Accomplishment Coaching

I subscribe to a daily email from TUT.com. Each Monday through Friday, I get emails from the “universe”; daily reminders that there is a higher power than our almighty egos.

Yesterday’s was particularly interesting:

“From here, of course, all earthly problems appear small – really small. That’s because we know they’re fleeting, they prepare you for the “best of your life,” and you chose them, not wanting to obtain their rewards in any other way. But from where you are, of course, they can look gigantic. That’s because they’re often seen as permanent, limiting, and imposed upon you by chance, fate, or circumstances.”

The first time I read it I thought, “What the he#% is that about?” Then I read it about four more times. And it finally sunk in.

What if we took on viewing our problems as “gateways” to rewards, opportunities and possibilities? What if we put down the interpretation that “problems are wrong, bad and a pain in the butt”? What would open up inside that perspective?

I wasn’t quite sure at first. Because my relationship to problems was exactly that described above. What a pain they are. How frustrating they are. How come I’ve got to suffer through these problems? And, Heaven knows, I love to be a victim of my circumstances.

Now, if I’m going to make a major shift in my perspective like this one, I had better be given some proof that it works. So I began to look and here’s what I found:

When I moved to Michigan three years ago, I opened a small business consulting company. I had some early success and then it was completely downhill from there. By month 14, I had almost no clients, $80,000 invested in the business and a Fred Flintstone sized bat I was using to beat myself up for this business failure. This was the biggest problem I had faced yet in my life.

Then I met a coach who introduced me to a training program. I scraped up enough cash to pay for the first month of the year-long training program and headed off to NYC.

That was 19 months ago. Since reeling in that problem called “business failure”, I’ve invested a ton into my skills, my being, my heart and my business. I now have a very successful coaching practice and more opportunity than I can handle.

This was the reward on the backside of my problem.

That problem had a lot to teach me and every problem I now encounter has a lot to teach me. So now I listen. I no longer resist the problems. Sure, they’re frustrating, but what’s so encouraging is that I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that on the other side of the problem is a reward, an opportunity and huge possibility.

So what is your relationship with your problems? What is possible for you in shifting your relationship from resistance to receptivity? What would change in your business relationships if you were to approach every “problem” not as a “pain in the a$$” but as an opportunity to learn and be rewarded?

Try it for one week. You might just find you like them.

Happy Mess-Making,
- Coach Preston

PS – If you haven’t yet checked it out, I highly recommend visiting http://www.tut.com/. You can sign up for their daily “emails from the Universe”.

A brief trip to Trader Joe’s religiously brings with it not only good food and a terrific shopping experience, but I’ve found that the trip from my house to TJ’s is just long enough for me to sit still long enough to absorb some of this life.

Part of that absorption is just sitting in my car listening to the Terry Gross show on public radio.

About two months ago on a TJ’s trip, I was listening to her show and Chaz Palminteri was being interviewed. He’s a successful actor (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001590/) who’s been in a whole mess of films.

He was sharing about his experiences in getting to where he’s gotten in Hollywood and as an actor and he said the following:

“Success isn’t knocking on the right door at the right time. It’s knocking on all the doors all the time”.

How completely appropriate for me to be listening in that moment.

For I was in a place of wondering where my next client was going to come from; where I was going to raise more money for a fundraising project; where and when I was going to be successful. I kept asking myself “Who is the ‘best’ person for me to speak with”? “There must be the ‘ideal’ person for me to meet”.

I had it, as many of us do, that success primarily depends on that ONE door upon which we knock that’s the “right”, “best”, or “ideal” door. This actor’s words changed my perspective forever.

Now I just knock on all the doors. I have no idea what’s behind any of them. Behind some I find nothing. Behind others I find a treasure chest. I no longer judge the door before I knock.

So what doors are awaiting you in your business and your life? What doors are you judging today as “not the right door”? How much business, money, love or enjoyment are you giving up because you’re WAITING for the right door to appear?

Go start knocking.

- Coach Preston
http://www.breakyoursilence.com/