Author Archives: Amy Beilharz

Betraying Ourselves

You may think the worst thing that has ever happened to you was when your husband left for another woman, or your best friend undermined your vulnerable plans by sharing them with someone behind your back, or … fill in the blank with the time you felt emotionally sucker punched.  Just thinking about it brings back that sick feeling in your solar plexus area, doesn’t it?

In her Huffington post article, Dr. Deborah Caldwell says these betrayals pail in comparison to the ones we do to ourselves, sometimes daily.  I agree with Deborah.  I would not keep someone as a friend if they treated me the way I sometimes treat me.  I certainly would never let someone talk to me the way I sometimes find my inner talk going.

These inner dialogues sabotage our ability to attain any worthy goal. Tell that inner voice goodbye.

How can you expect to release that extra 20 pounds if you keep telling yourself you are fat? Your subconscious mind does the only thing it is programed to do.  It makes sure your outer circumstances verify your inner talk. The same is true for your bank statement.  It will not grow fuller than that which agrees with your inner image.  If you find yourself frequently saying: “I am broke,”  “I cannot afford that” or other similar stories, you will be right.

Rather than keep setting New Year’s resolutions you do not keep or goals you won’t fulfill, why not become increasingly aware of your inner self talk!  First, stop the negative chatter.  Literally when you notice you have started a rant, on you, just say “stop it.”  Then stop. Second, add some affirming voices in place of the worn out record of beating yourself up.  Find the things you do well and keep pointing them out to yourself.  Make a list.  Read it daily and add to it often.

This year, your number one goal could be to become your own best friend.  Everything else, I bet, will fall into place when you start to really like and care for you.

Are you stressed and unhappy?

Why are so many women under stress and unhappy?  And what can we do about it?

The American Psychological Association reports that 49% of women say their stress has increased in the past 5 years.  Has yours?  I know you have heard the detrimental effect of stress on your health, but you may have pushed on feeling you need to in order to achieve a certain goal.  If you are like most people, you attribute your future happiness to the achievement of that goal; and so you ignore your stress levels for this future reward.

However, your success and happiness are more directly tied to your enjoyment of your current life than the achievement of some future goal.  In fact, your ability to succeed is dependent on your ability to think clearly, solve problems, be creative and visualize yourself happy–all of which are hindered, if not completely halted, by stress.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor at the University of California, has shown that fully 40% of your happiness is available for you to control.  You and I often consider our outer circumstances as holding the keys to our happiness.  Because of this you probably focus much of your efforts on trying to change people and circumstances to increase your happiness. Sonja’s brain studies show that by influencing the 40% that is an internal job, we can greatly change our happiness quotient!  This is great news for me because it’s frustrating to have important aspects of my life out of my own control. How about you?

Have you noticed you cannot be happy and stressed at the same time?  They do not go hand in hand.  So the effort you place on increasing your happiness will also reduce your stress levels–a double win!

There are actually happiness exercises you can do to increase your happiness, today!  Nancy Clark writes about these in her article in Forbes.  Two of my favorites are paying attention to things you do well and congratulating yourself on your successes rather than rushing past them; and exercising gratitude.

I often coach women to make a list of their accomplishments.  Try it.  You can activate your confidence and improve your ongoing success by noticing and celebrating everything you do well and have achieved.  It is a list you should add to regularly; reading it daily if necessary during times of great uncertainty.  Another list that helps immensely is listing what you are grateful for about yourself.  See my challenge on this here.

The other tool I use is a gratitude log.  I learned this exercise from Christie Marie Sheldon and then later read about it in Wallace Wattles work, The Science of Getting Rich.  Christie calls it “Great Fuel.”  Don’t you love that?

Wallace says the key to attracting what you want can be summed up in one word, gratitude. That is a powerful statement and I think he is right.  Each night I write in my gratitude journal, kept by my bedside, all the things I am grateful for that day.  Some days things haven’t gone well and it is hard to find something to be grateful for so I resort to being grateful for my children and my health and my home and find I still have a lot to be grateful for.  Somedays the list is long and on others I am so profoundly moved by one thing I write about it in detail. Regardless of how my gratitude list looks, it always puts me in an improved state of mind before I go to sleep.

These are both powerful tools you can add to your life today and increase your happiness and decrease your stress, now!

Women in Leadership Bring New Perspective!

What solutions might we find with more women in positions of power and influence?

Ann Mei Chang, former Google exec, is about to show us some.  Recently appointed to head the U.S. Global Development Lab, Ann Mei Chang and her team aim to improve or save the lives of 200 million people in five years.

In my chapter on setting goals in my upcoming book, Be A Female Millionaire (free download), I encourage women to set BIG goals (like Ann Mei Chang).  Big goals inspire us and grow us in ways that make our lives worth living.  And they are worthy of our lives since ultimately we are investing in what we spend our time on.

You and I have different perspectives than our male counterparts.  And both masculine and feminine ideas are needed for our world to become a place we can see our grandchildren thriving in.  I am inspired when I hear of women taking leadership roles because new perspectives that are gender diverse and honor female and male values ultimately will create the world we long for.

I look forward to hearing more about Ann’s project and the success they have.  You can read more about it here.

Big ad campaigns starting to boost feminine values!

Being a woman and raising daughters has sometimes felt like I was a fish out of water.  I kept talking about how my girls and I were strong, competent and capable, all the while billboards and advertising–not to mention movies, television shows and music–still portrayed women as sex objects as often as not.

In a recent blog post, Brianna Kovan picked 10 ads from 2014 that promote women and girls in a much more positive light.  A few of them I have written about including GoldieBlox and Sorry.

The significance of these new ads is multi-fold.  First, big advertising money is starting to see strong, capable decision-making women as an important market.  Feminist ideas are becoming widely accepted–enough to not risk alienating their other audiences.

Yet, what I love the most is the help these ads are giving us at spreading these messages and making them mainstream!  Advertising often seduces that a certain beer or car will bring good looking women to men, or the latest pharmaceutical will fix what ails.  How wonderful that it now is helping us make women executives, girl scientists, and men doing household chores an expected site!  The power (and manipulation) of advertising is strong.  Hallelujah, it might work in our favor!

Enjoy watching these ads here, if you haven’t seen them already.  They are worth it!

Sometimes…

With all the relatives coming and going and all the insight we may (or may not) have gained about ourselves watching our family this holidays…SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA LAUGH!

And sometimes I am amazed at both the wisdom and the folly of my mother that comes out of my mouth unintentionally.  God bless you, Mom!  I miss you.

Exercise to Create REAL Holiday Cheer!

Hello!

Have you noticed that this time of the year brings up as many gremlins as it does elves and hosts of angels?

As we get closer to the holidays, some of us will start to rush and hurry in preparation—becoming frazzled and overwhelmed, others will get anxious about expected time with relatives kept at a distance the rest of the year, and some of us will fret over finances as we spend more than we think we should.

While we were kids, many of us learned not to set our expectations high at Christmas – so our expectations wouldn’t get dashed and our feelings hurt. We may have taken this message into our internal, unconscious beliefs we operate from as adults, all year long—not just at the holidays!

Thinking about this I began to ponder how something full of potential awe and wonder often becomes downright hard for so many of us. And I realized that the story most of us learned as we got older was that the “grown up story” was nothing like the “pretend” fairy tale we believed as children. In order to “grow up,” we were told to put away these childish whims, any magical thinking and be realistic!

Yet, so much of what I have been studying tells me that my imagination and my expectations are dictating my experience. Whoa there! You mean to tell me that maybe I had it closer to the truth when I was a kid, before I allowed the beliefs of the adults around me to help me “grow up?”

Before you dismiss what I am studying as “new age” or some other label, let me give you some quotes of people you might give greater weight to.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?… And in the ages of imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of anything.”  ~ William Blake

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” ~ Thomas Edison

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ~ Mark Twain

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go no where.”  ~ Carl Sagan

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing—that it was all started by a mouse.” ~ Walt Disney

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

“You can’t do it unless you imagine it.” ~ George Lucas

“Live out of your imagination, not your history.” ~ Stephen Covey

“The world is but a canvas to our imagination.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” ~ Gloria Steinem

“The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.” ~ Napoleon Hill

“America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” ~ Harry S. Truman

“All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.” ~ Carl Jung

“The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“Imagination rules the world.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

OK, so I think you get the picture. The top scientists, politicians, artists and thinkers of the world ALL agree that our imagination creates our world; yet the way we were raised taught us to put away imagination when we grew up.

Maybe if we brought our imagination back, we could create a holiday—for ourselves and those around us—truly filled with joy and good cheer, not just an imitation of it. We have just over a week to let our imagination take over. So try this simple exercise.

Write down everything about the holidays you do not enjoy and are dreading—financial issues, a certain relative, whatever it is for you. Then take another piece of paper and IMAGINE with lots of detail what it would look like if it were the exact opposite of what you wrote on that other sheet. Really put in tons of detail. Pretend you are Walt Disney creating something magical; add all the pieces in to make this vision  feel real. What would it FEEL like if it was real? When you have written about your desired holiday, burn the paper with the “old reality.”

Now send a blessing to each person you will be involved with this holiday season. Bless the money you do have in your wallet and bank account and the sources that it comes through to you.

Read your imagined holiday each night before bed imagining what it would feel like if it were real, and send blessings, too. See what magic you can create…with a little childlike imagination!

I wish for you a magical and joy filled holiday season.

All my best,

Amy

Interviews with Influential Women – Lisa Tener

As a big proponent of being mentored and mentoring, I want to give you an opportunity to be inspired by a variety of successful women to be your best and boldest self.  This, my first in the Interviews with Influential Women Series, will do just that.  Lisa Tener recently won the Stevie Award for Mentor and Coach of the Year.  She is a regular contributor to Huffington Post and one of my valued mentors!

Please give my readers a short background on your personal journey that brought you to today.

As a child, I wanted to be a writer “when I grew up.” I wasn’t an avid reader until high school, though, so I am still catching up! While running a nonprofit organization in Boston I got an idea for a book that had nothing to do with my day-job—a book about transforming anger by tapping into one’s creativity, inner wisdom and sense of humor. I teamed up with two authors with loads more experience than I possessed—an anger expert and a cartoonist. The media loved our exercises—Angerobics—and our national publicity included features in Glamour, WebMD, CNN Headline News, PBS TV, ESPN radio and more. Shortly after the book came out,  I began teaching the steps I had developed for “Writing in the Zone.”  Soon, people came to me not only for help with writing in a state of flow, but asking for help with their book proposals and getting published.  It was a great fit with my business and marketing background (two management degrees from MIT), because a book proposal is like a business plan for a book. That led to an invitation to be on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s CME publishing course, where I meet many of my clients.

Who are your top 3 female role models, and what about each inspires you?

My role models are not necessarily household names but people who’ve had a strong influence in my life. My mother-in-law, the artist Anne Mimi Sammis, is one of my role models. She works in bronze, watercolor and acrylic, creating work that’s about peace, love and celebrating the joy of life. Many of her sculptures are in public spaces—at the Narragansett sea wall, children’s museums, atop a church in Aspen, CO. She’s super-creative and playful—and brings that creative energy and fun into all aspects of her life.

Another mentor and role model my friend Julia Griffin. Julia teaches about intuition and manifestation. Because of Julia, I meditate every day. She’s helped me see how to appreciate life more and create a life that’s joyful. And she’s a role model for spending time outdoors, drawing power from our connection with nature and God.

And another role model is Tama Kieves. In addition to being a life coach, she’s a writer who truly trusts her own voice and isn’t trying to be “marketable.” In this day and age, that takes a certain kind of strength to trust the muse and not try to make things happen.

All three women meditate regularly and consistently spend time on their creative endeavors.

What challenge (s) did you face & overcome to get to where you are?

There were health challenges, which turned out to be a huge gift. They led me to powerful healing and even to the idea for my first book. They opened me spiritually. The other challenge was just starting a business from scratch. At that time, self-publishing had not yet blossomed the way it has now. There weren’t many people doing what I do, so I didn’t really have models for it—I had to invent the business as I went. That was a challenge but also a gift, since it allowed me to create my book coaching business from my heart and soul.

What are the 3 most important things you do (or did) that contribute to your success?

Wow, there are so many things but I would say: 1) Stayed true to my vision. I didn’t make much money at first, and it would have been easy to take a “day job.” However, I trusted my intuition that what started out as “creativity coaching” and morphed into “writing coaching” and then “book coaching” could be a thriving and fulfilling business and vocation. 2) Invested in my business by hiring high quality professionals. When I finally hired a virtual assistant (the wonderful Geri Lafferty) who helped me with my newsletters and administrative tasks my business took up. Geri freed me up to do more of the work I love—coaching, editing and teaching book writing. If I’d know how freeing it was, I think I would have invested sooner. I also invested in business coaches to teach me what they knew about having an internet-based business. I hired professionals for services like copywriting and website design—people who were excellent at what they did. It’s easy to think, as a writer, “I can write my own copy” but my copywriter has done a much better job than I ever did. It’s her expertise. Having said that, you also have to know when not to follow another person’s advice. Particularly with business and money coaches, they may have something that works for them but doesn’t feel right to you. Trust me. 3) Wrote a book! A well-written book that captures your unique voice helps prospective clients get to know you. It provides instant credibility. It opens up doors for the rest of your life. I never could have guessed that writing a book about transforming anger would lead to an invitation to be on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s CME publishing course. And beyond the doors it opens, writing a book invites you to step into your own personal power—and own your voice—in a very powerful way. It’s perhaps the ultimate personal growth tool—just as a bonus.

Are there any obstacles specific to being a woman you have encountered?

When I worked in the corporate world, I did encounter obstacles, particularly sexual harassment. I was afraid to report it because I thought I might lose my job or make it harder for the next woman to get a job in that company.

How did you handle them?

I left that job as fast as I could! I had been accepted to MIT’s Sloan School of Management right out of college but had decided to defer and work instead. The two-year window was already over but I called them up and asked if they’d extend the offer for the coming year and they did. I love being an entrepreneur because the only obstacles to my business are ones I create—which I can un-create.

What do you consider the top issues women face today?

The thing I see most in the women I coach is that they are so focused on helping others that they will often put everything else before their biggest dreams. I think their biggest challenge is giving themselves permission to really go for it—whatever their “it” is. Having said that, as a mom, there are times to hold back and wait. Childhood is a precious time and so it may make a good deal of sense to curtail speaking engagements and business trips in order to have more quality time with family.

That leads me to the other huge challenge, particularly for moms— how to find a balance between work and home life. Work can be seductive. It’s easier to excel at work than at parenting. Parenting is so much harder! I have to set limits with work, especially working at home, so that it doesn’t take over. A third big issue is how to be a woman in an environment that is usually designed by males. Much of corporate life runs counter to the way we are wired. I suggest women find a workplace that feels more supportive or start your own business. Don’t let a soul-less workplace suck you dry. It can.

What are the biggest opportunities available to women today?

As an entrepreneur, I think the biggest opportunities are in creating your own thing—a “thing” that makes a big difference in the world, uses your gifts and skills in a maximal way, is fun and makes you grow. It’s less about a particular field and more about finding an arena that makes you shine your brightest and also nudges you to continue to expand and grow. You get to create your own “thing” from scratch—with your personal vision and values. You don’t have to squeeze yourself into someone else’s expectations or an environment that forces you to leave half of your personality at home. You get to be you and shine. And the sky’s the limit on your earnings.

What are the 3 most important things women need to do or consider when charting their next chapter of life, whenever that may be for them?

1) What gifts do you have that you are under-using or might like to explore more?

2) What makes your heart sing: what do you LOVE to do and how can you incorporate that into your vision for this next chapter?

3) What difference do you want to make for people (your clients, yourself, your family, the world)?

Is there anything else you would like to share?

Just that I’m excited to see your vision, Amy. You have this marvelous blend of savvy-business woman and soulful, feminine power that comes from a very deep place. Seeing you bring these two aspects together is exciting and a powerful invitation for women of any age to redefine success on their terms. It’s a powerful message that we can be women—and all that means to us—and also be very successful, particularly financially. I think there’s a myth that if we fully embrace our femininity, we can only earn so much. You bust that myth to pieces. For some of the women authors I have worked with, the business and money piece can be stumbling blocks. They can write an award-winning book but they resist fully stepping into their power when it comes to money. I’m so glad you are out to help women change that.

Award-winning book writing coach Lisa Tener merges a love of writing and business by helping entrepreneurs, health professionals, therapists, coaches and others grow their businesses and/or themselves by writing and publishing nonfiction books, mainly how-to/self-help. Her clients have been published by /signed contracts with major publishing houses; received five- and six-figure advances and major media coverage; and won top industry awards. She has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, PBS-TV, and in Glamour magazine, The Boston Globe, The Providence Journal, Family Circle, Body & Soul Magazine and many others. She received her bachelors and masters degrees from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and she currently serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s CME Publishing Course.

Transitions from Motherhood

This week, I sent my youngest child off to school — as an adult! My happy 18 year old girl drove herself off to high school, and I felt great joy both in seeing her satisfaction and just knowing the person she is.

As part of my morning routine, I made myself a cup of tea to read and meditate. When I sat down to meditate, I was flooded with unexpected emotions…

… Anger at her dad for not being part of her life these past 7 years and the trauma of our divorce

… Anger at myself for not doing something different that would have helped their relationship be more sound

… Sadness for somehow missing the mark of what I had hoped my life and hers would be like when she was born

… Frustration for all the moments lost that I allowed my attention to be consumed with arguing with my ex-husband (in real life and all those arguments in my head), instead of enjoying her and all my children –especially the arguments they had to endure hearing.

… Fear and despair that I might never again have a worthy life purpose like I did as a mother

…. Depression that everything else I do feels like busy-ness to fill the void

… Worry I might be alone the rest of my life

… Repulsion I might end up like my mom with lots of acquaintances but no one really in my life (sure sign of craziness because I already have deep and close friends …but hey this was purging not reality)

… Anxiety about leaving my family home–Will they come to visit me wherever I live, or do I need this place they grew up to anchor our clan?

Feeling the spiral of despair, I decided to go outside. I walked the half mile to feed the horses just to move my body–still crying and releasing.

When I returned home, I began writing everything about this state of looking forward–into my post kid era– that I don’t like–triggered by my girl’s glorious day! I really let it flow. (I had so much work staring at me, but I needed to feel this and not tuck it away. Thank God I had no meetings this morning!)

Once the steam was out of my rant about all that seemed “wrong” about this upcoming chapter of my life, I decided to create a picture of the exact opposite to these things that were haunting me. I picked up my journal and wrote the polar opposite of each item. (It is an idea I heard from Bob Proctor.) I wrote and wrote about how I want my life to be going forward. It was great! It’s actually the best description I’ve done yet because it had so much specificity reversing exactly my deepest fears about my future. No Pollyanna affirmations.

When I had completed writing about all the things I would want to happen that were opposite of my fears, I could feel the power in me. I put my journal down with a “Hell yeah!” Then, I went outside and burned the original sheets of what I do not want. That was pure fun!

This exercise of asking what is the exact opposite of this feeling was extremely useful because it got me writing about a future that would really excite me. I was addressing specifically my deepest concerns rather than putting my best foot forward while harboring these negative feelings internally, and most likely unconsciously!

The things I wrote about had so much more depth, color, detail and life to them than when I normally write out my goals. I plan to read what I wrote every day for the next 30 days. And if I am inclined, I am going to keep adding to the detail of what I wrote until the picture is vivid in my mind, even when I am not reading.

I will let you know how it goes. And I suggest you try it the next time your emotions have you down. Get real specific about what it is you are feeling. And then do a 180 degree turn and write exactly the opposite situation. It is like turning the whole thing on its head. Or maybe its like being turned on your head by your emotions, and then setting yourself upright again!

Dealing With Doubt

The biggest obstacle between you and your BIG dream is self doubt.  Remember: you are not alone though.  It is what we do with this sneaky demon that determines whether we move on to success or recede backwards into our den.

One of the big differences between successful people and the masses isn’t what they know, who they know, or how talented they are.  It is often how willing (or unwilling) they are to let doubt sabotage their plans.  What do you do when other people scoff at your dream?  Or even more important, how much time on the microphone of your inner theater do you allow your own doubting voice to have?

Lupita Nyong’o, Oscar winner for her role as Patsey in 12 Years as a Slave, gave this great example to the women at Texas Women’s Conference last month of fighting her demons as she launched from drama school at Yale in a major motion picture–with no actual experience.  I love her story, especially because it speaks to each of us when we get big ideas in an area we are not the “expert” — yet. Here is an excerpt from the Texas Women’s Conference website:

As an example, she points to her experience of being cast in 12 Years a Slave when she was still at the Yale School of Drama: “I was panicking a lot about it, certain that I would fail miserably at the role because I had no experience working on such a big film with such big people. It was bound to be the biggest challenge of my life.” She expressed her fears to her counselor, who had her imagine the worst that could happen—“I imagined forgetting my lines, being the weak link of the cast, getting fired and replaced, being blacklisted in Hollywood even before I could be on a list,” recalls Nyong’o, who says that she then “basically cried a river of all the woes that lay ahead of me” before her advisor asked, “And then what happens next?”

“I paused and gave it some serious thought,” Nyong’o says. “And then I burst out laughing and said, ‘I guess life goes on.’” The exercise taught Nyong’o the importance of good mental habits. “I felt such a relief in that moment and free enough from the demon that was my self-doubt, that I could actually go away and do the work that I needed to do to prepare for the role,” she says.

I am going to hold on to that story whenever I start doubting my certification, training, or experience at something I want to do.  She tackled her doubt and won an Oscar!  What a loss if she had let the doubt win.  What are you letting doubt keep you from doing?  What will the rest of us miss out on if you continue to hold back?

How Do You Make Tough Choices?

Each one of us are faced with tough choices at various times in our life.  Most of us come up against the dilemma at least once, wondering whether to take a leap of faith into something that inspires us or play it safe where we are.

When those times happen, what do you do?  How do you make the tough choices in your life? Do you ask people you trust for advice?  Maybe you weigh the risks and try to analyze the potential for success or failure?  Some people make a pro’s and con’s list and evaluate their options that way.

I have learned that I can argue pretty much both sides of everything, so staying in any process that uses my mind as the deciding force leaves me anguished and often paralyzed.  Yet, when I get quiet and turn to my heart, I can FEEL my way to the choices that will best feed my soul and bring me the most happiness.  Any time I have made choices based on this inner guidance, I have found the universe conspiring to make it work out.  When I have made other choices because I “thought they were right”, I was often left struggling to make them work.

I love the way CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien spoke of her keynote address at the recent Texas Women’s Conference.  She encourages us to look beyond next year to a 10-year horizon.  Then she asks, “What do you want to be?  What impact do you want to have? …What do you want to be remembered for?”

Soledad even puts risk in a new perspective as she points out that when you look at your life decisions from the contribution you can make, they no longer appear risky–options like your career moves seem almost incidental to the potential difference you can make on the world, community or even your family.

I encourage you to be bold in your life, think BIG when you dream and really feel into what choices will give you the most joy in their unfoldment.  If you are not stretching, you are probably also not feeling alive.  So stretch a little.  No, stretch a lot!  You will look back and be so glad you did.