One More to Check Off the Vision Board!

I created my vision board after watching The Secret umpteen times, but I didn't realize how important that visioning process was going to be!

So far I've been able to check off several people I've wanted to meet, including the latest: WAYNE DYER!

I met Wayne at Bob Proctor's Life Success Consultant training this past week when he spoke to our small group for nearly 3 hours. What a treat! He was exactly as I thought he would be - intelligent, wise, kind, gracious and amazing!

I'll write more about my experiences this past week in the next couple of days. It was fantastic!

(Here's me with Bob Proctor himself!)



Hold Your Vision - the Law of Attraction WORKS!

Revisiting This Blog's Title

I've heard over the years of this blog's life from many people who have either agreed with or disagreed with the title of this blog.

"If I already know it, why should I read it?" was one question.

"How do you know what I already know?" was another.

The answer to both is, "I don't know (but you do)."

I'm learning more and more every day that it was no accident that I named this blog what I did back in 2004 when I began writing.

The phrase "we teach what we most need to learn" must have been coined specifically for me, because that's what I know for sure regarding my chosen career.

I really do know this stuff - I've just forgotten. And I've begun trusting that knowing more and more.

When I work with clients, I am notorious for spending hours and hours in preparation for a one- or two-hour presentation, tweaking my PowerPoint slides until two minutes before the presentation. Or I painstakingly attempt to conjure up every combination of question or comment that could possibly come up so I have at least some idea how to prepare.

What I'm (finally) learning is that it's taken my whole lifetime to acquire whatever information I've put into my head, whether that's learning through books or through experience. And there's a lot in there to draw from! My most useful contribution for my clients (and really for everyone in my life) is my presence, from which I can draw upon both knowledge and wisdom.

Complete presence and attention is something very few people ever experience from anyone in their lives, so when do we get a chance to practice it - whether giving it or receiving it?

So that's some of the stuff I already know and just needed a reminder.

What do you already know that you're not remembering? Is there anything that comes up for you that seems to connect with some inner knowing from way beyond your experience? Those are the cool serendipities and coincidences I'm confident you will start noticing when you become present.

Thanks to my master mind community and to Eckhart Tolle for reminding me of something I already knew - I learn so much when I just shut up and BE!

2nd Annual Bigger Small Talk Summit is History!

There was plenty of Bigger Small Talk to be experienced in Fargo-Moorhead this week! More than 20 brave souls spent Day One in Open Space where we pondered topics like Building Community, Business Leadership for Love or Profit, The Power of the Group, Finding Your Joy/Inner Child, Being. Present., H.U.B. (Humanity Unites Brilliance), The Power of Now, Creative Meeting Places / My Third Place, Obstacles & Opportunities, and Small & Significant.

Needless to say, with those topics, our small talk was almost immediately much bigger!

According to the feedback form, participants especially liked the choice of topics, being able to openly express their thoughts, seeing a new concept at work, the ease with which everyone was able to participate, and the compassion, energy and excitement of the participants.

Dick Richards helped 25 people find and name their Genius at the Genius Workshop on Day Two.

Participants really enjoyed the opportunity to dig deeper and spend an entire day in reflection about themselves and their genius. And, as my new friend and blogging buddy David Zinger pointed out, the Bigger Small Talk Summit is now international! (David hails from Winnipeg, Fargo's northern neighbor.)

It was especially rewarding for me to spend two days with Dick and with David, and we're sending out a challenge to our other blogging friends to join us next year! Here's the tag for Phil Gerbyshak, Mike Sansone, Kammie Kobyleski, Robyn McMaster, Nick Smith, Debbie Call, Kirsten Harrell, Troy Worman, Terry Starbucker, Lisa Haneberg, and heck, Steve Farber! (Of course, anyone else reading this is MORE than welcome to join us, too! The more the merrier - and the bigger the small talk!)

Watch this blog (and Slacker Manager) for more information about next year's event (it will likely be in June right here in beautiful Fargo-Moorhead!).

The Everlasting Gobstopper Philosophy

So, here's a trip down memory lane. Does anyone remember their favorite candies from their childhood? I was thinking the other day about the Marathon candy bar, a flat, braidlike stick of chocolate-covered caramel heaven, and that got me thinking about the other goodies from my youth that I don't see anymore.

Remember Bottle Caps? Wacky Wafers? Pop Rocks? OK, I'm probably showing my age now.

I even remember candy cigarettes. Not the chocolate ones, but the white crunchy ones that had some kind of powder around them which we would blow so it looked like we were actually smoking. My dad was a smoker, so it was no big deal to "smoke" in my house. How bizarre.

All this sweet nostalgia got me thinking about the everlasting gobstopper. Remember those big jawbreakers that started out one color and then changed to a different color and flavor the more you sucked on them? At the center was a sweet tart kind of core which you could get to if you were patient enough to keep licking the outside.

As I read Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, I kept thinking about the everlasting gobstopper. Tolle tells us that our ego is outside ourselves - it is not who we really are at the core. When we can stop identifying ourselves as our ego, we will start to see that we really are all the same - at that core.

So my master mind groups have been talking about how our ego is all those layers of different colors and flavors we have put on the outside of our sweet center. That's not really who we are. At our core we are all connected - we are all the same.

So imagine my delight when I examined the cover of Peter Block's new book Community and saw that the dot on the i is a gobstopper!

We really are all connected!

What do you remember from your youth? What might it be telling you today? Watch the signs ... they're everywhere!

Community is about POSSIBILITY!

I'm still digesting Peter Block's newest book entitled Community: The Structure of Belonging. It ranks right up there with A New Earth as one of the most influential books I've read in a long time.

There are just so many things to tell you about this book! Right away in the Welcome he gives me the first nugget when he defines "belonging":

"First and foremost, to belong is to be related to and a part of something....The second meaning of the word belong has to do with being an owner: Something belongs to me. To belong to a community is to act as a creator and co-owner of that community.

"...Belonging can also be thought of as a longing to be. Being is our capacity to find out deeper purpose in all that we do. It is the capacity to be present, and to discover our authenticity and whole selves."

Wow. This was on page xii!

Block goes on to describe our traditional communities - city councils, school boards, businesses, churches, even families - as focused on problems. We are really good problem solvers, so we are in a constant state of fix. Which means we will always have problems. He suggests we look at our communities with a whole new level of communication and conversations. As he told us in a previous book, The Answer to How is Yes, transformation is more about pursuing profound questions than about seeking practical answers. This book continues where that one left off.

If we are asking new questions, we are looking for - and creating - a whole new future by declaring a possibility instead of solving a problem. In this way our communities become places of restoration instead of places of retribution.

My Wednesday master mind group is beginning this book tomorrow as our next study. I've created a 10-week study guide for us as we begin this process. I'm really committed to creating a whole new future for our local community because of our work in this master mind, and I'm inviting the other 100 or so people who have been studying various books with me here in Fargo to join us in studying this book.

I know that the world will shift and transform as enough of us are creating possibilities to live into instead of expectations to live up to or problems to fix in order to justify our existence.

Let's start a conversation about possibility based on this book. What are you seeing in your own community? Do you see possibilities for transformation and new conversations based on profound questions rather than practical answers? I know I do!

On a related note, in 2003 I completed Landmark Education's Curriculum for Living and it gave me an entirely new technology for living. A lot of the structure Block talks about in this book is what Landmark is founded upon. He is clear that personal and individual transformation will not necessarily cause community transformation; however it is a great start. For more information about transforming your own life, check out Landmark's website.