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| Volume 6, No. 21 • August 9, 2004 • Written and edited by Molly Gordon, MCC |
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Sign up at www.authenticpromotion.com Please forward this newsletter to friends and colleagues. Thanks to your support we are sponsoring two children through Childreach. (www.childreach.org). In This Issue Simple Gifts Open for Business Personally, I hate it. And nothing irritates me more than a happy-talking, self-appointed New Age pundit who's getting rich telling me that everything is perfect and failure doesn't hurt. Bull. Failure hurts. I ought to know. I've failed at business, love, and living up to my own ethics. I've failed as a sister, a daughter, a wife, and a coach. And not all of these failures are in the distant past. There are some doozies from times more recent than I care to mention. Still, I do claim there are gifts in failure. In fact, I'm pretty passionate about this because I figure that anything that hurts as much as failure darn well better have an up-side. A few years back I single-handedly destroyed the motherboard on a perfectly good computer by (wo)man-handling a new memory chip into a slot I couldn't quite reach. I'd installed memory before and I knew what it should feel like. I asked myself again and again if I shouldn't just maybe stop rather than forcing something that was designed to slip in easily. Impatience won the day, and after spending $300 for attempted repairs, I replaced the computer. At that time I didn't have money to burn (still don't, in fact). Yet I'd been working on right livelihood for a long time, and I somehow realized that this time I simply could not afford to take a nose-dive into a bottomless pit of guilt. (As the oldest of eight children, raised Catholic in a military family, my guilt pit truly is bottomless. I'll match it against yours any day.) So I decided to reframe the "waste" of money as a lesson. Since the amount involved was sizable in my world, I further resolved that this lesson needed to be fully worth the cost. With this in mind, I arrived at the following resolutions:
This was a pivotal moment in the development of my business. From that point forward I lived those resolutions to the best of my ability, not to push away embarrassment, guilt, or disappointment, but to use these discomforts as the fuel for growth. Something in me stands taller, breathes deeper, speaks more clearly as a result. I may not like everything I do, but I know longer have to run away from myself. That means I always have a place to stay, ground to stand on, and for me, that is a huge part of authenticity. The brilliant economist and business consultant Fred Kofman teaches an exercise you can use to experience the kind of shift I described above. I'll summarize it briefly here, but you really owe it to yourself to get Fred's tapes, Conscious Business. The set is $40.77 (with free shipping) from Amazon, and I promise you that it is worth a hundred times that. One reader wrote me, "My wife says this is worth $4 million if it works." He ordered the tape series and reported back that I had undersold it. Fred calls this a Victim/Player exercise. Write your answers to the victim questions, then take some time to notice where these questions take you. What mood do they leave you in? What attitudes or beliefs arise? What options are you left with for moving on? Then read and answer the player questions. Again, notice where these questions take you. How is this different from what you experienced as a victim? Victim Questions Player Questions Fred is careful to point out that the feelings that show up when we are victims are real for us. This exercise, then, is not about invalidating your experience. It is, however, a pointed invitation to accept your feelings and then stand back from them so that you (your values, your intentions, your aspirations), and not your reactions, can steer your course. Here again is the URL for ordering Fred's tapes. Talk Back: Please send your questions and comments to letters@authenticpromotion.com. Do not use the return address for this newsletter or your letter will be lost. If you do not want your letter to be included in the Readers Write Web page, just let us know. We reserve the write to edit all letters for length. An Integral Women’s Comfort Retreat Do you feel called to something new in your life and work? Is there something you feel you must attend to, yet the harder you try to connect the further away it seems? Do you feel torn between stillness and action, receptivity and a forceful manifestation of your deepest purpose?
Learn more about this provocative yet restorative experience at http://www.comfortqueen.com/surfingtheedge.html . Space is limited, register now. [Yup, that's me with the surf-board. Another "bad princess" venture. Details at a later date.] The Bedside Table: Proclaim Your Niche Here's what one reader says about this e-book:
An elevator speech is a brief description of who you are and what you do. It's essential to proclaiming your niche. With Jeff's guide, you'll craft your Elevator Speech in less than 30 minutes, helping you get in front of more customers, close more sales and make more money. (And if you read back issues of my newsletter you'll learn how to feel more authentic when you say your speech. Go to Free Articles at www.mollygordon.com and search on "elevator speech.") Click here or copy the URL below into your browser to order & download your copy today. Searching for a book or CD or other product on Amazon? |
Independent Professionals: It's All About YOU Admission to the Indie pro group is by interview, so that we can mutually decide if this is a good fit for you. To apply for one of the eight spaces in the group, email my assistant, Debbie@authenticpromotion.com. For additional details about the group, send a blank email to ip@authenticpromotion.com. Authentic Promotion Audio Course Pre-Release Sale |
Well, been there, done that (am there, doing that). We can't calm the waves or predict the weather, but together Jennifer Louden and I have a lot of surfing know-how. We're talking about practical, real-world, soul-deep knowledge of navigating the breakers of change. Join us this September at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon, to let go of hyper-vigilance and open into quiet certainty (or at least spacious doubt). | Publication and Reprint Info |
| U.S. Library of Congress ISSN: 1530-311X Unless otherwise attributed, all material is written and edited by Molly Gordon, MCC. Copyright (c) Shaboom Inc.(r) 2004. All rights reserved. Visit our extensive archives at www.mollygordon.com . You may reprint material from Authentic Promotion in other electronic or print publications provided the above copyright notice and a link to http://www.authenticpromotion.com is included in the credits. Please send a copy of the publication along with a note referencing the reprint. "Shaboom, Inc." and "Authentic Promotion" are registered trade or service marks of Shaboom, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Shaboom, Inc |
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