently… certain that you can and will succeed.  

As always, it’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey.

This week, as I was pondering some ways to transform my daily “to do” list into one containing fun and adventure, ala my last blog post, I had an ephipany!

Many things in life have come fairly easily to me – good grades in school, learning to play the piano, learning to cook, gaining weight . . . but I digress. Yes, many things took little effort, while other things took more effort, like passing the CPA exam. I know, you’re totally shocked that I didn’t pass that baby in one try, aren’t you?

But for the past several years, nearly 6 to be exact, life has not even been close to easy. That’s really an understatement as I have experienced some major life stressors. And I have found myself, at times, nearly paralyzed emotionally as a result.

During a recent conversation with my new accountability partner, Susan Davis,  the question came up “what would your goal be like if it were ideal . . .?” What popped out was my belief that once I achieved my goal my life would be EASIER.  I probably mentioned (whined) that I was pretty tired of struggling and just wanted my life to be back on an even keel.

As I was reflecting on that conversation, God reminded me of a commitment that I had made to him more than six years ago. That’s right, the beginning of what I’ve come to refer to as the “difficult years” coincide with my commitment. You see, I had committed to God that I wanted to be everything He wanted me to be. No matter the cost. Now, I had a definite view in my mind of how I would get there and the beautiful, peaceful, perfect life I would have. God’s plan seems to be different. And quite frankly, I have expended a lot of energy being angry, and chafing against this plan.

Here’s the epiphany, “Adversity is the diamond dust with which heaven polishes its jewels.” The author of this quote is unknown. Obviously, I’m a diamond in the rough and need some polishing. I’ve always been a person who despises mediocrity. Easy equals mediocrity. You can call it taking the path of least resistance or something else, but all of those paths ultimately lead to one destination – mediocrity. Frank Clark said, “If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.”

Speaking of leading somewhere, here’s where I’m going with all of this. Yes, I’m finally landing.  Since I want to be everything I’m meant to be, then I must embrace the adversity, see it as God caring enough about me to smooth and polish out my rough spots so that I can shine. And that thought of shining . . . being all that I was put here to be . . . really fuels my passion.

How about you? Are you experiencing some obstacles? Are you tired and feeling defeated or have you learned this secret? I would love for you to share with me your thoughts and experiences so that we can all learn and be inspired.

I want to end this with one more quote; this time from Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, 1820: There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles us, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

How long will you do something if you don’t like doing it?  Not for long, right?  Unless you are one of those people who have to stay moving because that’s who they are.  But even if you are THAT person, you may find that you start and quit a lot of things.

Why is that?  Are you lazy?  No, that’s not it; because you’re active.  The problem is that you have mastered failure patterns in your life.  Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I’ve mastered these as well.

Perhaps the problem is negative neuro-associations to what you need to do to reach your goal.  For example, let’s say you are trying to live a healthier lifestyle of eating.  But in the past you have gone on super rigid, extremely restrictive diet programs.  So for you, even the thought of restricting your eating in some way sets off those negative thought patterns.  Negative neuro-associations are bombs that instantly destroy a positive mind.

The cure for this is to create positive triggers and use those to push your mind in a positive direction whenever those negative thoughts take over.   Let’s set up a positive trigger to offset the negative trigger for changing your eating habits.  Make the trigger something physical like putting your right hand in your pocket or rubbing the back of your neck.  Now practice – put your hand in your pocket and repeat after me, “ It’s easy and fun for me to take  the action steps today to invest in my future self.”   Practice this every time you feel the negative thoughts and soon you’ll have turned your thoughts around.

Maybe your problem is that you focus only on what is wrong, not on what is right.  Let’s take our lifestyle change as an example.  Your focus may be only on the foods you can’t have.    The key here is to find the healthy foods you really like and plan those into your meals as often as possible.  Then every time you start focusing on your deprivation, correct that thinking by reminding yourself of all the luscious things you are eating and can have on your new healthy lifestyle.  Focus on other positive things, such as how great you feel, how much energy you have, how much better your clothes fit.

The final obstacle may be the thought pattern of mentally magnifying the size and/or difficulty of goal achieving tasks.  That’s what procrastination does a lot of the time.  The more we put off a task, the larger it grows.  I know for me that if something seems too large, then my tendency is to just avoid doing anything about it at all.  The best way to handle this problem is to break the task down into smaller parts.  Instead of making all of your lifestyle changes at once, find 3 things that you can change this week.  And then build on it from there.

And if you hate doing some of the things you need to do to reach your goals, it’s just a matter of time before you quit… and move on to the next thing, leaving behind you a wake of frustration.   Isn’t that why we jump from diet to diet to diet in hopes of finding that magic one that will give us quick results so we can get back to our regular life rather than making it a lifestyle change?

When this is the case, our efforts are half-hearted at best and sometimes we give up and just quit.  I would suggest writing down the needed action steps to reach your goals.  Then read them out loud in order to hear how much you love taking all the goal achieving actions.  Tell yourself that you are always looking for the fun in your duties and decisions, that you are great at finding what’s enjoyable or what could be enjoyable about your tasks or decisions.  Tell yourself that you see your responsibilities as easy.  And finally, tell yourself that you see each task you finish as bringing you closer to achieving your ultimate goal.

And when it’s your habit to see your goal achieving tasks and decisions in this light, then you will stick with them longer, you will enjoy each and every day of your life more, you will notice a dramatic drop in stress, your confidence will be higher.

You will actually look happily forward to doing whatever you have to do to succeed. Now won’t that be fun?  It will be action, fun and adventure!

The last few weeks, I’ve been discussing single owner business entities for limiting liabilities.  But what if both spouses are active in the business?    What liability choices are the best in this case?

 If you are unincorporated, “actively involved” means that the spouses hold themselves out as co-owners to third parties and share in the profits and losses.  In other words, the spouses conduct themselves as partners.  Such an unincorporated business is generally classified as a husband-wife partnership for federal income tax purposes whether or not there are any formal partnership agreements between the spouses.

 In this case a husband-wife LLC offers the maximum tax flexibility.  All 50 states and the District of Columbia now permit multi-member LLCs, or LLCs with 2 or more members.  LLC owners are referred to as members.  While LLCs offer corporate-style liability protection, they are considered unincorporated entities for federal income tax purposes unless an election is made on Form 8732 to treat the LLC as a corporation (which is relatively rare).

 Because the LLC is treated as a partnership (if no election has been made to treat the LLC as a corporation), no entity-level federal income taxes are paid.  Instead the income passes-through to the individual return, which can be a big advantage.  There are less restrictions than with an S Corporation (the income also passes through with this entity).

There are also several other tax advantages over the S Corporation.  The partnership tax rules are more flexible in regards to withdrawing cash or other assets from the LLC which causes less tax complications.  Those transactions can be accounted for at tax preparation time.

If an owner dies in an S Corporation, appreciated assets cannot be stepped up in value to their date-of-death fair market values.  In contrast, the LLC allows the heirs to benefit from tax basis step-ups which means lower tax bills for the heirs when assets are sold after death. 

With an S Corporation, no additional tax basis is given for entity-level debt.  However, additional basis is given for the husband-wife LLC.  When the business throws off tax losses, this advantage can allow bigger current deductions.  Also there is the possibility of refinancing real estate properties and taking out cash without triggering taxable gains.

For all these tax-related reasons, the husband-wife LLC is generally preferable to the S Corporations because taxpayers have greater flexibility to make a wide variety of transactions without triggering any tricky tax complications or adverse tax consequences.  There are some drawbacks however which we will discuss in my next post.

There are so many elements involved in achieving our dreams!  Who knew?  But which one would you say is the most important?

We need to have deeply ingrained in us, the self-image of a person who is successful at the thing you desire most.  If we don’t, we won’t be able to sustain the success even if we are somehow able to attain it.  While important, it’s not the most important.

And we certainly have to know what’s in it for us – the big WHY is crucial to igniting our potential.  And while we may not be motivated long-term without our WHY, it’s still not the most important element.

Visualization is certainly the foundation laying the pathway to our dreams.   The habit of seeing things going our way makes the road easier for sure, but that’s not it either.

And our motivation will remain weak; we will have zero persistence and no determination without a constant mental connection to our WHY.   Not it, but we’re getting warmer.

Confidence in our ability to achieve that dream, coupled with courage will keep us from quitting when the road seems too hard . . . and hard times will come.  Yet that’s not the one single most important element either.

Because while we may have all of these other things in place, unless we take appropriate ACTION, our dreams will only stay dreams.  The people who are most successful, those we most admire, the happiest people alive are action oriented.

Did you know that accomplishment is actually the result of planned, purposeful action.  That’s why this week, I’ve been busy with my action plan. 

Here are the actions I’ve taken to achieve my dreams.

1. Created an action plan – this is the planned, purposeful action.
2. Began working on the first step – decluttering (9 boxes gone so far)
3. Taken one load to Goodwill.
4. Started a garage sale pile.
5. Researched and contacted a specialty bookstore to sell books.
6. Brainstormed other ways to get rid of some items.

You see my dream to move on with my life will only remain a dream unless I take steps every single day and create the slight edge in my life which will eventually gain momentum and get me to my goal.  

I would love to hear from you what specific actions you are taking daily to bring you one step closer to your dreams.

P90X update – I’m still hanging in there.  I haven’t been perfect, but I keep getting back up on that horse and moving on.