Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

Too often we are our own worst enemy, and our harshest critic.

There has always been a lot of pressure to follow the golden rule:

“Treat others the way you want to be treated”

The irony is… we are rarely as hurtful to others as we are to ourselves.

We say the nastiest, most unkind things to ourselves. Things we would never dare utter aloud to anyone else.

It’s time to stop the harsh words and eliminate the judgment. It’s time to give ourselves the same benefit of the doubt, the same caring support, the same kindness that we give others.When we do that, we lift ourselves up and begin to see ourselves with new eyes. We start to recognize our best qualities instead of our perception of our worst qualities. We start to acknowledge that we do have strengths and skills and contributions to make. We see that in fact, we do a lot of things right and we have valuable contributions to make. Our world starts to look a little brighter and our results start to improve. We start attracting more of what we want in our life and releasing what has been holding us back.

Embracing the golden rule is good. It’s the golden rule! Embracing the inverted golden rule is good too! By treating ourselves the way we want others to treat us we bring out our best self every day — and you can’t go wrong with that!

Navigating the ‘soft-side’ issues of succession planning and exit strategy. Building a framework for a very powerful and rewarding future.

Your Company; Your Baby

We have heard it many times before:

Business owners referring to their company as “their baby”.

It makes sense.

When you start your own company, it is a unique expression of you. An expression that you bring into this world, and foster as it grows…an expression that takes a vast amount of emotional, physical, and financial resources.

Great parents ultimately raise their kids to stand on their own two feet one day…

Great leaders should raise their businesses to do the same.

As rewarding as parenting can be, two things can commonly be observed in parents:

• That undeniable glimmer in their eye when a child-free vacation is being planned
• That unmistakable pep in their step when their adult child is moving out of the house

Business owner’s, like parents, need vacations during the raising process, and a light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to:

The day when their “unique expressions” can function in the world without them and deliver a return on their investment!

Your business may be “your baby”…but it can’t remain a baby forever.

Take a look at your business parenting technique. Are you an overprotective business parent?

• Do you have a strong enough team in place to enable you to take vacations, or are you trapped in the office?
• Will your company need to cling to your leg when time to retire?

The Perfect Hiding Place

When we were kids, we hid from chores, we hid from friends during a game of hide-and-seek, and on occasion ( if we’d really stepped out of line), we hid from our parents.

It wasn’t until we became adults that we learned to hide from ourselves.

People hide for different reasons, but we all do it…

and our work can be the perfect hiding place.

The trouble is, we are rarely called out.

Why?

Being busy is admired… even revered…

It’s easy to wear our busyness like a badge of honor instead of seeing it as a telltale sign that we are hiding.

Maybe we are hiding from something, or someone or maybe we are hiding from ourselves.

We all need balance between the intensity and demands of work and the intensity and demands of life. It’s the space in between that we crave. That space that grounds us in who we are and what makes us special. That space between that enables us to discover what ignites our spirit and what drags us down.

If you don’t have it, you need to build it in.

Come out, come out wherever you are…

Are you living the life you want or hiding from the one you don’t? It’s time to discover or rediscover what ignites your spirit.