Today my own plans would have had me having lunch in Seattle at the restaurant, The Redmond Grill where my son is the Chef. I am scheduled to give the ceremony for my granddaughter’s wedding tomorrow. It is to be a blessed day! But, due to the snow storm Seattle has experienced, here I am in sunny San Diego with a day open to other choices. The last twenty-four hours have been interesting as I stepped out of my life and looked at what was going on around me.

We live in a culture where we are encouraged to be in control of what is happening and especially with own life. But sometimes, nature and the Universe seem to have something else up its sleeve. So do we freak out or learn to go with the flow and do the best we can?

As a personal life coach one of my major lessons in my life has been to , “let go of those things you have no control over and go with the flow”. I am three quarters Irish and as a young woman had a very short string when it came to patience. Now as an older and wiser woman with tons of experience under her belt, I have many more choices which allow me to stay calm, centered, and go with whatever is happening in my world. I live in more trust and I have learned how to manage my energy better. Being with a man who also keeps a very calm and cool head has also been a great benefit. It has led to much less stress and less adrenaline rushes which is ten times better for health and happiness. I appreciate this about him.

One of the most important books I have read is FLOW, by Mihaly Csiksezentmihalvi. There are many corporations that are teaching these principles today to their leadership teams. It is early day positive psychology and has been incorporated since into a wide variety of fields. Flow is a mental state and once you know how to tap into it for work, motivation and harnessing emotions for single-minded immersion to your tasks at hand, it can become your second nature for whatever it coming your way. People have asked me how I stay so upbeat and happy and I think FLOW is part of the answer. I believe that Flow is our original and true nature. I also believe we can learn to be more optimistic and not to let disappointments and changes in plans throw us over the edge into drama and crisis. We can go inward to our heart center and spirit and know that it is all working out for the very best. And book tickets for a later flight affirming that the snow will melt and it will rain and clean everything up so the roads are open.

Whenever you have a challenge, don’t lose your cool. Ask yourself, how can I step into it and find a positive solution. Are there other any out-of-the box possibilities? I think challenges come up for us to see if we can solve them creatively and produce better answers. I ask myself “what would a genius do in this situation”? What would Leonardo da Vinci do? What would my grandfather do? Who do you really admire and think is super smart? Who do you think is amazingly creative? Who is practical? Sometimes you have to step back and let it work itself out and sometimes you have to just let it go after checking out the alternatives and be at peace with it.

Hopefully, tomorrow I will be speaking the words we designed and marry my wonderful granddaughter and her Fiancé and celebrate their great day. Stay tuned and watch for the posting of pictures on Facebook.

Kathy Nelson is a Personal Life Coach in San Diego, California

Business Coaching 2012 – It’s second week of the first month of a brand spanking New Year! You might have been gone over the Holidays, but now you are home and settled with all the Holiday things put way. So now what?

Very few people plan in the fall, so you might not have made any real plans yet. It is not too late, but it is important that you carve out some planning time now. You don’t want to let too much time go by just doing the same old thing. Why plan? No plan, no direction. Those with plans succeed more often than those without them. It’s proven as the best way to go.

Plus, how you start out is important. You want to set the tone for the year. Jump on it. Set your yearly intentions. Write out your Dreams. Know what you are going for, what is most important to you, how you want it and you to show up in the world. This is critical to fire your “rockets”! You want your dream to be so big and exiting that it fuels you.

If you feel unexcited about the year, it is because your goals and dreams are too small. Step up! Allow your dreams to excite you with the possibilities. Make your plan sweet and tantalizing to you.

Here are three business coaching ideas to bring it about. You will want to strategize the how, the goals, and create the systems to put it all together!

1. Masterminds: The concept of the Mastermind Group was formally introduced by Napoleon Hill in the early 1900′s. In his timeless classic, “Think And Grow Rich” he wrote about the Mastermind principle as:”The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony.” What I love about a Mastermind is the synergy of energy, commitment, and excitement that participants bring to a Mastermind Group. The beauty of Mastermind Groups is that participants raise the bar by challenging each other to create and implement goals, brainstorm ideas, and support each other with total honesty, respect and compassion. It is a very bonding experience where all learn from one another. Each participant brings their best to the game, is supportive and acts as a catalyst for growth and sometimes plays the role of devil’s advocate.

2. Coaching: Wikipedia defines business coaching as: “Coaching, with a professional coach, is the practice of supporting an individual, referred to as the client or coachee, through the process of achieving a specific personal or professional result.” Coaching is differentiated from therapeutic and counseling since clients are in most cases considered healthy (i.e. not sick) and move forward based on their desires and strengths from their present situation. The structures, models and methodologies of coaching are numerous and are predominantly facilitating in style. In its purest form the coach mainly asks questions and challenges the coachee to find answers from within himself/herself based on their values, preferences and unique perspective. It is based on the client’s agenda. Today there are also coaching programs that will have an agenda and goals that the members individually work on achieving. Two years ago I took a program called 6 Figure Coaching which really make me step up and get some major things accomplished to take me to my next level. It was a program and we were able to meet on the side in small groups to reports success and talk about challenges and hold each other accountable, similar to a mastermind. There are many niches for coaching today, some of which include executive coaching, life coaching, business coaching, career coaching, mindfulness coaching, relationship coaching and wealth coaching. As more and more coaches develop additional niches develop for different interests and causes. Coaching is a great confidential partnership to help design and achieve goals and dreams. It provides accountability and focus by meeting weekly.

3. Buddy System: If these options are not available to you, you might look for a mentor you look up to who has achieved what you would like to achieve. Or someone who has the kind of character and success you would like to have.

Or you might look at your friends and relatives and see if there is someone with whom you can safely share your dreams with who is a good listener, supportive and encouraging. You do want to choose someone who would be willing to talk on a regular basis and be a sounding board for you to check-in with for your monthly and weekly goals and accomplishments. You will want someone who will honor your agenda and not try to stir you in the direction they believe you ‘should’ go. It needs to be someone who supports what you want and will give you support for what you want to create or where you want to go.

Sometimes you might belong to an association or network group that would be a fertile ground for beginning a Mastermind or finding a buddy that would be a great mutual fit.

The truth is we do better faster when have a cheering section, be it one person or more. Plus it just feels good!

Warning: Please don’t be a Lone Ranger. Thinking you can do it all by yourself is short-sighted, controlling and limiting. We need perspective and we don’t get that alone. When you think you have it all handled, you might. It is still great to have a sounding board who will give you honest feedback whether you are on the right track or not. If we think we don’t need anyone else to ‘help’ us, it is often our ego talking. I have seen people derailed and slowed down by being short-sighted, distrusting, controlling or too caught up in going it alone.

Kathy Nelson is a Life Coach for Personal Development and Growth in San Diego, California

In 1994 I bought my second Camero. My teenage son had totaled my first one. It was long, black and beautiful with a tee-top for summer time in Southern California. I love that car as much today as I did 18 years ago. Yes, I still drive it, mostly in the summer.

I never had ‘vanity’ plates before, and thought it would be fun to put them on ‘her.’ (Yes, my car has a gender to me. Am I alone in that?) I had thought of, “ImUrRep,” since I worked as a Business Development rep. My daughter said…”No, Mom, that is not you.” She told me, “That is what you do, but it is not you; it is not who you are.” So of course, I asked her, “Who do you think I am?” And she picked up a piece of paper and wrote one word on it. PASSION.

When I went to register my car, the proper spelling was taken, so I chose next best. PASCHUN. As a life coach I realized I needed to own who I was. It needed to be my filter, my compass, my guide in what I choose in every big and small decision. It is one of my top values and describes my approach today to many things. I have been called enthusiastic by many. One day in class someone told me I was too enthusiastic, so I looked up the word to see if I agreed.

The origin of ENTHUSIASM is Greek enthousiasmos, from enthousiazein which is to be inspired, irregular from entheos inspired, from en- + theos (god). Since the word comes from the root word, en theos, which means In God, I am perfectly o.k. with it. I gave myself permission to now own it. God is in me. I am in God. No wonder I feel so good. No wonder clients have called me Sunshine when I walked in. No wonder I feel peace at my core.

Because of someone else, I had tried to tone that energy down, thinking maybe I was too much of something…. Now I am just me. It is not my problem anymore. There comes a time when we accept ourselves, our dreams, our gifts, our wants, and stop trying to please everyone else. I love how I feel about the things I care about.

Sometimes I am opinionated, and it feels good to speak my mind. I was raised to be a child who was seen and not heard. Today, I am free of all those old, stale, inhibiting, soul crushing, suppressing beliefs. I have worked hard to give up those beliefs with many classes on personal development and spiritual growth. I am not trying to please relatives or fulfill their dreams. I am in charge of my own.

How can you start a business without feeling passion about your ideas — the ones you want to grow into an enterprise?  Passion gives the fuel. Everything starts with an idea… if you feel passion about it, you might want to birth it into a system, a book, an innovation, a business. I bet Steve Jobs and Oprah were passionate about their ideas.

Where does passion come from? Why is it intense? It feels more like an energy within my body that a thought within my head. Where does your passion come from? Do you know when you become aware of it?

I think passion and joy can be connected feelings. For me, I know I want to feel a lot more passion this year and a lot more joy. When I am involved in activities I feel passionate about, I find I am full of joy and great energy. I have made up my list of what I am doing when I am feeling these very alive ways…and I want to live from it. I want to own it. I want to be a warrior for living with Passion.

Ask yourself: When do you feel passion or joy? Are you alone or with someone? What are you doing? Where are you? How can you have more of it? Where does it show up in big and small ways?

I am interested in when and where your passion shows up for you and if you live from that sweet spot? Do you tame yourself down or suppress your joy or do you nurture it? Have you always been true to yourself or was it a journey and process? How do you hold on to it?

I am totally passionate about the New Year’s vast opportunities. I have joined a major Mastermind and am totally excited. I know that what I learn will help me inspire you to be passionate and do your best too.

I hope if you see me driving down 101, you will give me a honk and a thumbs up. If you want some personal development coaching to explore more about living from your own passion and joy, give me a call. We can have an interesting conversation about authenticity and happiness. In the meantime, here is to celebrating your passion!

Does Your New Year’s Day Feel Like Ground Hogs Day?

Have you found that each New Year Day for the last few years feels just the same? With just the same wish list for new behaviors, better health, love, and more money? Have you been setting the same goals year after year with little or no progress? And more importantly, are you ready to really make a difference in your own life?

Here are a couple of life coaching tips to help you take control over your year.

First write down just what you life looks like right now. Today. Dump it on paper. All of it.

Now, set yourself up in a really nice environment, comfortable chair, your back yard if it is lovely outside, a beautiful hotel lobby, outdoors on the sand if you are by a great beach, and most importantly, away from interruptions and distractions. You need your own quiet space.

Secondly, imagine you are in January, in 2013, and you are reviewing all the great things about 2012. What would you really love to see happen in your life if nothing was in the way of your fabulous life? What if you had all the money you want, you had your perfect work, in the perfect place, and you were fit, healthy, and had great relationship? What if you had the best vacation you ever imagined? What if you were doing things that were so exciting and made you feel so alive? What if your life was like the dream life you imagine….

Dreaming about our perfect life starts our engine running. We start thinking of the things we can do, large and small to take the steps to help create it. We write out a plan. We take the plan and see what steps we could take. A plan without action does not go anywhere. We have to take the action.

Last year I decided I was going to make some big changes in my life. This year, I walked my first 5 K on July 23rd, my daughter’s birthday. It was amazing! This year, I started painting again and learning about watercolors and I am hugely loving it. You can catch some of my paintings on my Facebook page. It is something my heart has wanted me to do for a long, long time. I finally have made the time for it in my life. It is making me feel so happy and is one of my favorite things about this year. This year, I joined Weight Watchers and have lost almost 25 pounds. Next year I will stick with it! I feel great about this and love the group I belong too. It is fun and helpful to take on something and then have great support to reach your goals. It is amazing to love your year and love your life! This has been a wonderful year!

The secret to not having Ground Hog New Years is put it out there on paper. Open yourself to what you want. You can plan and take actions to create different experiences in your life. You might change your thinking when you get some new ideas, create new habits and new behavior, and it is all for the better when you love your life. If things aren’t working, ask yourself what you want and move and work towards that. As a good friend says, Change your thinking and you change your life.

Most of all… I wish you the best year yet in 2012. The beautiful year you want with the sweet and spice in it. You deserve it!

As a Life Coach in San Diego, I help clients to really look at their life in greater detail, I call it the ant view; and I help them look from a much larger view, again called the eagle view. Both give totally different perspectives.

This year one of my biggest wins and challenges was walking a 5 K in July. I found that the start was great, but then we started up hill. I was huffing and puffing… and I heard the little voice in my mind start telling me that I couldn’t make it. It was the ant view that started nagging me and tried to make me stop. Just quit right then and there, just as I was getting started. My own thoughts were beating me up. When I looked up it was hard. I looked around me and noticed some other people who were not thin or tiny and they were steadily working their way up the hill. It gave me hope. When I looked down at my feet and just kept listening to my coach, my daughter at my side, and just kept putting one foot in front of the other and I climbed not only the first hill, but the next one which was even steeper. I found I had a drive and a strength that surprised me when she coached me up that hill and I listened to my big voice which cheered me on. I knew I was in a ‘coaching moment’, and had a lot to learn from it.

I wondered how often my clients are in that moment when they are taking on something new and that little voice tells them they can’t make it. If you’re fortunately, you have a coach to listen to. If not, then you want to listen to your own inner big voice in your head that will lead you up your very own side of the mountain to the top and to your own victory. You can be your own cheerleader and enjoy the view from the top!
Me, I am looking for my next 5 K in the New Year! Maybe I will see you there too.

When I was a teenager all the kids used to come to me as their confidant. I kept secrets well and empathized with those who were having problems with their parents or siblings. I also had the gift of looking on the positive side of things, which gave encouragement and hope that things would work out. I was the keeper of secrets and dreams and the encourager. Today as a life coach in San Diego, I still am.

I still love to listen and love to help through brainstorming and looking at options. I have learned that we always have doors of choice in front of us and it is up to us to go through them or… not. We get to say, “yes, or no”. I have learned that being comfortable can put you to sleep and you can miss out on a lot of learning and stretching of your soul and spirit. It can dull your life. Taking risks can add huge excitement and open doors for opportunities, growth, wealth and making a difference to others.

You are the designer of your life. YOU! You contain certain abilities, strengths, skills, and behaviors which can be used to lead to amazing results. It takes some courage and perhaps some risk. It takes some courage to risk. The risk can catapult you into being where you need to be. It takes some courage to be truthful about what you want. You have to listen to your “inner voice”, that voice that tries to guide you forward, your “life designer”. We are here living in a field full of opportunities to do better, to learn, to grow, to expand, to create, and to realize the potential we are born with. The potential lies deep within the gifts that we are born with. Do you have the courage to take them and breathe life into them? Fan the flames? Is there a community to support and encourage you? Find one. Create one. Sometimes just one person who believes in us becomes that community. Sometimes it is a network group or a business association or relative, neighbor or school friends.

My invitation is to take more risks in 2012, find your healthy supportive community and listen to your own “life designer”.

Kathy Nelson,
Life Coach
San Diego, California

by Kathy Nelson, Life Coach in San Diego, California

I have had the pleasure of officiating at almost thirty weddings, many of them for clients. As a life coach, love and relationship has proven to be a hot area for coaching. We have all heard the song, “All I really need is love”. Well, it is true for many of us. I have done relationship coaching that has helped clients to consider dating, move a relationship into dating and then into marriage. A few marriages have improved and rekindled and some have gotten over some pretty tough hurdles, too. Sometimes, I have sent clients to a counselor for more help than I could provide as a Relationship or Life Coach.

It is not unusual for a single client to talk to me about love; wanting to love and to be loved. I often talk with these clients about what their track record looks like, what kind of a family they came from and ideally what kind of a family they would like to have. When looking at past relationships we look at what really worked and what didn’t. What lessons have been learned and what opinions have been formed? We have to look at existing beliefs. And we look at what the heart wants. What is the vision that is happy life ever after…. We all do know what we want, really.

I often find once my client gets connected to their own love power, does some inside heart work, practices giving out more loving vibrations, is embodying the very energy of love of life, they often meet and start dating someone interesting to them. They become more available for love. More open to the experience of it. They attract love to them. Love attracts love. Gandhi said, be the change you want to see in the world. If you want love, be love.

I believe relationships teach us a lot about our self. It is like going to love school. It tests us. It stretches us. I know I learn more about me in a relationship than when I am single. I have discovered partners are often perfect mirrors for what we have to see in our self. Relationships are love schools!

One of my life coaching clients I helped through the process of balancing her work life and goals, while she was going for her Master’s Degree. After she got the degree, she wanted to change her job for a better one and jump a few steps up her work ladder. After she changed the job she wanted to find Mr. Right. We discussed the ways she might meet someone in today’s social climate. After much consideration, she chose speed dating and met a wonderful and charming man who liked her energy and attitude. A year later, I was thrilled to dance at their wedding. Today, they are happy and have added a wonderful son to their family and she has changed her career into being an entrepreneur and small business owner, one where she can work from home while taking care of her family. She has a wonderful husband and life. She took a few risks along the way. Another client met her man after giving into a compulsion to buy a Teardrop trailer. She met “Mr. Right” at a Tear Drop Trailer weekend campout. And he was the right one!

I have met two husbands in a blind date set up by friends, and my last one twenty years ago through the personals.I met my wonderful partner through the San Diego personal ads that were around in back in ’91. I had been divorced for about a year and a half and was feeling ready for a new chapter in my love life. I had
been doing a lot of personal development and was clear about the qualities I was looking for and how I wanted to feel and be treated by my “Mr. Right”. My list was written out. Yes, my friends thought I was nuts for putting an ad in the paper. They felt it was dangerous! I did it anyway and planned how I would stay in public places and drive my own car and let my family and friends know what I was doing and called before and after. I was careful and used my street smarts.

My ad read, “Looking for a trusted weekend partner. Pheromone appeal a must. Great conversation could lead to lots of fun.” He looked up the word ‘Pheromone’ and thought I might be the one for him. We met for dinner, he stretched the evening to include a movie, we had great conversation and the sparks were present. Our romance began when he called the next day and told me he had a really good time. I felt the same and told him so.

Our path was not always smooth and easy. There were some challenges here and there. We worked through them and learned a lot along the way. And it was the right one for both of us. We have always both wanted the best for the other. Not our picture of what the best was, but what the other wanted. He is a blessing not only me, but to my whole family with his generosity and kindness. Next to my grandfather, he is the most thoughtful man I have known. I was not lucky. I put in the work to find out what I had done that had not worked. I learned I was attracted to drama and why and how to change that pattern. Together, we work on keeping this relationship good, open and honest. It takes courage to say what you want and to speak your truth. It takes patience to be a good listener.

I stretched by putting the ad in the paper, but as they say, “No risk, no gain”, and it is a true statement to me. It has brought me years and years of happiness and I look forward to spending my golden years with the love of my life. I am glad I took the risk and found my happiness.

What are you willing to risk for your happiness?

Kathy Nelson is a Life Coach in San Diego, California. Learn More About Life Coaching

Change Your Thinking and You Can Change Your Health

As a Life Coach my business is positive change. I know that changing your life is big! You have to want it. It means lots of desire and determination. It means lots of extra attention to what you want. You have put the habit in place. To change the habit means to create new ways of doing and being. To remember to do something different than how you have been doing it, takes both a slower pace and structure, like notes to yourself or even messages set to specific alarm times or a wrist ban you can snap. It means a goal and a plan. You might think about how you have to be to reach your goal. What kind of behavior do you need to have? Who has done what you want to do? What did they do to reach the big goal? You might hire a life coach to help you create the changes you want and need. The professionally trained coach cuts to the chase and helps you come up with new ideas for how to create what you want, provides accountability, and brainstorming to bring out your creative ideas to help you get there step- by-step. I have found that you often reach your goal more much quickly too. Coaching really expedites YOUR results.

The big change I am personally focusing on this year is to lose the extra weight that has crept onto me over the last few years of sitting, sitting and more sitting. It is an extra twenty five pounds. I have had challenges with weight for a long time and it is not all due to increased social media time and sitting with clients for hours a day. I know there are plenty of thin people who spend a lot of time with sitting and computers.

It is time for me to get real. I have decided to finally come clean and share a little bit of my own story. Being overweight feels like my whole life, but in reality, it started when I was about eleven or twelve years old. When I hit puberty, I started feeling fat. When I look back at pictures from that time, I wasn’t. I was not thin, but I was not fat either. But, I felt chubby from that point on. Every summer I visited my grandmother, she put me on a diet. And I went home thinner. I realized she must have thought I was fat to put me on a diet each summer I visited her.

The year I got married and got pregnant, I became my inner vision of myself. Fat. I worked at a restaurant to help support my husband and myself as he finished his last year of college. I could eat anything I wanted and did. It was root beer floats, malts, mashed potatoes and gravy. As I added twenty five pounds to my frame within six months, I also became pregnant. There began my up and down battle with my weight and my self-image. I was never 148 pounds again. I went on the Scarsdale diet and passed out in a lobby one night when we were out to a play with friends. I starved myself. It seemed like the pounds went on as easy as breathing and was a huge struggle and challenge to take even one off.

Over the first eight years of marriage, I had five pregnancies and three losses of life. I think it messed with my head more than I knew at the time and messed with my body too. My husband did not like my extra weight. On a summer vacation with friends, we got into an argument and he called me a pig. I was devastated. I could not get over it. That was the beginning of the end of my marriage. I am talking about a long time of weight going up and down, some successes and many more failures. I wonder if I have lost a thousand pounds only to put more back on. I have tried so many diets, but never stuck with one to the very end, never to get it all off and maintain a healthy weight for a period of a couple of years or more. By going to a bariatric doctor, I came close the year I moved to San Diego. I was using lots of affirmations and power of intention along with medicine, and I did not eat after six pm. I did manage better for a few years as I created my new life and then IT, the pounds, started creeping back on. I have spent a fortune, no, maybe a couple fortunes, on diets, programs and doctors. I paid a local shrink $2,000 to sit on the beach with me for a day and go back into my past patterns and pains. That was 13 years ago. It is still my unconquered territory.

As a life coach I am an expert in helping people make changes in many areas of their life. I have helped many others reach the goal weight they want. I want to be a really good role model for those I inspire. It is part of my own integrity to walk my talk. My whole life is awesome, except in the weight area. I don’t want an except any more.

This year I decided it was either find my answer or look at lap band surgery. I have prayed for an answer that would work for me and not feel like deprivation, punishment and the feeling of dieting. I have read Savor, Mindful Eating, Mindful Life by Thich Nhat Hanh and Women Food and God, by Geneen Roth.
I have watched others be successful at the Spiritual Center when I am active. I watched as Judi Federran who over the last two or three years reshaped her body and life with Beach Body and their exercise program. (You can find Judi on Facebook) I saw Jennifer Hudson go from a lady about my size into a sexy mamma! She looks fabulous. I felt proud for her. Each one of these people has provided big inspiration for me to be more loving to my body, to reach out for harmony, balance and wholeness. This body I live in is my body temple. The house of my Spirit. And I know to my core that my body needs to support me well for a few more decades.

Loving your ‘Self ‘is a good thing. It is not selfish or self indulgent. It is sacred and prepares you to love others. When you have a healthy self-image and love for your ‘Self’ you can really be love and give love. Looking good is great too! Be proud to be a hottie! It does not come without desire and hard work.
When I grew up, focusing on your ‘Self’ was considered very selfish. Women were taught to focus on making our men happy and take care of the home, meals and children. We went from being super mom to Martha Stewart imitations and working women. That might have been great for my grandmother, but it was not great for the generations that followed her. Today’s life is surely not like an episode of the TV shoe, Mad Men.
Good health is crucial to well being and quality of life. I know I have within me the wisdom, the strength, and the ability to follow through with my plan to attain my idea healthy weight.

I have been going to Weight Watchers for the last four months. I lost weight on all but two visits. I have now released 5% of my body weight and received three stars! It has been slow, steady and rewarding. It might take me a year or two to lose what I want to lose, but I am learning to eat healthful and nutritious food every few hours throughout the day. No more starving and swings in energy. No more fake food. No more pills. No more extremes. And the meetings supply really great coaching. Our leader is a cutie pie and a great example. Her personality, energy and positive attitude is great! Plus, she is loaded with great ideas as to what to eat to enjoy a great time out, to enjoy a picnic or to enjoy a great summer of healthy eating. She shares ideas on what and where to buy foods that qualify for the program and the points you can have. I have a points which I use for food . I have a daily limit on the points. It is having your own allotment points for each thing you can eat each day, but the choices are yours. You are spending your points as you choose for your foods. Most fruits and veggies are zero. The support in the group is awesome.

Next Saturday I walk my first 5 K at the Charger Stadium, Walk, Run for the Bolts. (See Active.com)

Part of having an extraordinary life is having great health for life. It is being in harmony with every part of your being. Part of having great health is taking care of you in a loving and kind manner. I pledge to be a kinder and gentler person with me. I pledge to encourage and reward my progress. I pledge to walk my talk. I pledge to love my body and to be really good to it. I pledge to not give up this time.

I want a life of amazement. I want to be free. I want to know I can do this and anything else I really set my mind and heart on. And I want that for you too.

I look forward to your comments.

You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or a path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential. ~Joseph Campbell from A Joseph Campbell Companion

That pretty much sums it up… Are you following someone else’s path? If so, you simply aren’t going to realize your potential.

It takes courage to start on the path to figuring it all out. It might take working with a skilled Life Coach to help you along your way. It might take classes and books to gather fresh ideas and perspectives. It will take your committed to your journey of self discovery. Sometimes it might feel like you are turning the Titanic around in your life. That is o.k. Stay the path. It might be long and curving, but it will take you where you will find the place to realize your potential. It might be in your work. It might be a hobby. It might be in service to others. There are many places in life it can show up. Sometimes totally unexpectedly it drops into your life when you are not looking for it, and there it is. It might be some revelation or awakening that happens within you that brings you home to yourself and with a giant breath of relief you just know you have arrived.

Yes, we know that society does anything but encourage us to discover who we are and how to go out and give ourselves to the world. But that’s why they call it the “hero’s” journey. If it wasn’t a challenge, it’d be something like “the average person’s” journey. Not quite as inspiring, huh?

Find your own way.
Engage in your hero’s journey!
The world can use you.

Kathy Nelson is a Life Coach in San Diego, California

Chicken Little ran around saying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” and no one listened. …and the sky wasn’t falling.

The stock market crashed, banks failed, stores closed and many…many lost jobs, money and business…and for them, the sky fell. Indeed, in this “Global Meltdown” we see on all the news reports;
…is real, it hurts, but its cause is historical,
…its cause is human emotion,
…chain reaction panic that feeds on itself.

I was in Italy in ’08 when “it” hit the fan. I was living my dream and oblivious of what was going on. People went into massive fear and the market fell. Fear drove it down. I went for the ride. And it gradually came back up. I could have bought into the fear and sold it all, but I did not see the sky falling. I have been through a few bad economies before. I kept my faith. “OK, but how does that help me?” someone asks. Actually, simple. Common threads among the chaos…From ancients scripts alike come the words that say: “As we see Life, so Life sees us.” I am a believer that our thoughts ultimately create our circumstances. Change your thinking and you change your life. I also believe that how we respond to our circumstance…creates our attitude…which molds our thoughts… Which in turn ultimately create our circumstances…so that’s it.

Response = Attitude = Thought = Circumstances. My response to this market crash can either be panic, OR, I can be an Entrepreneur and find the opportunity. Is it any accident that Entrepreneurs seem to always see the opportunities? I stepped into the social media, built a large following and have been published in two book. My business is thriving and I am helping others to do the same. Hmmm. Just circumstance…?

Happy July 4th!