I broke through the resistance, made my video (thanks to the awesome team of Kia Kiso, J.P. Brennan and Lynne Mitchell) and it’s now up on the Oprah site and ready for your votes.

Please vote here:

http://budurl.com/4y8l

You can vote more than once so please return there and vote often.

Then, if you’d like to spread the word to your lists, here’s some copy:

Of course, feel free to edit.

==============================

For Twitter/Facebook …

Please vote for @alexisneely to get her own show the
new #OWN network. It’s time for a new normal around
conflict: http://budurl.com/4y8l

==============================

And for your lists …

Subject: Please Help Alexis Have Her Own TV Show on Oprah

Millions of people are being ripped apart by conflict. Fights with friends, neighbors, parents, siblings, spouses, and even people in the cars in front of us.

We turn to well-meaning friends or lawyers and the conflict escalates.

What if there was a new way to deal with conflict?

My friend, Alexis Neely, has a show that will create a new normal when it comes to conflict and she needs your help to get Oprah to take notice as part of the OWN Network search for their next TV host.

Here’s the link to Alexis’ audition video:

http://budurl.com/4y8l

Voting is until July 3 and you can vote as often as every minute between now and then. So vote early and vote often.

And feel free to forward this message to anyone you know who wants to see conflict resolved in a whole new way!

Your Sign Off

PS – Remember, you can vote for Alexis’ video more than once, so please help Alexis by voting often and spreading
the word to all your friends and family.

Here’s the link again:

http://budurl.com/4y8l

==========================================

At whatever level you are able to support my quest for my OWN television show, I am so grateful for your help.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Oprah Show Host contest is taunting me.  At least 10 people have emailed me, tweeted me, facebook’d me or otherwise told me about the thing.

Yes, I’ve talked about having a show for years.  Yes, this would be a great opportunity to get out there and allow it to happen.  Yes, yes, yes.

But, the timing really sucks.

I have 100% devoted myself to the deconstruction and reconstruction of my company so I can bring love to the legal process in a big way by training lawyers on a massive scale and designating some of them as lawyers you can really love.

The deconstruction/reconstruction means I have very little creative energy remaining for anything else.

As you can tell, I’ve barely been writing on the bloggity and what I have written has been pretty surface.  Don’t think I haven’t known it.

But, it’s what’s been happening.  The focus on this business and the work I’m doing is utilizing almost every ounce of creative energy I have.

Focus has always been difficult for me because of this.  My creative energy is HUGE and doesn’t always feel fully expressed when focusing on one thing.

What’s interesting is that when I saw my dear friend Baeth Davis (the Hand Analyst) recently, she grabbed my hands, looked at them for a brief second (don’t ask her to do this for you without paying her, she gets beaucoup bucks for a reading) and said something along the lines of …

“Wow, you have a very intense ability to focus. You need to focus on big, huge problems or your mind will create them all around you.”

Ummhmm, yep.  That’s true.

Anyway, that means that even though I’m exceedingly focused on my business training lawyers you love, my mind is wanting to engage in a lot of mental activity about all the other things there are for me to do in the world.

I’ve been good at ignoring this chatter for the past couple of months.  Less time on Twitter, less focused on my other businesses.

Head down, devotion to the lawyers.

And then Oprah showed up with her contest.  A contest I am so resistant to enter it must be exactly what I’m supposed to do next to move forward with my OWN evolution.

Did I ever mention that I met with the folks at OWN 12-18 months ago about my show concept?  I just knew it was supposed to be there.  The perfect fit.

In person, they loved me. They loved the concept for the show.  Then, we got into the treatment and notes and I gave away my power.

I didn’t hold firm to my vision. I let others take it over and it got muddied.  I wasn’t ready.

They passed.

I was so disappointed. I don’t know if I ever really acknowledged that before now, but I was.

And now I’m scared to try again.

What if I try (so publicly!) and don’t get it. Again.

I’m scared it would be the end of my dream.  I’d never be able to try again.  And I know this show is supposed to be a reality.

What if I’m still not ready?

I know these thoughts and this fear is not the truth.  I also know that success is a series of tryings again and again.  And, yet, it’s so hard to take the action necessary to keep trying.

But, when  I think about the possibility for the world of this show, I know I have to push through the fear and the resistance.

And then the voice comes that says I’m full of shit and my show isn’t that special.  It’s trying to protect me, that voice.  It really does have my best interest at heart and doesn’t want to see me hurt.

My opportunity is to hear that voice, be aware of it and bring love to it.  Pay attention to it and recognize it as a protective part of me, a thought I don’t have to believe.

As I do this, my body relaxes and I remember how important this show is.  To the world.

(It makes me not be able to breathe to say that and at the same time, I can feel the truth of it so deeply.)

And to the lawyers I train.  This show is important to them too.  They want to be loved.  They deserve to be loved.  This show will help with that.

Here’s what it’s about:

Conflict is the order of the day in almost everyone’s life.

We don’t talk about it publicly (for the most part), but it’s a constant beneath the surface.

We’ve become so used to conflict that we think it’s normal.

Normal to fight with our spouses.
Normal to fight with our parents.
Normal to fight with our siblings.
Normal to fight with our neighbors.
Normal to fight with our co-workers.

It’s time for a new normal.

This show that wants to emerge through me will help people see there is a clear path to happiness and everything else you ever wanted in life.

Take this path and  you will naturally lose weight, your face will look ten years younger (at least!), you will live longer.

Take this path and finally feel what it feels like to feel free, free at the deepest core of your being.  Free.

With this show, I intend to take us down the path to the ultimate in internal resolution.

This show will show people how to stop fighting.

Yep, that’s it.  Stop fighting.

We want world peace?  Let’s start with peace in our own homes, in our own lives, in our own psyches.

It’s both that simple and that difficult.

Our friends and family egg us on, as if it’s normal – “take him for all he’s worth” or “don’t let her get away with that” or a myriad of other statements that support conflict escalation.

Our legal system is incentivized to escalate conflict.

Even during my “collaborative” divorce, my husband’s lawyer was urging him to keep arguing over a $1,000 item near the end of our divorce process.

And that was a lawyer trained to be “collaborative.”

Fighting, conflict, escalation is so ingrained in our world.

It’s the ultimate physical manifestation of our unconscious behavior.  And we think it’s okay.

This show will help us all see a new reality.  A reality that is free of fighting, conflict, guilt, shame and fear.

Imagine that.

Imagine a world in which we all knew the truth about conflict.  A world in which we could see that all conflict is an opportunity for personal healing and transformation at the deepest level.

Heal your conflict and watch the weight drop off.  Forgive and watch the wrinkles melt away.  Give love and watch the aches and pains disappear.

This show is the anti-Judge Judy and People’s Court.  Not that I don’t love those shows, I do.  Deeply.  The drama, the conflict, the intensity.

I might not have become a lawyer were it not for the People’s Court.

But what if we could have just as much excitement and drama and at the same time heal the world from the inside out?

I can feel it.  We can do it.  This show is part of the path.

I’m scared that I can’t do it. That I will fail in my mission. That I will not get the show. That I will not be able to be clear enough about the vision.

Or that I will get the show and then I will not be able to hold the space for the truth to be seen.

That I will give away my power, like I did last time I got in front of OWN.

But, how can I not do this?

This vision is too important and God gave it to me for a reason.

As an evolutionary entrepreneur, I must keep growing, keep expanding through the fear.

So I told God I would do it, but only if it can be fun and serve my lawyers because I am dedicated to the reconstruction of this company right now.

And I see the Universe conspiring to make it happen.

First, recommendation after recommendation to read Steven Pressfield’s book the War of Art.  A book I had never heard of before now that I’ve now seen at least 10 times in the past two days, even though it came out in 2002.

It’s guiding me to see the truth about the resistance.  And why I must do this. And why I must also reconstruct the company.  That I can do both.

Then, the perfect producer showed up.  A woman I helped resolve a conflict New Year’s weekend 2009.  She gets my work because she experienced it first-hand.  She loves it and she’s full of love and fun.

So I am moving through the resistance.  Doing my part to allow this to happen.  Being willing to put myself out there and try again, even though I’m scared to death to do it and to do it so publicly.

Your support is so welcome.  A word.  A thought.  A vote once I get the video posted. Anything you’ve got to help me see this through is welcome.

I’m going to do it.  How can I not?

For the 2nd time, I am three years into a million dollar business venture of my own creation and I am beginning to see a pattern.  I am committed to living beyond patterns and conditioning, so now that the pattern has been noticed, I am committed to doing something different.

What did Einstein say?  “Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.”

So here I am.

Exactly where I was just a couple of years ago in so many respects.

And yet so far away.

The difference this time is that I seem to be willing to let go in the right places, even though it’s really hard.

I kept my law firm operating too long because I couldn’t let go.  I told myself it was because I had to take care of all the people who worked for me.  I was doing it for them.

A part of me was.  But, another part of me simply couldn’t let go.  Of them.  Of the clients.  Of the reputation.  Of the identity.

By the time I did, it was too late.

And I’m still dealing with the fall out from it.

I won’t do the same thing again.  And, yet, here I am.  Making the conscious decision to break free of conditioning and patterned responses is difficult.

I’ve done what I do and built something that’s making a huge difference.  But, it’s time for its next evolution.

And I’m committed to allowing that evolution to happen in a way that’s best for the organization as a whole.  The work is too important.

I won’t make the same mistake.  Maybe a different one, but not the same one.

So, I’m letting go.  But instead of letting go into the hands of someone who has never run a million dollar company before and doesn’t have a proven track record (which is what I did last time), I’ve decided to create a whole new paradigm of business operation.

This will either be the greatest experiment in letting go ever and I’ll go on to write a 4-Hour Work Week-like book about it and make it to the NYT bestseller list or I’ll be just be another schmo who runs businesses into the ground.

That’s my fear of course.

One failure is acceptable and even seen as a positive in some circles.

But, two?  That begins to look like a pattern.

That’s what my mind tells me at least.

Of course, lots of people tell me that my law firm was a huge success, not a failure.  And then I tell myself that too as reinforcement.  Because it was – if I had wanted to be a lawyer.  I’d be rolling in the dough now.  A pillar of my community.  Living the American Dream.

It sounds great and I know I SHOULD have wanted it.  It just wasn’t my path.

So I sold it and had what I have now discovered is an all too common post-sale experience.  Within 6 months, the guy I sold it to stopped paying me, stopped paying the bills and was not servicing the clients as I would have.

Since I’ve started talking about this, I’ve begun to hear from other business owners that this is a quite common situation.  A company is sold to the wrong person or people and in anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, the company is out of business.  Each one left with a varying degree of debt and/or liability.

I don’t want that to happen again.

The work I have created is transformational.  I know how much it’s impacting lawyers and the clients they serve on a deep level.

I can’t make the same mistake again.

So, I’m doing something different.  Very different.

Yesterday, I announced to my Personal Family Lawyers that now that the company is three years old and has a solid foundation – solid recurring revenue, systems that are proven to work not just by me, but now by additional law firms implementing the systems as well, documented financials and projections – it’s time to evolve to the next level.

I consider all different possibilities and ultimately thanks to the purpose work I’m doing with Tim Kelley, I have determined that the most purposeful thing I can do is let go with purpose.

Letting go with purpose for me means looking at what would be most purposeful for me individually, the company as a whole and ultimately the world.  Discovering that option, becoming aware of it, then trusting and letting go.

It’s scary as shit.

So yesterday, I sent the PFLs a letter letting them know that I am going to model the new paradigm of collaborative operations within the PFL program.

Over the next few weeks, I will be inviting Personal Family Lawyers who meet certain criteria to be on the Senior Counsel of the organization. They will pay a membership fee to participate (so they have skin in the game) and receive my personal coaching on their business (people pay $3,000/mo. for this) in exchange for their membership on the Counsel.

Those are the last decisions I will make alone and the group can choose to change them as part of the collaborative process, which takes into account the perspectives of all stakeholders.

This group will be trained in the Collaborative Operating System model and we will document that as best as possible to share with other organizations in the future in case this works.

Within some period of time (once the training is complete), I intend that the Senior Counsel (of which I will be a member) redesign every aspect of the program so that the work thrives if the community wants it to thrive.

That means, the Counsel will make all decisions, including the extent of my continued involvement, how  much I’ll be paid if I do continue to be involved, how much I’ll be paid if I don’t continue to be involved, what I do on behalf of the organization, etc.

This is a grand experiment. I will chronicle it here, even when it’s scary.  Especially when it’s scary.

A model of the new paradigm.

How can I talk to you about how it should be, if I’m not blazing the trail?

===

Please let me know that this is impactful for you.  Hearing that will give me the fuel I need to keep going down this path (as if I could stop it now?!?) – I’m really scared and the fact that it inspires you, inspires me to keep going.

My life is turning upside down.  I’m on the razor’s edge of exhilarated and scared to death. And I freakin’ love it.  Why would I love to live on the razor’s edge?  Because …

We are here to feel.

Ten years ago I stopped feeling in the name of security and comfort. Once I woke up from the numbness, I swore I’d never be okay with that again.

I made a promise to myself. Numb will not be my way of being even when it feels like the safest way to be.

I  insist on feeling no matter what and will not settle for any situation that requires me to hold myself in or shut down.

Being conscious requires feeling.  It requires connection to and awareness of self.   When I’m numb, I’m lost.

Can you feel it?

What brings me that feeling of aliveness is transformation. Change.

And I’m in the midst of it now.

Six weeks ago, I moved from Los Angeles to Colorado.

In just a few days, my online home will be moved as well. The Intrepid Mompreneur blog will transform into a new blog … Life, Business & The Pursuit of Truth.

Here’s a picture of the IM blog in its current state as I write this so when you are reading this post a few weeks from now, you’ll have a point of comparison.

The nature of my relationship with Dave is changing.

My business is transforming.

Everything. Is. Changing.

Friday night at the mastermind Dave and I were leading, I had a session with Tim Kelley, one of my coaches. (If you get a chance to work with Tim, take it – his process is amazing.)

Afterward, I felt this tingling aliveness (and also quite a bit of fear) as I saw that within 6 months every single thing in my life could be 180 degrees different.

I want to talk about all of it here, publicly, for all of you to read and see.

But before I do, Dave reminds me to examine that desire. Is it from a place of truth or conditioning?  What is the motivation behind it?

Do you share all your stuff publicly as it’s happening? Or do you wait until it’s complete?  If you do, do you know what your motivation is? Does it matter?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you love something, set it free.  If it comes back to you, it’s yours.

God, I believe in that.  Oh yes, down to the bottom of my toes, I believe in it.

I’ve even experienced it in my own life.  A lot.  5 years ago, I set my husband free (and a whole house full of stuff I loved) and now 5 years later, it’s all back.

In case you are new here, I moved to Colorado at the beginning of January and my ex-husband moved with me.  He’s living with me and the kids.  And that meant all his stuff came too.  And his stuff was my stuff that I left behind when I moved out 5 years ago.  Seeing it again was trippy and fun.

So I KNOW it’s true.  I’ve experienced it.

And yet, it still comes up for me.  I want to hold on to what I love.  Grasp it tight.  Squeeze it to me and never let go.  And definitely never share it with anyone else.

Fortunately these days, I can recognize it.  Become aware of it.  And not emotionally react to it.

Once I see the pattern I can make a choice of how to be.

Like right now it’s coming up for me about a gal I absolutely adore.  Chelsea Moser.  I love her. She’s my protegee (two things about that: 1) I feel totally and completely pretentious saying that and yet it is how I feel and I hope she is not weirded out by that and 2) the dictionary said that you spell the woman version of protege with two “e”s, thus the two “e”s).

And suddenly Chelsea’s working with all these other women in the online world.  Andrea Lee.  Tina Forsyth. Ciara Daykin. And then I heard she was talking with Sarah Robinson the other day; so she could be next.

Let me say this before I say anything else – each of these women is a woman I adore, support, honor, respect, trust, work with, and believe in to the depths of my soul.

And yet, I want to hoard Chelsea.  Seeing her work with all these other amazing women makes me scared.  Maybe if she sees how amazing they are, she won’t want to work with me anymore.  Maybe she’ll stop having time for my projects.

But, I won’t let those patterned fear thoughts run my life.  Instead, I will recognize the pattern and break it by:

1. Talking about it here (even though this is really, really, really, REALLY hard for me to do)

and

2. Trusting that Chelsea will work with me if that serves her life and if it doesn’t, she won’t. Trust that everything is always unfolding exactly as it should for my highest good and the evolution of my soul.  And trust that I will always have everything I need (not necessarily everything I want) and I never need to hoard or hold on to anything too tightly.

Yes, when I remember that, I can breathe and relax and be.  It feels good.

In my experience, the saying should go a little differently … it’s not about what comes back to you.

If you love something, someone, some …, set it free.
And then you will be free too.

In the end, it’s about your own freedom really.

As I’ve confronted this issue within myself over the past several months, I’ve built a framework to go around it that I’ve been working through for myself so that I can stop making decisions based on fear and begin to feel really empowered about my relationship with money.

If you receive my emails or follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ve heard about it already – it’s called the money map and I’m hosting a free call about it on the last day of this year.

Since you are a loyal reader here, I’m giving you a little more information than I’ve given others about this money map framework, how it came to be and what it means for you.

First, let me say this – I believe this may be the most important work I have ever done up until now.

You see, I’ve been teaching business owners for a few years now and what I’ve come to see is I can give you a complete business system (or even in the case of the guy I sold my business to a complete already set up business!), but if you are operating from financial fear, you will find it very, very difficult (maybe impossible) to do what you need to do to be successful.

Financial fear can be the most insidious disease that keeps us from our dreams, if we allow it to be.   When I am operating from financial fear, I make bad decisions.  Do you resonate with that?

I built my law firm to a million bucks without a money map.   The five years I ran the firm were some of the most painful of my life because of my nearly constant overwhelming financial fear.

I was making plenty of money and had plenty of free time, but I was constantly living on the edge of massive amounts of fear.

Yes, I learned how to feel the fear and do it anyway.  But, I was white knuckling it every step of the way.  As a result, I eventually sabotaged the firm because I simply could not handle the intense fear.

That’s what happens when you don’t deal with the fear – you will eventually sabotage yourself in a myriad of ways.

In my case, I sold my million dollar business to a guy who stopped paying the bills (including the money he owed me) within 6 months of taking over.  I’m now carrying $250,000 of debt as a result.  Yes, my financial fear turned millions of dollars into a massive debt.

Now, the good news about this is that the experience totally broke through my financial fear and I have hardly any of it now.  The worst happened.

You’ve heard the saying “what you resist persists”, right?  Well, I resisted myself right to 6-figures worth of debt.

And sure, that’s one path. But that is not the path I want for you.  For you, I offer the gift of my mistakes so you don’t have to experience the worst to break through your fears.

With hindsight, I can look at the decisions I made that led me to sell my firm to someone who would not (and could not) be successful with it and see that I made those decisions because I was scared to be running a 7-figure business and because I didn’t know how to handle my fear, I sabotaged it.

I sabotaged it by saying yes to the first person who said he’d buy despite the fact that he didn’t have the business knowledge or self awareness himself to step into a 7-figure business.

So, what happened?

The minute he stepped in, he became absolutely paralyzed by his own fear and could not make any decisions.  And the decisions he did make were horrendous.

I watched it happen and while the lessons were amazing, I would have preferred not to have had them.

The reason we don’t have 7 or 8-figure businesses dropped into our laps is because we need to ease into the financial expansion necessary to stay out of financial fear enough to take right action on an ongoing basis.

Let me give you a concrete example so you can see what I mean:

To grow your business, you need to invest in your business.  It’s just the nature of the thing.  So, when I turned the business over to the guy who bought the firm, he was going to have to keep making investments.  Payroll and  marketing were the two biggest investments he’d have to make.

Well, each time he was presented with a marketing plan by the awesome marketing director I had hired for him and he was asked for a check to pay for the marketing campaign that needed to be run he hemmed, he hawed, and ultimately wouldn’t authorize the expenditures.

Within months he was asking me why there were no clients coming in. Well, friend, if you don’t do the marketing, the phone doesn’t ring.

Let’s look at this in my own case.

When I started my second business, I was back at the 1mm-1.5mm mark within one year. Once you expand to a certain level, getting back to that level is fairly easy.   But, now it’s been a couple of years and I’ve spent the past several months looking at what is holding me back from moving beyond.   And now I can see, it’s my unresolved financial fears holding me back.

I have expanded my comfort zone to support a 1m-1.5mm business, but not beyond that.  Going to the next level is scary and too big to white knuckle my way through.

And thus was born the money map.  A framework for making decisions about spending money so I wouldn’t be making them based in fear, but instead based in what I really want from life and business.

Here’s what I know …. when you are worried about money, you cannot be focused on your bigger impact on the world.  You are in survival mode.

What I’ve discovered through the process of creating my money map technology is that the most difficult part can be looking at what you really want because if you see it, acknowledge it and don’t get it, you will die.  At least that’s what it feels like to me.

But, I’ve also become aware that being willing to really look (even when it’s hard) is the key to EVERYTHING.  At least for me.  Maybe it will be for you too.

So I created a way to look that makes it less difficult.  I’m not going to tell you that it’s totally easy.  It’s not.  It’s still a little hard.  But, I’ve found that most things are a little hard.  Having a baby is a lot hard.  In both cases, the outcome is amazingly worth it.

What’s super cool about it is that it dovetails very nicely with LIFT (which was totally not planned but is one of those signs from the Universe that says to me – keep going Alexis, you are on the right path!).

So, no matter whether you are at 5-figures trying to get to 6 or 6-figures trying to get to 7 (or just starting out and are scared to death), the money map clears the fog and unparalyzes you so you can feel great about the decisions you are making and move forward.  I cannot wait to share it with you!!

At SHINE and afterwards so many women approached me to ask if it was worth it.  Am I glad I did it?

Since I’ve been teasing you for a few days with the answer, I’ll give you the short answer right away.  Yes, I am grateful to have made a $100k investment in Ali Brown’s diamond program.

That doesn’t mean investing $100k in a coaching program is right for you though.

If that’s what you’re wondering, let’s explore why I’m grateful I did it and how that might relate to you and your experience.

1.  I needed a major challenge.

I had hit 7-figures in my second business, written a book, appeared on TV and was ready for the next level.  I thought I knew what the next level was and that the diamond program would bring me closer to it.  It turns out the next level was totally different than I thought it would be.  And I’m so grateful to have discovered it.

2.   I was ready to take full responsibility for my results.

I hired my first coach ten years ago when I still worked at a law firm.  I was so resistant to it.  Thought I was too smart for coaching. Thank God I got over that!  Had I not, I’d probably still be at that law firm wondering why I never made partner and blaming everyone else for it.

Since then, I’ve had many coaches and become a coach myself.  What I’ve noticed is that those new to coaching (including myself back in the day) have a tendency to be stuck in a victim/blame mentality.  What that means is that when things don’t go well or you don’t appear to be making progress, you’ll be tempted to blame your coach.  It’s a natural thought pattern if you haven’t done some serious work around personal responsibility.  And it’s the exact thing that will keep you stuck exactly where you are.

About half way through the year this year, I began to ask myself if I’d received my money’s worth from the diamond program.  It was a great awareness point for me.  I noticed how my mind wanted to find all the ways the program wasn’t worth it.  Victim/blame mentality was on the field.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to practice personal responsibility.  I got to consciously say to myself “Alexis, it’s half way through the year.  What do you need to do to ensure you don’t f*%! this up and waste the $100k you invested in this program.”

You see, when you make the investment in a $100k program, the coaching is a very small part of it.  You can hire an amazing coach for much, much, much less than $100k.  You make the investment in a $100k program because 1) you need to kick yourself in the ass and shake things up and that’s what it’s going to take for that to happen for you; 2) you want to play with other high level business people who are also taking full responsibility for themselves; and 3) you will make sure it’s worth it for you, no matter what.

So, at the end of the day, what was it that made it worth it for me?

Well, besides everything I wrote about here there are a few other benefits I received from my investment:

3.  I’m a natural voyeur and I learn best from watching others (not to mention, I simply love to watch).

Some of my biggest learnings came from watching behind the scenes as Ali made a major shift in her business and her life (those lessons will have to be a whole nother blog post).  In addition to getting to watch Ali’s big shift:

I got to watch Lisa Sasevich go from $130,000 per year to more than $2,000,000 this year without making a single change to her website. (Made me realize how much time/effort most of us waste on stuff that simply doesn’t matter in the grand scheme).

I got to watch JJ Virgin build an entire brand from scratch.

I got to watch Kendall Summerhawk double her business and launch a brand new certification program.  Plus, seeing how her and hubby Richard work together has been sweet.

I got to watch Sheri McConnell focus, say no, let go and step into her power and become a knock-out, red hot mama along the way. (Interestingly, several of us got HOT thanks to JJ’s coaching – I’m down below 125 lbs for the first time in 10 years, Lisa S. is smokin’ and even Mike Reese is looking pretty svelte).

And I got to watch each of Karen Knowler, the PRTakeOff girls, Mike Reese, Ciara Daykin and Michele DeKinder-Smith make HUGE leaps in their businesses.

Over the next several months, I’ll share with you the specifics of what I learned from watching.

4.  I discovered I no longer have something to prove.  The ego has been mostly annihilated.

This is a huge discovery.  Huge, huge, huge, huge.

It hit home for me when I was listening to Barbara Corcoran speak at #Shine.  She was my absolute favorite part of the whole event bar none.  A new hero for me.

Barbara talked about that she was driven to create her $5 billion company by fear and insult.  Her drive came from a deep desire to show her 3rd grade teacher she wasn’t stupid and her ex-boyfriend that she could be successful without him.

As she spoke I realized how much of my drive and ambition came from a very similar desire.  I graduated first in my class from Georgetown because I wanted to prove to the boys from 7th grade that I was smart.  And that this year in diamond has been a lot about letting go of this need to prove something.

I walked into our first diamond meeting armed with a Powerpoint presentation showing off everything I was working on and all I was going to accomplish over the year.  At meeting 2, I sat on a stool at the front of the room and cried for my entire presentation time.  And by meeting 3, I realized I’m no longer competitive.  I don’t care if I make the most money or become the most famous.  I just want to be with my kids and love my life.

Had you told me this would have happened when I signed up for diamond last year, I would have wanted to punch you in the face.  I was so attached to the idea of what I wanted and how it had to look.  And what I had to prove.  But it did and I’m so grateful.

Sure, I’d love to build a $5 billion company like Barbara Corcoran.  But, not with the same drive and push Barbara has.  If that’s what is required, I’m okay with not doing it.

5.  I’m a juicy, sexy woman and I want to stay that way and bring it into my business.

Barbara talked about her husband a little bit from the stage and mentioned that they rarely have sex and she doesn’t feel sexy.  I get it.  I’ve been there.  When I’m immersed in ambition and drive, I don’t feel sexy or want to have sex either.  All of my juice goes into my business.

Anne McKevitt, Ali’s mentor, told us from the stage that her doctors told her last year that she needed a pace maker.  She felt so hard to me from the stage. So masculine.

I’ve been there and done that.  Push, push, push.  I don’t want to build my business that way anymore.  I want to relax, let go, be a woman.

If I become a famous, multi-millionaire …  great.  If not, that’ll be okay too.  But, what’s not okay is for me to feel hard inside and cold and tough. I want to be soft, yielding, sexy and yummy.

6.  I trust.

Today, I trust deeply that everything that is meant to happen will and I can relax into it, allowing instead of forcing it.

My job is to get crystal clear about what I want, set my intention for that, take the next right indicated step, trust that I finally know exactly what I need to know (I’ve spent 10 years accumulating huge, expensive knowledge) or that I will receive the knowledge I need when I need it and finally, trust, trust, trust that when I need to act, I will.

Big revelations for me.  All things I’d heard and read about in the past and knew on the intellectual level.  Today, I embody them in a way I have not before.  I’ve let go of a major, long-held dream.  Something I’ve held tight to for the past several years.  And I’m in mourning for it.  But, also trusting that if it’s meant to be, it will be. It’s in God’s hands and I can let go.

Smart (at least for  law school purposes) meant an extraordinary capacity to study non-stop and have an intuitive sense for what the professors looked for in exam answers.

More than ten years have gone by and I find myself being forced to completely re-examine the meaning of “smart” within the context of my own children and I have to tell you, it’s painful.

I knew that being “law school smart” l was only one type of smart and that there were lots of other ways to be smart, but I was secretly grateful that I didn’t have to rely on any of those other ways for proof of my smarts.  And yes, I did feel as if I had to prove it, to myself and everyone else.

Now, ten years later, I’m reminded once again that the Universe never lets me get away with anything.  If I don’t work through something and learn to drop the conditioning, it always comes back up.

So here it comes through my kids.  They are not test-taking/law school smart.  I was reading at the age of three.  They were barely talking by two.

My daughter reads now, going into 4th grade, but only because we forced her to learn.  And she doesn’t like it.  I’m holding out hope that she might one day begin to love it.  But, I’m no longer holding my breath.

For the past four years, my daughter has been attending the most prestigious (and expensive) private school in our community.  We decided to apply “just to see” and then couldn’t not send her there after we got in.

I thought we could fit in, but no matter how much I wanted to, it didn’t mean we would.  I could fake it for short amount of times, but the truth was I was faking it and integrity is one of my highest values, so it felt really bad.

I was willing to have my kids be there even though we didn’t fit in if it was a good fit for them educationally.

After my son attended his first year there last year, I knew for certain, it wasn’t.  My daughter was more easily fit into their box, but after going through it with her and contemplating doing it with him, I recognize how much I just don’t want to do it.  I don’t want to tame my son.  Not like they want him to be tamed.

And now I’m faced with re-examining my own beliefs about what’s smart and what’s not.

As we embark on this journey of homeschooling, everything I ever thought about education and learning is being challenged.  It’s bringing up every fear, uncertainty and doubt I’ve ever had about so many things.

I’ve been silently dealing with my demons – alternating between letting it be, trying to control everything, and beating myself up for failing.  Today, I finally had enough.  I can’t answer these questions alone.  And I asked my online communities for help.

Jo (my BFF who is living here with me and homeschooling her kids and mine) asked me to do some reading, inquiry and investigation before I made any decisions about how the kids should be schooled.  She’s been unschooling since the beginning.  Her kids (same age as mine) are more advanced in some areas and less advanced than others than my kids (there’s that comparing thing) yet there’s a part of me that says “unschooling” is okay for her kids because they are inherently “smarter.”  My kids aren’t smart enough.  My kids can’t be trusted the way her kids can.

Where does that come from?

Why do I believe I can’t trust my children to know what they need.  I get it that the conditioned culture tells us we can’t trust, we must control, it’s up to us to know what their needs are better than they do and meet them.  They cannot be trusted to make smart decisions for their well-being.  And the piece of me that still desires to “fit in” to societal norms wants to agree.

But then, there’s this other piece.  The piece that says %*@! all that.

I can trust my children.  They inherently know and if I just give them the chance to re-discover what they know, they’ll remember everything.   While I know that this is the truth in my heart and soul, it scares me to death.

What if I’m wrong? What if they spend all day watching TV and playing video games because I’m too caught up in my own work to guide them properly?  What if they never learn to read, write and do math?  What if they always hate reading? What if … what if … what if … what if I fail in my most important job as their mom?

Thankfully, my spiritual foundation has somewhat prepared me for these what ifs.  I know it’s all perfect.  I know I can’t fail them.  I know I can trust.  But, damn, it’s hard.

I need to redefine everything I ever thought about education. And parenting.  And being smart.  And working hard.  And fitting in.  What a blessing.

Maybe if I share it with you, it will actually sink in and I can embody it instead of just know it’s true on an intellectual level.

Ok, so here it is.

I need to let go of control and trust more.

That’s all nice and easy to say, but let’s take a look at what that really means in my life and why it’s so hard to do.

Before we do, let me say this – I am going to do it. I am going to trust and let go. Starting now, in this moment. And it’s going to be okay if I have to start over in every moment because I forget.  I’m going to do it.

The alternative is too freakin’ painful. For you too, I bet. Maybe you’ve numbed yourself to the pain (I lived that way for a long, long time), but eventually you’ll feel it and when you do, you’ll have to learn to let go and trust.

Maybe this will help.

Thing I need to let go of & trust about #1:  My kids and screen time.

I am a single mom raising two kids and running multiple businesses from my home.  My kids love to watch TV and play video games.  I need to stop stressing out about the amount of screen time they get and let it be as it is, trusting that sending them to camp & spending an hour or two of focus time with them throughout the day is enough for most days with 6-7 hours each day on weekends and the occasional mid-week 3-4 hour focus.

It hurts me to even write that because there’s a part of me that doesn’t think that’s enough.  There’s a part of me (the part that wanted my mom to spend all her time with me, I guess) that believes I should be spending a whole lot more time playing games and reading to my kids.

But, it’s just not realistic at this time.  And I feel like crap about it though I hide it really well most of the time.  Or at least I think I do.

So, I’m going to accept what is and stop thinking it should be some other way.  I’m doing the best I can.  I love to work.  I love to be able to work here at home while my kids play with their friends, play on the computer and watch TV.

And I’m going to trust that it’s all okay.  My kids won’t grow up with mind-rot.  I watched a boatload of TV when I was a kid – Brady Bunch, Laverne & Shirley, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeanie, Three’s Company, One Day at a Time, Dynasty, Love Boat.  These were the shows that taught me my values, such as they were.

I guess that’s what I don’t want.  I don’t want my kids raised by the television.

And now I can see that even when they get lots of screen time, it’s the teachable moments that I’m present for because I get to run my companies from home that are the important part.

I’m sure I’ll get some dissenting views, people who think I should be home with my kids and not running a business or earning money at all.  They are the outer representation of my inner critic, so of course they will be appear in reality until I’ve cleared the guilt/thoughts from my own consciousness.

It helped tonight when my mom told me it’s okay for my kids to watch tv or play on the computer.  Still need her validation, I guess.

Thing I need to let go of & trust about #2:  My TV show.

I know I’m supposed to have my own TV show or be a major player in a multi-personality show.  For the past couple years, I’ve been alternatively stressing and wondering if it will ever happen, taking action on things I believe will help it happen more quickly and/or deciding I don’t want no stinkin’ TV show anyway.  Sometimes all at once.

When I was in Maui, I decided I wasn’t going to stress about it anymore, but I wasn’t going to wait around either.

My life is far too instructive to not let you in so you can see what’s possible in your own life, no matter how crazy and chaotic things are sometimes.

So rather than wait for someone else to catch the vision, I decided to just begin.  And the Mommy Business Live TV series was born.  Since then, I’ve stopped stressing out about whether the tv show will ever happen off the internet.  It either will or it won’t, but my anxiety about it won’t make it happen any faster.

So, I’ve been happily taping activities in my daily life and sharing them with you.  I haven’t been able to get the very best stuff (like when my kids are freaking out and I’m dealing with it much differently than most people, I think) because during those times I’m too in the situation to whip out the camera.

Even without that though, I’ve gotten some pretty great stuff, I think.  Dave handling one of my moods in typical Dave fashion is my favorite so far.

In fact, I think I got some pretty great footage last week – took my kids with me to the training conference for my Personal Family Lawyers and then we stayed over for some vacation with Dave and his kids.  Lots of juice.  Kids on a business trip.  Behind the scenes of the conference I was hosting.  Dave’s kids and my kids.  Even a fishing trip during which my kids caught 8 whoppers!

Unfortunately, you may never see any of that footage because I left one of my Flip video cameras at the hotel and it’s possibly lost and my other Flip is freezing up.

I could spend the next couple of hours stressing out and trying to fix the frozen Flip or try to locate the lost one, but there’s far too much on my plate.  I need to let it go and trust that for some reason you aren’t supposed to see that footage.  I need to let it go and trust that not being able to record a video for you tonight was fine.  No, not fine … perfect.

And, in fact, it is because I’m writing this blog post instead and apparently writing is what is needed now.  How do I know that?  Because it’s what’s happening.

If I’m supposed to have a TV show on network TV, I will.  But no more stress about it.  At least not for tonight.

The truth is that it’s all happening.  I’ve been asked to do a live internet television show for moms.  I’ve met with a producer who loves the Mommy Business and wants to move it forward.  Trust and let go.

Thing I need to let go of & trust about #3:  My own time behind the screen.

I spend a lot of time in front of my computer.

I may have mentioned this before already (perhaps a few times) … I’m running two businesses from my home, one a multi-milion dollar business that’s transforming the way lawyers are with their clients and the other on track to possibly hit 7-figures this year.

Both of them pretty much start-ups and growing substantially each month.

Along with that comes a whole lot of stuff for me to do.  It’s just the way it is.

Let’s take a look at just this week:

1. I promoted and hosted a call teaching lawyers how to engage the prospects who call their office.
2. I’m in the middle of teaching a teleconference series to business owners on the  legal, insurance, financial and tax systems necessary to have a rock-solid foundation primed for growth.
3. I’m preparing for a huge, innovative launch dreamed up by me and Dave and recruiting affiliates for that campaign, which kicks off with an affiliate training call this Tuesday.
4. And, I’m giving a 90-minute presentation at the Los Angeles County Bar Association Small and Solo Firm Conference on how lawyers in small and solo firms can have it all and do it all.

It’s all happening and it’s all happening right now!   The truth is, I love it and it’s very unlikely that I’ll just be involved with one business, ever.  It’s not my nature.  I LOVE business.  I love starting new businesses and creating and planning and executing.  And I’m busy and it’s perfect.  When it’s not anymore, it’ll be different.

And because I’m doing so many things at once, not all of them are going to move as quickly as I’d like.  Which brings me to the 4th thing I need to let go of and trust about and will have to be the last thing for tonight because I can only make so much progress at a time.

Thing I need to let go of & trust about #4:  Who, Where, and When

I cannot control the who, where and when of anything even though I really really want to!  I can only control What and Why … and even then only somewhat.

I get to choose the what I do, be, have and the why that drives the what.  (And I’m only really choosing when I’m acting from a place of awareness instead of reacting, which isn’t even all the time yet.)

But, I cannot control who shows up, where or when they are ready.

And because I’m involved in so many things, I also need to cut myself slack on the “if only I worked harder at it” more people would show up front.  Tonight, I was a stressed out that our call is on Tuesday and many of the people I thought would sign up to be there haven’t yet and I don’t feel like I have time or energy to remind them again about the call.

I know it will be great for them, but I can’t control it.  I have to let go and trust that the right people will be there.

If you are reading this and you serve business owners and want to put money in your pocket this summer, get your message in front of tens of thousands by the end of July, bring more business in for your business over the long-term and cement your relationship with your list forever, you’ll be on Tuesday’s call even if I don’t do another thing.

The right people will show up so long as I’m putting my best possible effort into it … because it’s perfect.  So long as I continue moving forward in faith and taking inspired action, the Universe will reward me with everything I need.

I’ve come to accept I may not get everything I want when I want it, but I’ll always get what I need for my highest and best good.  All I have to do is do my best with the resources I have available in any given moment and keep moving forward guided by what deeply inspires me.  And let go of control and trust.

Now, this dog trainer had his act together.  He charges $875 for 5 sessions, which is pretty good considering most dog trainers make about $30/hour.  His schedule is booked weeks out and he’s clearly got the whole thing scripted out and down.

Of course, because I can’t help but coach everyone I meet about either starting a business or expanding their business, I immediately start talking to him about expanding his business by licensing others to use his systems and creating a dog training franchise empire.

Each time he came back for one of our sessions, I coached him a bit more and he got more and more excited.  He had considered writing a book or doing some TV in the past, but he’s so busy working all the time, he’d never gotten around to it.  By licensing others to use his systems, he could stop trading time for dollars and free up some time.

At the last of our 5 sessions, he admitted to me why hadn’t ever moved forward with any of his big dreams to expand his business and probably wouldn’t now either.  What he admitted is something that holds most people back and could be holding you back too.

It made me absolutely, positively, totally grateful for the kids in high school who made my life miserable.  Back then, I was devastated. Today, I’m grateful because it’s allowed me to experience massive success and take action where many others can’t.

The kids who excluded me taught me to deal with being judged, criticized, hated, taunted, teased, and bullied.  As it was happening, there were times I wanted to die.  But, I made it through and it made me strong.

I went within myself to discover the truth.  Was there something really wrong with me or was it them? How could I hold onto myself in the face of their cajoling?  Should I conform?  Hide?  Disappear? Or grow?

Through my introspection and inquiry, I discovered and accepted there was something about me that was threatening to them and they dealt with this threat by being mean.  I came to see it as a reflection on them,  not me.  To survive, I learned to embody that truth and stand tall in the face of yuck.

As a result, I am able to put myself out there as an entrepreneur in ways most others can’t.

The dog trainer made me realize how important this was when he told me that he hasn’t moved forward with his big dreams because he’s too sensitive.  The pain of criticism is too intense for him to bear.

He sees the lawsuits, flames and barbs that are tossed at Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, and he can’t bear to experience it.  I understand.  Just imagine how Suze Orman feels when she reads this and this.

In the past several months as I’ve gotten more exposure, I’ve experienced some serious ugliness – criticism, lawsuits, threats, barbs, all of it.

And because I experienced and dealt with that pain in high school and discovered the truth of it and what it meant about me, I’ve been able to mostly let it roll off.  Mostly.

So, thank you mean people from high school,you have prepared me well to carry out my mission.  And thanks to your preparation of me, I’ll be able to make a big difference in the world.