The concept of repositioning yourself is one of the single most productive things you could ever think about.  Average people resign themselves to their situation: “I guess this is as good as it’s gonna get, so I’d better buckle in.”  Repositioning yourself is what wealth-minded people do.  This is how normal people become successful and how successful people remain successful.  How did Chris Gardner go from welfare to millionaire in The Pursuit of Happyness?  He repositioned himself.  How did Ashton Kutcher go from goofy kid actor to wildly successful and well-respected producer?  He repositioned himself.  How did Oprah go from poverty and child abuse to talk-show host, media mogul, worldwide philanthropist and self-named empire?  She continually repositioned herself.  How can you go from mediocre to mind-blowing?  Bored to brilliant?  Reposition yourself.

The value of repositioning yourself has life-altering implications regardless of the stage of life you’re in.  However, as a society we tend to buy into generational limitations on this concept, so I’d like to discuss our repositioning by decade to dispel some of these lethal myths:

20s—Wanna know the single biggest mistake we make in our twenties?  We think in terms of “someday”.  At this age, we’re still ten feet tall and bullet proof.  The life skills of proactive planning, wealth management, and strategic thinking aren’t taught in most high school and college programs, so we skate through the first decade of independence assuming that one day we’ll figure it all out.  This is one of my favorite ages, because we’re young, energetic, brilliant, and full of life.  But unless we learn the lesson of compound interest in this era, we can waste much of the next 40 years on regret.  And I don’t just mean the compounding interest of money.  I’m also referring to the compounding interest of time.  For all of you who are under the age of 30 reading this right now (even if your well-meaning although highly irritating parent shoved it in your face), please take my advice on this: To get a jump start on the successful life you deserve to live does not mean that you have to give up your fun!  Don’t listen to the goofballs who are just as broke and directionless as you are.  Study the people you want to emulate and ask for their advice.  You can make education fun, find a job you love, learn to make money, manage money, and invest money wisely ALL while having the time of your life—if you’re willing to reposition yourself.      

          30s—Why is becoming an adult so hard?  Because we fight an ongoing internal battle of being the kid versus raising the kids.  Now, I’m fairly new to this role, but here’s what I can tell you so far.  The crowd is very enticing.  Peer pressure is just as strong in this age group as it was in high school.  It could be very easy to wake up at 35 and wonder what you did with the last 10 years of your life.  But you can make up for it and then some—if you’re willing to reposition yourself.

          40s—You may be a forty-something and married with kids.  You find yourself working at a job that you try to convince yourself daily you don’t hate, just to maintain your sanity.  You go to work everyday out of a deep sense of responsibility for your family whom you love very much and would do anything for.  But what if you could find a job that you love and that pays well?  They do exist.  And if you can’t find one, you can create one.  But you must be willing to reposition yourself.  Or, maybe you’re a forty-something and newly single parent.  If you allow yourself to be washed down river with the popular socio-economic trends, you could easily spend the next fifteen years barely scraping by financially and having no life whatsoever, because you spend every last dollar and minute you have trying to give your kids the life you know they deserve.  But what if you didn’t allow yourself to be washed away with the current?  What if you repositioned yourself and swam upstream?  You could break the generational curse of mental and financial scarcity for your family.  You could create a legacy of abundance and freedom for your family—freedom of both time and money—but you must be willing to reposition yourself.

50s—Are you in your fifties?  Research has proven two very interesting facts about people in this age group.

Fact #1:  The fear of old age is one of the six major fears of modern man.  In the timeless classic, Think & Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill cited two common symptoms that will help you diagnose whether you suffer from this fear.  The first is a “tendency to slow down and develop an inferiority complex, falsely believing one’s self to be ‘slipping’ because of age”.  The second telltale sign of whether you’re buying into the fear is a “habit of speaking apologetically of one’s self as ‘being old’ merely because one has reached the age of forty, fifty, or sixty”.

Fact #2: The truth is that man’s most useful years, mentally and spiritually, are those between forty and sixty.  To paraphrase Hill’s words, individuals rarely “arrive” or succeed greatly before the age of forty.  In fact, observation of thousands of successful men and women proves that the most fruitful years for a person are between forty and sixty.  This should encourage us to reverse the rule of fear and instead express gratitude for having reached the age of wisdom and understanding, and embrace this season with much excitement!

So, a person in this age category could choose to become old, simply by passage of time. Or they could choose to capitalize on their wisdom and experience, through application of life lessons learned.  This would start with one decision—a willingness to reposition yourself.

60s and beyond—Our Golden Years will only be our Golden Years if we are willing to reposition ourselves.  It’s not a rite of passage or a phase of life that is guaranteed to be golden.  Anyone who successfully reached this stage of life to find it truly golden will tell you they did so through proper positioning of themselves along their journey.  But what if you hit this stage without proper positioning?  Is it too late?  Not until you inhale your last breath.  Ben Franklin said that we die from the neck up when we stop dreaming.  You can reinvent yourself, create a new dream or bring the old one back to life, and find a way to live that dream—if you’re willing to reposition yourself.

Have you been buying into a lie?  Have you accepted the false reality that you’re too old, too tired, too broke, or too stuck in your old ways?  Did you accidentally buy a membership into the club that says you’re not smart enough, educated enough, talented enough, tough enough, or pretty enough?  You may not be able to get your money back, but you can certainly exchange that old belief for a new one!  Is it time to adjust your lenses on life?  Would you prefer a new perception of reality?  You see, “realistic” is whatever you want it to be.  You’re never too bankrupt to become wealthy.  You’re never too obese to become healthy.  You’ve never failed too miserably in business to become successful.  Telling yourself, “It’s too late for me” is like voluntary checking yourself into an insane asylum while trying to convince yourself it will be like a weekend at the spa.  IT MAKES NO SENSE!  And you can turn it all around…if you’re willing to reposition yourself.

Have you ever heard the old adage that men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti?  Imagine with me that we are staring at two plates, sitting side by side.  One holds a waffle, and the other plate is full of spaghetti noodles.  If you look at the waffle, it looks like a grid.  It’s been said that men approach life like a waffle…everything is neatly categorized into different sections of the grid.  When we compare men to women, I definitely have to hand it to the guys in this department.  They are a very simple creature.  Now, stick with me for a second, because in no way do I mean that as an insult.  In fact, I mean it as a huge compliment.  Simple doesn’t mean ‘not intelligent’; it means ‘not complex’.   Their brains are actually wired to see life this way.  Mentally, they have a work box, a wife box, a kids box, a buddies box, hobbies box, and so on.  Everything fits neatly into its box, which allows men to mentally process information in a very straightforward, and guilt-free manner.

Women on the other hand, are not so simple.  We are a complex beast.  I often wonder how different life would be if only we could be so simple, and I have a strong feeling our male counterparts must sometimes think the same thing!  Thinking back to our food analogy, we approach life just like that plate of spaghetti.  Nothing stands alone…all the different areas of our life overlap and are intertwined with one another.  Our lives are messy, and it can be impossible for us to separate our families from our careers and our personal goals.  Just like the big pile of intertwined pasta on your plate, if you try to pull just one noodle onto your fork, you’ll likely end up with the entire pile of spaghetti wrapped around your utensil.  It seems almost impossible to separate just one noodle from the pack, and so it goes for women.  Our lives seem like one big plate of interlocked pasta, swimming in a delicious sauce of emotions…no wonder we’re always such a mess!

What does this have to do with boundaries?  Of course I’m speaking in generalities here, and there are exceptions to every rule, but research shows that men on the whole have an innate ability to compartmentalize, which helps them to draw boundaries between their personal and professional lives.  And girls…I’ve gotta tell ya…this is one lesson we could really look to learn from our guys.  Ever wonder why we never feel completely present to the moment?  It’s called a lack of boundaries.  When we’re at work, we’re constantly feeling guilty about our families, and when we’re with our families, we’re thinking about all the things we need to be doing at work.  It’s a very vicious and defeating pattern, so how do we break the cycle?  Boundaries.  Boundaries can become like an on/off switch for the different areas of your life.  When it’s time for work mode, you can develop the skill to simply ‘turn on’ that mental switch.  Then, when it’s family time, you can own the ability to ‘turn off’ the work switch, completely guilt-free, knowing you’ve given your best all day.  Here’s the catch: in order to earn the freedom and peace of mind to ‘turn it off’ when we want to turn it off, we must first develop the discipline to ‘turn it on’ when it’s time to turn it on.

You may have heard me mention before that boundaries are an important component of work ethic.  You should never, ever, ever have to apologize for your work ethic.  In today’s society, we are often times made to feel guilty for working hard, because we see so many people who neglect their families as they hide behind the label of “workaholic”.  Remember, there is a major difference between work ethic and workaholic.  Work ethic is a noble trait to be honored. Workaholic is simply the absence of this life-skill called boundaries. Have you ever struggled with the issue of “balance” in your life?  You feel like you have to keep the weight evenly distributed between both areas.  You want to give 100% to both your family and your career, but you’re just not sure how to balance it.  And if we ever feel that we’ve been neglecting one for the other, we often try to fix the problem by over-compensating in the opposite direction, only to create even more problems in the long run.  How do we stop the madness?  We’re not going to solve the problem by giving up on our professional goals or by sending our family down the river.  It is possible to have impeccable work ethic and still create an amazing family life.  How?  You guessed it: boundaries.

You can also think of boundaries as traffic lights on the path of your daily life.  When a city is deciding where traffic lights are needed, they look from an aerial view to see the big picture.  From this aerial view, the design team can see where one road will intersect another, when one path has total right of way, and when another lane will need to yield.  When a lane has a green light, all travelers are free to move forward at full speed.  As you are driving through this lane, when your light turns to yellow, it will be time to slow down and prepare to stop, so it’s time to switch gears.  As we design our own month, week, and day, we can see how to manage the traffic of our life and merge them all together from an aerial view.  We can choose where to erect the traffic lights in our day to force us to stop one lane and give another the green light.  One word of caution: it is a victim’s mentality that says, “I can’t control my time…my _____ (insert “boss,” “kids,” or anyone else for that matter) controls it for me”.  As the saying goes, “Authority is 20% given and 80% taken…so take it!”  If I know that I only have eight hours of work time to get everything done, and there is no option of taking the work home, you’d better believe I’m going to work with a greater sense of urgency than if I’m in a pattern of always taking my work home.

If I want to have amazing work ethic and an amazing family life, what do I do?  I set the boundaries for work time and family time—ahead of time.  Then I give 100% to my career during career time, and I purposefully switch gears and give 100% to my family during family time.  It really is just that simple.  Not necessarily easy, but simple.  Just like we’ve all been trained to follow traffic rules, we can train ourselves to live by our own boundary rules as well.  I’ve heard many men say that they are naturally stronger in focus and performance in certain compartments of their life than others.  But with some intentional application of this principle to the other areas of their life, they can definitely strengthen the whole waffle to look they way they want it to! And how about our spaghetti plates, girls?  We don’t have to become waffles to make our dreams come true, but if we can learn to slow down and savor each noodle individually, we can actually enjoy the entire meal.  If life is a highway and traffic laws are for our safety, let’s use them to our advantage and meet up for the feast of life…waffles and spaghetti…the perfect combination of sweet and salty…exactly the way life should be!

That week this woman called up a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention the reason for her interest; only that she was curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the process, she was struck by 3 significant revelations about the character and nature of God. 1) The silversmith held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one must hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flame is hottest in order to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such hot spots of life where we think heat is unbearable, then she thought again about the verse that says “He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.” 2) She asked the silversmith to continue, and went on to share that he must sit in front of the fire, holding the silver the entire time it’s being refined.   And, not only does he sit there physically holding it, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the whole time it was in the fire.  Why?  Because if the silver was left in the flames even a moment too long, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. 3) Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?” He smiled at her and answered “That’s the easy part…when I see my image reflected in it.”

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The second story happened on television several years ago, back when Oprah was in the middle of her lawsuit with the Texas Cattlemen.  One of my mentors saw the show, and shared with me a summary of what transpired.  The defamation trial took place in Amarillo and Oprah was forced to tape her show there for over a month in 1998 while she was going back and forth to court.  In the end, Oprah won the case, but it was undoubtedly a stressful time.

During one of the episodes, Oprah had her personal mentor and friend, Maya Angelou, on the show.  Many of us know and respect Dr. Angelou for her famous quotes, books, poems, and words of wisdom, and she’s also an actress, producer, educator, and civil rights activist.  On this particular show, Oprah was discussing how she felt about the very public case, and apparently she slipped into a bit of a complaining state about the stress and inconvenience of everything related to the lawsuit.  According to my mentor’s recollection of the situation, Dr. Angelou, who is about 20 years Oprah’s senior and normally extremely calm, interrupted the talk-show host mid-sentence and said very forcefully, “Oprah, you need to get down on your knees right now and give thanks to God for this experience.”  Oprah was obviously taken aback by the scolding, and wasn’t sure how to respond.  Her mentor repeated the statement again with more emphasis, “Right this moment!  You need to get on your knees and thank God for this trial in your life.”  Oprah looked at her in a bit of disbelief, of course wearing a dress and high heels.  “You mean literally?  You want me to actually get on my knees right now?”  “Yes, right this instant!  You must get on your knees and humbly, thank God for everything that is happening to you.  Not being grateful for this is throwing dirt in God’s face!”

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What wisdom do these stories hold for us today?  Our obstacles are a very literally a gift from God.  When we can begin to understand Divine Providence, we can view the world…and all of our obstacles in this world…in a brand new light.

How many obstacles are you facing today?  What are they?  Make a list of them.  Are you seeing them as battles, wars, fights, and problems in your life?  As my own mentor helped me see, what if we could shift that perspective and view them from this point forward as “classrooms” instead?  Then, we could become happy learners instead of defeated warriors.  If we are open to the process, God will use every obstacle in our life as a classroom experience to teach us what we need to learn in order to progress to the next stage of life He has prepared for us.

Can you take your list of obstacles, shift your perception of them in your mind, and physically rededicate them as classroom experiences?  Can you give thanks for each one of them as a gift in your life?  Can you be open to the learning, growth and transformation God is waiting to give you, as soon as you are ready to receive and join Him on the journey?  Which would you enjoy more…Life as a happy student, eagerly embracing the wisdom, depth and insights that are coming your way?  Or, Life as a beaten up victim, never understanding why your entire life has been a fight of some form or another…just miserably waiting for the storms to subside?

The first story shows us that God uses our trials to burn away our impurities.  But He is right there beside us.  In fact, he is literally holding us the entire time and never takes His eyes off of us even for a moment.  He knows exactly how long is too long, and He knows exactly when to remove us from the flame as pure, refined and precious.  When are we ready to come out of the fire?  When He can see His own reflection in us.  WOW.

And, the second story shows us that we will never be ready to come out of the flame until we shift our perspective.  We must become aware that our obstacles are gifts, as hard as that may be to fathom in the moment.  Remember, we can only see one tiny piece of the puzzle.  There are so many elements to our situation that we’re never even privy to.  But the moment we can stop resisting the flame and become grateful for the gift, a massive energy shift takes place in our life.  We can now be open to the lessons and opportunities that are waiting for us.

When we shift our energy field from resistance to allowing, the floodgates can finally pour in with such velocity that we wonder where they’ve been hiding all this time.  We are keeping ourselves in a state of drought!  We are keeping the waters of abundance and happiness dammed up by our resistance to the obstacles.  Your resistance is the wall of the dam.  Are you ready to allow those walls to come down?  Then get out your pen and paper, make a list of those obstacles, and conduct your own transformation ceremony.  Shift those obstacles to classrooms, and every time a hint of stress or worry or resistance begins to creep into your spirit, say a happy prayer of gratitude and let the waters of abundance and harmony sweep back in.

We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can control our experience by how we frame the event in our mind.  You may have several classrooms happening in your life: health, career, finances, family…can you embrace the heat and envision those impurities being burned away?  We are being refined as fire, and the end result is a precious commodity that reflects the joy, light, love, and radiance of God.  Along the way we have the privilege of being happy learners, if we can just readjust our eyes, hearts, and minds to be open to the Master Teacher.   What will you learn at school today?  Let’s jump in with an excited, eager, grateful smile and Dig Deeper together!

First, I encourage you to go back to the Digging Deeper blog section on my website and quickly re-read last week’s edition so that our subject matter is fresh in your mind.  Once you’ve done that, we can proceed to the next step.  Hopefully, you’ve carved out some time and really analyzed the types of lemons you’re starting with, either from the ones we discussed or your own variety that wasn’t even mentioned.  If you really want to take the lemons life has handed you and make award-winning, fortune-building, legacy-leaving lemonade, there are 6 ingredients that must be included for the recipe to work.

1.   Honesty—You must allow yourself to absorb and process the cold, hard truth of reality…no matter how ugly it is.  Only when we become aware of the truth of who we are and where we are will we get the green light to move forward freely.  If we are living in any sort of denial about ourselves or our circumstances (time, money, relationships, etc.), it will keep us stuck in the traffic jam.

2.   Ownership—We must take 100% responsibility for our situation.  Where in life will the “It’s not my fault!” approach get you?  Nowhere.  We must stop blaming other people or circumstances for our results.  Unless we are totally responsible, there is nothing we can do about our future.  Also, be aware of dream-stealers.  When other people quit or give up on their dream, are you letting them take your dream with them?  You don’t have to.  Take ownership of your dream and the awareness that you don’t have to put your dreams at the mercy of other people’s decisions.

3.   Closure—Before we can move forward, we must be willing to release the past.  This may require you to ask forgiveness, forgive others in your heart, do some serious praying, write a letter to release all of your hurts, angers, and frustrations and then burn it, or whatever you have to do to free yourself from the bondage of your past.

4.   Stop waiting—Period.  Stop waiting to get organized, to be prepared, for your family to get on board, for things to calm down at work, for the magic solution, or to feel like doing it.  The single biggest difference between highly successful people and everyone else is that they stopped waiting for the magic feather and just did the work in spite of the chaos around them.

5.   Exercise daily management—This is a deal breaker.  You will never change your life until you develop the discipline to change your day.  One day at a time.  If how you approached today—this one particular day—would dictate the outcome of your entire year, would you plan it and treat it differently?  When you begin to approach every day with that degree of importance, you will make quantum leaps in your results.  Imagine yourself being bathed in self-control like a paraffin wax pedicure.  You are the embodiment of self-discipline and self-management, NO MATTER WHAT. Stone wall consistency of character.  It’s amazing how much just meditating on these thoughts as you go throughout your day can impact your decision-making.

6.   Trim your rebound time—If you have a disappointment, how long does it take you to bounce back?   If your alarm goes off and you wake up late, does it throw your entire day into a tailspin?  Are you then tempted to chunk the whole thing, allow yourself to be stressed and frustrated the entire day, and then let all of your plans for excellence slide with the hopes of starting again tomorrow?  Or can you take a deep breath, make some quick readjustments, and then decide to live in excellence for the remainder of the day…even if you had to start in a rush?

So, there you have it.  The six ingredients to making lemonade.  The six components that will determine if 2012 will be your year, or just another year.  The ingredients are simple to list, but certainly not easy to come by.  Now that you have the list, look back at it and take stock of which ingredients you’re missing.  Tape the list to your bathroom mirror and do a quick inventory check every morning, if necessary.  If your life and future dreams are really important to you, then you have no time to waste.  You can’t afford to let any more weeks, months, and years pass by without taking action toward the new you.  Get out there and acquire your missing ingredients!

And when you’re tempted to cave, when you’re feeling weak and don’t know if you can muster the energy to continue, remember this: You must give in order to get.  You must be willing to give before you ever get anything in return.  In fact, you must be willing to give and give and give and give and then give some more before you even start to receive anything in return.  Because it’s in those seasons of giving without receiving and working with no apparent fruits of our labor that our faith is tested and the true intentions of our heart surface.  And once we’ve squeezed our lemons to the point where we can love without strings attached, show kindness and compassion without expecting a thank you or anything in return, exercise patience when everything has gone wrong, work every lead in our business without so much as a bite, and still continue on out of sheer commitment and strength of character— that is when providence begins to move.  All of a sudden you’ll wake up one day a few months from now, and people will start asking you who sprinkled the magic fairy dust over your lemon crop to make such amazing lemonade.  Then you’ll turn around and look back, wondering what on earth they could possibly be talking about, to see a harvest so plentiful that you find yourself staring in shock.  People are buzzing all around you with excitement, business is booming in such a way that you can barely keep up with demand, and you inhale the deepest, most rewarding breath you’ve ever experienced…the breath of satisfaction.  The pride of accomplishment.  Because this year you didn’t settle for lemons.  This year you made lemonade.

Or, it could be just another year.  Another year like all the years before…a year of setting goals with no expectation of achieving them…a year of mediocrity…a year of frustration, stagnation, and disappointment.  Maybe you’re one who has set and missed goals for so many years in a row that you couldn’t even fake enough excitement to set another round of goals this year.  Maybe you used to feel successful, but have become jaded and disheartened by a season of recent disappointment.  Maybe your life has fallen so far apart that you wouldn’t even know how to begin putting the pieces back together.  Maybe  you know what you want your life to look like, but the abyss separating your ideals from your reality seems too large to cross.  Maybe you know you have the potential to create a great year, but you just can’t seem to muster the energy to get started.  What if you already know all of the “answers”, but they just don’t seem to be doing you any good?  What if you’ve attended every personal growth seminar, read every self-help book, and tried every trick you know of to “get yourself out of the rut” to no avail?  What if you started off on January 1 with the best of intentions and promises to yourself, but somehow 10 weeks have already flown by and you haven’t even managed to clean up the mess from last year, much less catch your breath long enough to start a new one with a clear head?  What if every day you wake up with a genuine desire to make a change, but life seems absolutely determined to keep you stuck in maintenance mode?  You really want to change—you even make plans to change—but you can’t quite figure out how to move away from the reactionary approach of just dealing with what flies at you during the day into the proactive mode of working your plan in spite of what flies at you day to day.

If you can identify with any of the feelings or descriptions above, here is what I want you do: sit back in your chair, take a big relaxing breath, close your eyes, and imagine me sitting right beside you.  I want you to imagine (with your eyes still closed) that I am giving you a huge hug…seriously!  I know this sounds corny, but just go with me for a second.  Imagine that I’m giving you a huge, giant, bear hug…one that only a good friend can give…one that lasts for a really long time.  And then I want you to imagine that my hands are on your shoulders and I’m looking directly into your eyes, past all the junk, past all the fluff, down into the honest depths of your spirit.  And only as a friend who has been there, who has experienced all of those same feelings as you are feeling right now could say, as we are standing face to face, eye to eye, I want you to hear me say as I grip your shoulders, “YOU ARE AMAZING!  And, It’s going to be OK.”

It’s OK to acknowledge the fact that life isn’t perfect, that you’re not perfect, that your situation may be a mess.  Whether you created the mess or you had absolutely no control over the mess that was handed to you…everything is going to be OK.  In fact, things can be better than OK, fine, or alright.  Things can become great…better than great…truly phenomenal in your life, either once again, or for the first time ever.  Even if you’re feeling paralyzed by fear, apathy, or doubt.  Even if you’re having trouble believing that true, long-term change is even really possible because the speakers in your mind are blaring the same old defeating broken record of your past at such a loud volume that you can’t even seem to concentrate on anything else.  You can move on to a new song, a great song on the soundtrack of your life. But it’s time to make lemonade.

It’s time to take those lemons in your life and create a new recipe for the most delicious lemonade you’ve ever tasted in your life.  In fact, this new lemonade recipe is going to be so good that you may be able to sell it for a fortune.  What kind of lemons are you starting with?  Are they some of the ones we’ve just discussed?  Really evaluate your situation.  There are several types of lemons out there that make absolutely legendary lemonade.  Maybe you’re starting with regret lemons—regret over a lost relationship or opportunity.  You could be staring at lost-time lemons.  You know the type…you’re not exactly a spring chicken anymore and you’re beating yourself up for not getting your act together sooner.  Lonely lemons are a special hybrid: you could be absolutely all alone and want someone to share your life with more than anything on earth, or you could be surrounded by supportive loved-ones and still feel like a stranger in your own home.  Then there are guilt-lemons—you’re struggling with a sense of guilt over something you did, or something you should have done but didn’t.  Are you familiar with burden-lemons?  These come when every thing is riding on whether you make this work…when everyone around you is counting on you to succeed. Or, you may have mourning-lemons—you’ve lost someone very close to you and the pain is so unbearable that you can hardly breathe.  There are also anger-lemons.  You may be consumed with anger—either at yourself or someone else for a terrible decision.  Finally, there is a very special variety of lemon called the what’s-wrong-with-me-lemon.  If you’re not familiar with this one, it’s the one where everything is fine in your situation.  There is literally nothing holding you back.  It’s the “there is no reason on this earth why I shouldn’t be succeeding, but I just can’t seem to make it happen” lemon.

Once you’ve identified the ingredients to your new earth-shattering lemonade recipe, then we can start to make the magic happen.  So, here is what I want you to do.  Over the next week, I want you to make a list of the changes you want to create in yourself.  Literally, starting from the inside-out…what would make you a better you?  This isn’t goal-setting; we’re not making dream boards or envisioning what our perfect world would look like.  We’re deciding who we want to be and become within this less than perfect situation we’re living in.  We can’t control the weather, the economy, or even the state of affairs in our own home all the time, but we can control who we are and how we respond to the world around us.  And that will oftentimes become the catalyst to every other result that has seemed to elude us for so long.  Here are a few examples to help you get started.  Maybe you want to develop patience for people and situations.  Perhaps you want to wean out judgment, negativity, and criticism of others and replace them with kindness, compassion, and genuine love.  It may be time to stop taking your own frustrations out on the people you care about most.  Are you getting the idea?  Hopefully a few of your own are popping into your mind as well.

If you’ll accept my challenge this week and really dig deep into who you want to become, then in our next edition of Digging Deeper, we’ll do a little reverse-engineering.  This is going to be fun.  Making lemonade is always fun.  We may get sticky, and it may sting a little in the open wounds, but the end result promises to be very profitable.

No complicated advance planning, dramatic goal-setting, or fan-fare needed…
you’re just plain READY for ACTION that creates QUICK RESULTS??

If so, I invite you to join me for our own little version of MARCH MADNESS!!
For 31 consecutive days, we will MARCH AGAINST MEDIOCRITY.

Beginning March 1 – March 31, join me for 15 minutes EVERY weekday for specific coaching & accountability tips to help you BECOME the difference you want to see in your life.

Click here to watch a message from me explaining exactly how MARCH MADNESS will work:

http://www.anymeeting.com/allisonlamarr/EA53DE888648

Our MARCH AGAINST MEDIOCRITY begins today, but it’s not too late to join us!  You can catch up on the first couple of videos & join us for the MADNESS.

Let our March begin,

ALLISON

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While reading through some of my past articles, I was struck by how much my perspective has changed over the past few years.  The same exact words have entirely different meaning to me now. I began to wish that I could have new conversations with you, coming from a place of fresh perspective over these old articles.  So, that is exactly what we’re going to do!  During the upcoming rounds of Digging Deeper, I may share updated, revised, or “Version 2.0” of some of my past eColumns so that we can use the original subject matter as the springboard for new conversations…all centered around Digging Deeper to create a life of excellence…a life that we truly love and are gratefully proud to live every single day.

To start us off, I can’t think of a better subject matter than this: Change.  It’s remarkable how one word can stand for so many things, and how it can mean so many different things to different people.  It’s also very ironic that we as individuals can be so adamantly for change in the world around us, and yet resist it so fiercely from within.  Think about this with me for a moment.  We’ve all heard the age-old adages involving change.  President John F. Kennedy said very famously, “Change is the law of life.  And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”  Isaac Asimov is quoted saying, “The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change.”  If we know these things are true, and can accept them intellectually, then why can’t we seem to embrace the concept for ourselves?  Why?  Because we are creatures of habit.  Some experts say that 90% of what we do in any given day extends from habit.  How we brush our teeth, the order that we wash in the shower, our morning and evening routines, the way we approach our workday, where we park at the office, where we sit in church, the roles we play in our family dynamic, and just about every other thing we could possibly think off all boil down to habit.  But you may also be familiar with another truth involving change: if nothing changes, nothing changes.

If all of these things are true, why would we bother investing our energy in a discussion that seems to have no resolution?  Is it just to have a spirited debate involving a rhetorical topic?  Heavens, no!  I am of the opinion that flowery dialog without meat that matters isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.  So, why would I even bother to bring up a topic that seems so abstract…one that has been haunting well-intending men and women since the dawn of time?  One that seems only to keep us fixed in a fit of frustration?  Because I believe…truly believe…in my gut…with all of my heart…that we have the power to change within us.  But like any other bodily muscle, it must be exercised to become strong.  Most of us have never used our ‘change’ muscle enough to strengthen it.  We can’t rely on it when we need it, because we’ve never taken the time to develop it.  Like a baby learning to walk.  Like physical therapy after an injury.  Like an arm or leg after a cast has been removed.  We must believe that our ultimate desired result is possible, we must work at it every day with consistency of character, we must anticipate and resolve to overcome setbacks, and we must master the winning combination of patience mixed with persistence.  We are patient enough to let seeming eternities pass without giving up, yet we are persistent enough not to settle for anything less than total victory.

And you know what else?  I believe that God actually wants victory for us.  I believe that He wants us to achieve the abundant life He promises in His word.  I believe that He would never give us a dream without giving us the ability to attain that dream.  So, we can all be encouraged that there is more to life than what we have discovered and experienced so far.  If we had already fulfilled our purpose or missed it so grossly that we could never find our way back, then I believe He would either take us home or get us out of the way…ha!  But, He tells us in His Word that His mercies are new every morning, and He is literally handing us a brand new day every day to be used as a fresh clean slate.  So rather than feeling stuck, we should jump out of bed with excitement to embrace another opportunity to strengthen the muscle that will build the body which will literally carry us out of our current reality into the one we dream of.

The life you dream of may seem like a lifetime away.  It may seem so far out of reach that it’s impossible to even imagine.  But take comfort in this truth: right now you’re not responsible for changing the world.  Don’t even overwhelm yourself with trying to change your entire future.  Just focus on one teeny tiny change: the change in mindset from fear to faith.  I recently heard that the definition of “miracle” is just that – a change in mindset from fear to one of love.  Why?  Because God is Love.  And if we truly believe that we are beloved children of the King of the Universe, then what have we got to fear?  If we can let go of the guilt, self-loathing and worry for one minute and actively place our faith in God, the old verse about “the peace that passes all understanding” will actually come alive in our life.  But as we’ve heard many times, fear and faith cannot occupy the same space.  And fear and faith are simply different types of dark and light energy.  Dark energy working within us manifests itself in fear, worry, stress, anxiety, anger, bitterness, judgment, resentment, and sadness.  Light energy, on the other hand is joy, gratitude, love, peace, and happiness.  If we choose to make the on-purpose change from fear to faith, or being fueled by light energy instead of dark energy, everything use in our life will reflect that one powerful change.

What do you think would happen if that became the sole change we focused on today?  Could that one change make way for all the rest?  With every ounce of power that God has placed within you, choose that you will make today the day for that one change.  You have nothing to fear!! You are good enough to get the job done just as you are!!  Otherwise, God wouldn’t have given you that job!  Can we always strive for improvement?  Of course.  But don’t let your fear of needing to be better keep you from being your naturally amazing, bright and shining self today!  God already knows you’re amazing…He’s just waiting on YOU to believe it.  Why is it important to believe this about yourself?  Because you will never outperform your own beliefs.  Write yourself a note and stick it on your forehead if you have to!  Find a way to keep this one change in front of you at all times, because it’s amazing how just meditating on this awareness as you go throughout your day can impact your actions and decision making.

Remember, you will never change your life until you develop the discipline to change your thoughts.  So keep it SIMPLE.  Don’t worry about how you’re going to fix your whole life.  Just start with today.  And if you feel like you already royally screwed it up somehow this morning, just take a deep breath and start fresh with this very minute.  Minute, after minute, after minute.  Can you do that?  If so, the minutes take care of the hours, which build the days, which create the weeks, which turn into the months that drive the years that define your life.  But don’t go there!  Just focus on being gratefully happy, with a childlike excitement to embrace and attack today…just inhale excellence in this moment.  Be obedient to that one change for this one minute….and the rest will come.

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Before we go any further, I want to thank you from the bottom of my deeply humbled heart for your priceless words of overflowing love and support after my last edition of Digging Deeper in November.  I sat for hours and cried through each one, and for the first time in a reaaallllllly long time I actually felt OK – even good – about sitting down to have a nice cry!  Somehow your words of encouragement became like a big group hug to me at a time when I’ve never felt so alone in my life.  I also want to share my gratitude for your patience and loyalty over the past few months while I took a much-needed cocooning season.  Your “permission” allowed me to go off-grid for a little while without guilt or worry, and it gave me freedom to focus on a critical time of discovery, awareness, and healing.  I’m thrilled to say that I’m finally able to see the light on the other side.  I know I still have a long way to go, but this is quickly turning into the richest, albeit toughest adventure of my entire life.  But most importantly, I’m ready to call 2011 complete and invite you with me into the wild and crazy ride of a brand new beginning!  So, for this edition of Digging Deeper, out of fairness to you, I’d like to merely share what you can expect from me as we embark on 2012 together.

First, I must warn you: I may speak, sound, look, operate, and communicate differently than I have in the past.  That’s simply because I’m thinking, feeling, and behaving differently than I ever have before!  For several months, I seriously considered closing the doors of Digging Deeper and http://www.allisonlamarronline.com/. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t seem to get motivated to jump back in and tackle it all again.  Then it finally dawned on me that I was no longer passionate about it because it represented an old, outdated version of me!  In order for me to truly embrace this platform and serve you with conviction, I must have the freedom to bring my message up to speed with who I am today instead of constantly replaying an old record of who I used to be.  I realized that I was living in fear of alienating some of our group members because they may no longer resonate with my message.  But guess what??  That’s OK!  I’d much rather us be a smaller, more tight-knit community of like-minded women than a sea of confused souls who have no clear, unified purpose and objective.  So, if our paths need to take different directions from this point forward, please know that I love you deeply, I will always treasure our time together, and I pray for life’s richest blessings on wherever your road may travel.  And for those of you who want to stick around…buckle up, cuz this is going be a fun trip!

Alright…enough of the warm, fuzzy stuff…let’s get down to business.  (By the way, how am I doing?!?  Many of you know that ‘warm & fuzzy’ is new for me, but I’ve been experimenting with it over the past few months, and I actually kinda like it…ha!)  Perhaps I should begin by sharing what I won’t be doing this year.  As of now, I have no plans to create new programs.  I spent the past 4 years creating the existing ones I have in place.  I’m very passionate about the unique message in each of them, I still believe in them fully, and they share everything I need to say about those areas of life.  (Sharpen Your Edge, Digging Deeper for Success Coaching Program, and the 90-Day Transformation all share different pieces of my story and pass along what I believe are critical elements to creating a life of personal and professional victories.)  My other CDs, DVDs, and online programs address specific skillsets and will continue to remain available for your use.

And, since I won’t be creating new programs in the foreseeable future, I will be pouring most of my energy into two areas: my Private Mentor Program and the Digging Deeper Community.  Both have been completely overhauled and revamped, and I’m thrilled to share both of them with you.  I will resume sending out this Digging Deeper eColumn twice per month as a free resource to you, and on the alternating weeks I’ll publish some other version of support.  In fact, earlier this week I held a “Clean Slate” Video Conference for the members of my Digging Deeper Community, and as a special New Year’s gift to you, I’m giving all readers of this column exclusive FREE access to that video for the next seven days!  Just click here for the video conference.

In addition to Allison LaMarr Online, I will be focused on one other business venture.  As I shared with you awhile back, I moved to Phoenix as part of a partnership with a brand new direct sales company.  Over the past several months, I spent almost 100% of my time in the field with different leaders and sales force members developing, testing, and honing systems to create long-term, sustainable and duplicatable success.  As I was working on these projects, a spirit of unrest began to rise within me.  Over a matter of time I gained full clarity and total peace of mind concerning what I had to do.  For me, the choice became a matter of personal integrity: if I really believe in this industry as much as I profess to, my message would only have a certain level of impact coming from the corporate office.  For me to accurately convey my passion and conviction of what this industry can do for every family in America and around the world, I must live it every single day.

So, on November 2, with the support and blessing of my partners, I officially transitioned from my position as President of Sales and Training.  Instead of supporting the field from our world headquarters, I joined the field as an independent distributor.  This is honestly and truly something I never thought I would do again…and I can’t believe how much fun I’m having!  But this time around, my goal is not to create my own success…this time my mission is to build an army of success stories from all walks of life.  I truly believe that ANYONE can learn to create abundance for your family through this industry if you believe in yourself, your company, and your leadership…and I aim to spread that message one new success story at a time.  But, you won’t hear much from me about my specific company, because I don’t think this is the appropriate forum for that.  I think we can all be passionate about our own companies & endeavors for our own reasons and still come together as iron that sharpens iron, learn from each other, do life together, and hold each other to a higher caliber of excellence.

Finally, just to give you a quick personal update, JD & I are learning to love life on a whole new level together as a dynamic duo in Phoenix.  He just started Montessori school two days per week, and he’s obsessed with learning to play ice hockey when he officially becomes a big kid next month.  (What makes one a “big kid” you ask?  Apparently your fourth birthday…at least according to JD!)  As for me, I’ve fallen in love with the desert climate…and if we could just find that ocean front property I might never leave this place.  I have a very simple and crystal clear mission in 2012…but I’ll save that for another edition.  Until then…I’m grateful and blessed beyond measure to count myself as partners with you on this ride.  Let’s get back to Digging Deeper!

Well, I’m finally in a place where I can share, and I feel like I owe you a couple things.  First, I want you to know how much I appreciate your patience.  I’ve received questions and requests from some of you, and many of you have sent notes to my office checking on things.  You have always been so loyal to me, and it’s extremely encouraging to know you care.  Because of your concern, your loyalty, and our commitment to each other, I would like to share an explanation of what’s been going on with me for the past few months.

This isn’t easy for me to share.  In fact, it’s probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.  This season has been one of the most challenging seasons of my entire life for many reasons, and having to go through it at all has been tough enough on its own, but mustering the courage and strength to share my valleys publicly has become another level of ‘character development’ that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  If I could keep it all to myself for even longer and process it in my own time, I would be very tempted to do so.  But the blend of my personal life and professional life makes it almost impossible to keep them completely separate, and since you are being indirectly affected by my personal life, I want to share with you at least enough to help you understand why I’ve been quiet recently.

As much as it pains me to say it, I am currently in the middle of a divorce.  It should be complete by the end of next month.  This is something I thought I would never experience in my entire life.  Somewhere along the way, I internalized a belief that divorce is the one unforgivable sin…the one thing you just don’t do.  Divorce was always something that happened to other people, and I would feel sad for them from afar.  I could never understand how a marriage could get to the point where walking away is the best option.  So, as the reality of my situation began to settle in, I have had to battle all of these beliefs over the past several months.  I’ve been on a roller-coaster ride of emotion, bouncing between heartache, overwhelming sadness, anger, guilt, the shame of failure, frustration, humiliation, disbelief, numbness, and exhaustion.

I’m also fighting my own inner demons of feeling like a failure and a hypocrite.  No amount of gossip, scorn or criticism from anyone else could compare to the beating I’ve given myself.  At least 5 or 6 times per day I hear a voice in my head throw a dagger to my heart, saying “How can you dare coach other people to live a great life when yours is such a mess?” I’m not ready to talk about lessons learned.  I’m not ready to talk about the journey God is taking me on right now.  I’m not ready to talk about coming out on the other side better and stronger.  I’m still in the middle of all of it.  There are days when I think I can feel the hope of a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, and other days when I can barely breathe from the suffocation of pain.  I’m heartbroken over the sad end of a 14-year journey, I’m heartbroken when I think of all the memories and amazing times, and I’m heartbroken for my son…his life will be very different than the way I originally envisioned it.

But I’m also beginning to realize that while “different” can be terrifying, it can also be invigorating, freeing, and empowering.  It’s forcing me to rethink my entire future, reexamine every belief, and really decide who I am.  Not the person the world knows, not who my parents think I am, not what my career says I am, not what an online blog or some person who has never met me says about me online, not who my soon-to-be-ex-husband and his friends say I am, not who my old high school and college friends say I am, not who my colleagues and employees say I am, and certainly not the person I’ve settled for until now.

Who am I?  Who does God want me to be?  Who do I want to be when I grow up?  And what on earth do I want to do with the rest of my life? Those are the questions I’m working on right now.  Those are the questions that are consuming my thoughts at this season of my life.  Getting to know myself again is an interesting process…it’s amazing how lost we can become in our own life.  We can get so caught up playing different roles that we lose our own true identity.

So, this Thanksgiving season will be a brand new experience for me.  I’m thankful that God’s mercies are new every morning.  I’m thankful for fresh starts and new beginnings.  I’m thankful for my amazing family and support network.  I certainly have a fresh sense of appreciation for single moms.  I’m thankful that you are allowing me to be me.  And I’m grateful that the darkest seasons of life can dawn into our best day ever.

While I’m in the midst of this cocooning process, I’m going to take a little break from Digging Deeper and our network.  For the next couple of months, I won’t be offering new programs.  I’ll continue with the current ones and I’ll continue working with my private clients on their different direct sales businesses.  On a side note, let me quickly share how much I have loved working with these men and women over the past few months…you have helped me appreciate all over again the refreshing power of boundaries, and you have held me accountable to practice in my own life the lessons I’ve been preaching all this time.  On days when I haven’t wanted to do anything but mope around and feel sorry for myself, you have been my fuel to suck it up and pull it together.  You’ve reminded me that you really can negotiate with your body and mind to find more strength.  And you’ve reminded me that a champion is someone who gets up even when he can’t.  Thank you for holding me to a higher standard than I would have insisted on from myself.

I’ll stay in touch through Facebook, and I’ll come back after the New Year with an update on my plans for 2012.  I genuinely hope that we can once again partner on our journey of life together at that point.

A quick note to the members of our Digging Deeper Community: I’ll have a special update for you inside the Community later today, and I think you’ll be very excited about what I’ll share!