Mind Revolution

Part of your brain’s job is to keep you safe. One way your brain attempts to keep you safe is by alerting you to threats and dangers through a strong emotion — fear.   It’s important to remember that fear and danger are two different things.    Just because we feel fear doesn’t mean there is an inherent threat or we’re in imminent danger. Many times — a threat is perceived but not at all real.   And sometimes, what feels like fear is really just the discomfort we feel from pushing against our comfort zone’s boundaries. Anything new, anything we’re unaccustomed to doing, will feel uncomfortable and scary at first.   Don’t get me wrong. Fear isn’t the bad guy here.    Fear serves an essential purpose of alerting us to dangers and threats. It also alerts us to where there’s a difference taking place. Doing something different — even if it feels amazing and is a step in the direction of a big goal — can send signals of danger to the body. “Be careful! This is different and unfamiliar!”   Bottom line: We need to m

If you’re like most listeners, you’re on a self-development journey. Perhaps you have a big, juicy goal or dream you want to realize. And you’re doing the work to achieve it.   A student asked me recently, “Does ‘doing the work’ mean a lot of paperwork?”   No.    ‘Doing the work’ focuses on what you want, saying it the way you want it, taking action that aligns with your goals, staying consistent, walking that narrow path to your excellence, and doing it consistently.    That is ‘doing the work.’   Until the unconscious mind gets on board, it takes a lot of conscious effort to make changes.    And it’s not unusual for my clients and students to do the work for a while and then begin to wonder, “Where’s my big, juicy goal? When will it happen?”   I’ve seen many transformation journeys, and I’ve observed patterns that serve as indicators that transformation is indeed happening and that you’re getting closer to your big goal. Here’s what you can expect on your way to realizing your big dream.   You’re going to

A while back, I wanted to get a Ph.D. in psychology. I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree, so it was going to take a while. So Ron asked, “Why don’t you learn how to do something else where you can help people?”   Then I remembered that my Ph.D. therapist had decided to become a life coach; I trained as a life coach in 2006 to better serve my real estate clients (weird, I know, but it worked!). At that time, I discovered a thing called “NLP.” As I read more, I felt intrigued and a little apprehensive, so I let the thought of learning more about it fade into the background in my mind.    Later in 2009, I took a teaser course on NLP and loved it, but still, let it fade into the background… It wasn’t until I met an actual NLP coach that I got curious enough to give serious consideration to the NLP side of things, and I decided to get trained in NLP… and the rest is history. Here I am today as a master coach and trainer.   This podcast is like an open book of someone (me) who has taken their successful one-on-one, b

When I set my mind on something, I go out and make it happen. I feel quite successful, and then I do it again. I did this with my real estate business and my one-on-one NLP breakthrough coaching.    Then, something happened.    I found myself feeling this undeniable urge to make a greater impact and reach a larger number of people. So I decided to take my in-person business online.   Only I didn’t know the online space. As far as the nuts of bolts of making this online business thing work, I was starting from scratch.    It looked easy enough, though. If I got a website up, people would start flocking to it and I’d book clients right there on my website, right?     Well, that wasn’t my experience — at all. Hardly anyone noticed my website at first.     The high-rollers, and online business big-names, those who have been hugely successful online, make it look easy because they’ve already put in the time to figure out the nuts and bolts.    But when you’re just starting, not only do you not know the nuts and bo

This marks my 100th podcast episode, and I’m having all the feels -- of satisfaction, accomplishment, joy, fulfillment...and I’m grateful that you are here, and I’m thankful for each of you who have been part of this fabulous journey with me.   I had been putting off recording this episode for a while, and it was beginning to feel like I was stalling. I knew that I wanted it to be about lessons I had learned from recording 100 episodes, but I wasn’t sure of the direction I wanted to take.   That became clear when I was talking to one of my clients. She was anticipating her third breakthrough with me. Her first breakthrough was around her business, the second around her health, and we were discussing where her third would take her.    As we were looking back at how far she’s come and all the lessons learned... the outline for this episode became clear.   I’ve got seven life lessons I’ve learned from recording 100 podcast episodes. They’re my lessons, and I share them with you so that you can benefit from them

My mom is here visiting me this week. We were sitting out back together enjoying a glass of wine, and she said to me, “I think you finally found it. I think you finally found your calling.” She, of all people, knows how long I spent trying to figure out my path. And she’s right — I’ve found it! Actually, I knew this was my calling since I was in my 30’s, but I wasn’t ready to go for because I hadn’t yet done the internal work. The last 5 years, however, have been the most fulfilling. And it’s all because I’ve been doing the work. You see, my identity, who I am, hasn’t changed. It’s just that what I do and how I live my life has become more congruent with who I am and how I want to show up in the world. Notice I said “more congruent,” not perfectly congruent. I’m human too. And this path I’m on is a journey. There will always be more to learn. When our experience doesn’t reflect what we want, our negativity bias can take over and skew our perception of reality and feed illusions we have about ourselves, making

NLP is all about learning how to control your state intentionally. The tricky thing about negative emotions is that they’re more automatic and more powerful than positive ones, so we have to work more to get into and maintain positive states.  Just like a puppy, the unconscious mind requires training.  One of my clients had a breakthrough recently. She’d been “doing the work,” which involves focusing on what she wants, listening to hypnosis to stay relaxed, paying close attention to her current state, and intentionally making shifts when she wasn’t feeling so great.  She had a couple of weeks where she was just on fire — lots of energy, positivity, and fresh ideas. She felt great! Then, suddenly, she hit a slump.  She was feeling overwhelmed (a negative state) and wasn’t making the time for hypnosis. And then she had an in-your-face manifestation of her state — and it wasn’t pretty. She was convinced it came out of nowhere. But it didn’t.  By the time you notice yourself feeling “off,” you’ve been off for a w

Today’s episode is about that voice in your head. The one that second guesses your actions, that says you’re not good enough, that says, “Why do you think that people care about what you have to say?” “Why would anyone want to buy your program?” and even, “Who do you think you are?” That voice is your inner critic.  If you have one — you’re not alone. I recently had a run-in with mine. I launched a program...and it felt like a flop because it didn’t reach my expectations. Now, it wasn’t completely unsuccessful because I did have some wonderful people join our community. But the result was nowhere near what I was hoping for. And my inner critic started laying it on thick. For a couple of days, I was pulling out all my NLP tools to help me break out of those feelings of disappointment and rejection.  What’s interesting is that — as is so often the case — other people in my space were hearing from their inner critics too. What is the inner critic anyway?  NLP teaches us that we sometimes have unintegrated parts.

Any transition can feel hard. You’re out of your regular routine, and you sometimes feel off-kilter as you’re juggling change and having to make decisions that you wouldn’t usually be affected by. I recently went through such a time. We put our house on the market in the fall of 2020. We had potential buyers in the home, were in and out of escrow three separate times (with the same buyer), thought we might move to Washington state, then decided on a house in Tennessee (and we bought it site unseen). Thank goodness for Zoom! Our realtor helped us find the right home. We moved on a Friday, and on Saturday, we had a contractor in the house because — well, the house needed some work. Better now than later, right? So things got torn up before they got put back together.  Here we were in a time of instability for months — MONTHS!  Oh, and did I mention that I was in the middle of launching my signature program, restructuring my business, and keeping up with clients? It felt like a crazy time — like I wasn’t on my A

Emotions are in the unconscious mind’s domain — and how you’re feeling is one of the ways your unconscious mind communicates with you.  This is great because we get such good information. And emotions are powerful. Not only do they tell you how you’re doing, but they can also motivate, propel, and energize, adding fuel behind a particular direction or goal. This is why state management is so important and is such a key component of NLP. By accepting that all emotions are valid — hey, they’re just your unconscious mind communicating with you — you can learn from them and then move on with more ease. You don’t have to stay in those negative emotions. In fact, you can learn to preemptively manage your state, decreasing your emotional fluctuations. You’ll be more emotionally steady, thus setting the tone for what will most serve you — being calm, steady, and clear-headed. So, how does this work? Practice the following: When you notice a charged emotion, stop and become aware. Try to do this before an emotional s

Do you ever see advertisements that sound something like this, “Join my program and follow my proven formula to achieve a 6-figure income in 12 months!”? Wait a few months, and you might see the same coach upping the promise to a 7-figure income. Now, strategies are great, and we can learn a lot from following one. The problem with following someone else’s template is that you don’t have that person’s identical experiences and mindset. What sort of changes have they gone through to get where they are? What have they had to learn about themselves? What beliefs do they have about themselves and others that have led them to where they are today? If you were to adopt the practices that they have today, now that they’ve achieved success, success is unlikely to come to you because you would be skipping some of the vital, foundational steps that happened in the background. All those invisible changes that the public doesn’t see. I’m talking about unconscious shifts.  You’ve probably heard me say before that you are

There’s something you can begin doing to increase your choices and give you more options in life. It’s simple (not necessarily easy, but you can start now) — it’s to challenge your biases. We all have beliefs (biases) that we believe. Beliefs are often those things we believe just because — we don’t personally know they’re true, but we believe them to be true. And it’s those beliefs that affect the choices we make and how we live our lives.  Our cognitive biases are unconscious. They’re beliefs that are running in the background of our minds, influencing how we live. Maybe we believe them because we trusted the source of the belief or because of an event or circumstance. To throw fuel on the fire, our unconscious mind filters our experiences and brings to our consciousness experiences that confirm — you guessed it — our biases, further cementing those beliefs. If you automatically discount the perspective of those who believe differently from you, you’re likely to have a cognitive bias about those specific ar

There are lots of NLP practitioners in the world, but few live and breathe NLP like me. Not only have I studied NLP and the work of Carl Jung, Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, and the other greats, I’ve taken the principles of NLP to heart and have made them the foundation of my life.  I started this podcast right after listening to the podcast of a big NLP “influencer.” I was stunned by some of the things he said. It was clear to me, as someone who had studied and practiced NLP, that he was way off on some things. This was my fuel to set the record straight and bust some NLP myths:  NLP is manipulative. Well, sure, it can be. Just like a hammer, NLP is a tool that we can use for good or harm. NLP in the hands of a skilled practitioner who uses it for its intended purpose, will only use it for positive influence. Remember the ecology check? We ask, “Is it good for me? Is it good for those directly involved? Is it good for the community? Is it good for the planet?” NLP doesn’t work. If someone says NLP does

I took a break around the holidays and, for a while, I wasn’t sure I was going to return to the podcast.  Spoiler alert: I’m back!  2020 was a beast of a year in its own right. With the pandemic, quarantines, racial and political tensions, it was anything but a “balanced” year. Despite all that, some great things came out of 2020 for me:   I continued to grow my business in the online space I learned new skills to build a thriving community  I created some content-rich and really helpful courses The year was challenging — some of it self-imposed and much of it not.  Then we decided to sell our house and move. And, with many big moves, there were some hiccups along the way. Bumps involving water leaks, contracts falling through, and deals suddenly landing on hold. Fun stuff like that.  And by the end of the year, my nervous system was exhausted and craving a break. At that point, I was uncertain about the future of this podcast. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy podcasting. I was just… tired. So I intentionally

As we approach the holidays, maybe you’re thinking about the new year’s goals. We all know the life cycle of the typical New Year’s resolutions — start off with a bang, make progress for a few days, and then fall out of sync by February.  Perhaps at this point, you’ll make a few more floundering attempts before finally giving up and deciding, “New Year’s Resolutions don’t work!” In working with a client recently, we uncovered how she has a pattern of giving up on her goals. She gets going and then unconsciously takes herself out of the game. This is a form of self-sabotage. And once there is a pattern of “failure,” it’s all too easy to assume that failure is a given. We actually develop an expectation of failure on future attempts. How can we make progress if, unconsciously, we believe we’re going to fail? Dreams come to us (not the other way around), and they won’t let go until we start taking deliberate action.  Don’t think that your dreams are going to give up on you. They know better! Why do we turn away

This is Thanksgiving week in the US. I love this holiday because it’s a reminder of the abundance we experience every day. But instead of focusing on gratitude for this episode, I want to focus on love. We have many false concepts about love, concepts handed down to us from others and “affirmed” by our life experience. The ego would have us believe that love comes from others as if it’s outside of ourselves. Many of us grew up believing that love is conditional and is something we need to earn.  If we believe love is something we have to earn, there’s an inherent assumption it can also be lost, withheld, or taken away when we don’t perform or measure up. And if we believe that we only receive love after doing something “worthy,” there will always be an element of questioning our own worth, which can easily lead to a sense of not-enoughness hanging over us.  This is not love.  Love just is — it’s all around you. It’s there whether you accept it or not, and is unchanging and is always available to you.  Why doe

If you’ve been listening for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about goals and achieving outcomes. Why do we focus on those things? Because who we become in the process is where we discover the real gold. Goals and achievements? Those are nice. But what really stokes my fire is the learning and self-development that occurs in achieving those goals. That’s where we find the richness and juiciness.  And where does it start? Five years down the road. Imagine where you want to be five years from now.  What do you want your life to be like?  What will you be like?  What will you believe?  What sort of conversations will you have?  How will you spend your time?  How will you invest your energy and resources?  Don’t get bogged down in the minutiae. Start by considering the qualities you want to be present in your life.  With that five-years-in-the-future picture, reverse engineer what you need to do today to get where you want to be five years from now. Think about how you need to shift your focus and prioritie

The United States has a projected next president. With more certainty than we had in the days approaching the election, you’d think that the tension would be waning.  Well, unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case.  While some of us have moved on (or never went there in the first place), others are still pointing fingers, blaming, and shaming. This behavior is happening on all sides of the spectrum.  Sometimes you’ll even hear influencers talk about unity in one breath. Then, in the next, they refer to people who disagree with their particular political stance calling them “socialists” or “white supremacists.” Whatever happened to unity? What about tolerance?  You don’t have to look too far to find common ground. So why are we not focusing our attention there? In a word — it comes down to fear. The powers that be — on all sides — are playing on our fears like a virtuoso plays the violin. When we’re uptight and scared, we’re easier to control, more likely to do what people in power or perceived authority ask u

I recorded this episode the day before the United States would elect their next president. U.S. citizens and residents of every stripe and color have been on edge over the past several months due to many things — lockdowns, protests, riots. Folks on all ends of the political spectrum feel anxious and fearful about what may be in store if their candidate loses.   The fear and uncertainty runs thick and has seeped into seemingly every corner of our culture. My clients, whom I deeply respect, are across the entire spectrum.    NLP has taught me that everyone is doing the best with the resourceswhat they have. This helps me respect others right where they are.    I’ve also learned that in the end, we all want the same things — love, certainty, and safety. And behind every behavior — yes, even crappy, jerky behaviors — there’s a positive intention.    Let that sink in for a minute.    During this election season, some clients have accused me of not having a political opinion. Sometimes they say I don’t care about

  Impostor syndrome. You know what that is, right? It’s when you’re in your space and having success but you feel like a phoney. Like a fraud who’s about to be outed. Like you can’t really take credit for your achievements. That it was actually just luck all along. Or coincidence. Imposter syndrome can happen to the best of us. I recognized it in myself at a conference recently. “Who am I to be teaching people about self-development?” It was uncomfortable at the time, it but turned into a beautiful experience of releasing negative emotions and shifting focus.  That came after announcing over the microphone to all the attendees what was going on with me. No, I’m not kidding. It was a sweet release as I squarely addressed my own phantom fears. You’ll have to tune in to learn more… So, yeah, impostor syndrome is real. I often see it in my clients too. Impostor syndrome creates issues around the notions of competence, confidence, and criticism. Competence. Where did you get the idea that you need to know it all