"When you walk in your value, people respond."
I can clearly remember the day that I decided to walk in my value. That day was one year ago almost exactly from the day I am writing this. One year ago today, my life was very different.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Life is complicated. If you are human, (in other words, YOU), you probably know that by now. But this life thing really took me for a ride -- for 46 years. My "ride" started when I was 5 years old. My neighbor used to call me "chink" as I would walk to school... every day for the next 10 years of my young life.
To be told there is something wrong with you, not with something outside of you but for who you actually are, is painful for anyone, let alone a 5-year-old child.
Because of that, I spent the next 41 years of my life always thinking something was wrong with me. I would look at other people, see the best qualities in them, and wish that was me.
Despite winning awards in my career as a marketing director for four regional shopping centers in Los Angeles, the marketing director at Rodeo Drive, dating some really cute guys, and achieving a lot, I never really knew who I was or how actually great I was or could be.
I didn't know until the day "life" happened to me. Something weird and kind of amazing happens when we are forced outside of our conscious mind and not left to control our lives.
THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND
You see, when I was 38, my best friend, my mother, died. Then my dad died, I lost my job, and I lost my health. Along with the death of my parents, I developed a genetic connective tissue disorder, resulting in three failed surgeries, and forcing me into a bathroom for six hours a day. It had left me incontinent.
But when everything is taken away from you, when all you know to be true about life, yourself, and the world -- when all of that is taken away from you, you can discover some life changing things.
After being forced into the four-walled prison of my bathroom for several hours a day, I discovered I have a will. I discovered I have a will to live. Over the past four years out of pure need for distraction from the pain and hope for something greater than I was capable of, I found myself listening to countless hours of educational audio about human psychology and studying the human mind. I listened to audio about positive, emotional, and social intelligence. And I discovered, that I am quite brilliant. I also discovered I have a deep compassion for people. And I discovered that I, when forced with the decision to remain shut in a bathroom or a choice to go outside and face the humiliation my health condition could cause, that I am fearless.
I also discovered that with my newly-learned ability to overcome my mind, combined with my 25 years of business and marketing experience, I could help people create profit-generating businesses online. I discovered I could have a business.
I thought this business thing would be my "side business." In the meantime I was still doing freelance work. One of my recent freelance projects the previous year was writing for a beautiful woman I had met after applying for her job posting on Craiglist.
After meeting her, I discovered this amazing, beautiful, and smart woman. We started talking about what I do now in my business. I saw big things for her and wrote a branding proposal for her for an online business genius who graced the online world with her knowledge and helped people design fabulous businesses. She loved it so much that we decided to partner together, with her as the face of the business and me behind the scenes.
Time passed and shortly before a photo shoot I had planned. she told me her life was taking her in another direction. I was crushed, but I decided to forge forward into my business. It wasn't until around the time of the photo shoot for my website, last year, that I discovered the strategic branding proposal I had written for her. It began:
"I see (her) creating a niche as a business, marketing, and life thought leader who is both beautiful and savvy, and uses proven business tactics mixed with spiritual teachings to complete her clients 360 degrees. By blending her strong desire to empower people through practical soul connecting methods and giving them business smarts to actually run their business and marketing, (she) would be one of the few thought leaders that focuses on psychology, spirit, AND business."
I found that almost a year ago. When I read it, I thought -- "I'm not as beautiful as her but, why couldn't that be me?"
A month later I started my business -- Your Marketing Mastermind, where I help purpose-driven, high achieving people, become leaders in their own lives, and build a profit-generating businesses based on their greatest strengths, talents, and life experience.
Today after my call with her -- now as my one of my Mastermind clients -- it made me remember this moment. The day I decided to walk in my value.
Turning your life around from any situation is hard. But if you give yourself a chance, it's possible for anyone to do. This isn't about wishful thinking or a lucky circumstance. It's about a decision to give yourself a chance.
I believe this to be true -- it becomes what you make it. I decided to make it ME.
Make a decision then make that decision right. Turn your life around and decide it's time to make it YOU.
Do or do not there is no try. Life happens for you. It becomes what you make it.
