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If you’re an entrepreneur, plan on going public or work with people in any capacity, at one point or another, you need to market yourself. This according to the dictionary means to sell or expose for sale in the market.

But as much as I had a strong pull to share every piece of wisdom or perspective I had stashed inside with the world, I felt quite “allergic” to what I had experienced marketing to be. So, I thought, I just won’t do it. Eventually, if the ideas were worth spreading, they would spread. But two years later, I was still hearing crickets! So I began to look for any marketer out there who could change my mind about it…and knowing that there are extraordinary human beings in all walks of life, I knew there must be someone.

I never thought I’d read someone’s blog regularly, let alone daily. But one day, there came a blog that not only got my hooked, I couldn’t even wait to read it.

I make space for it, I contemplate it. And it inspires me daily! I became curious what made it so!

I am very much into spiritual stuff and this person, on the surface, doesn’t appear to be. He’s very practical, business-y, a marketer to be exact. And never in a million years did I think that reading the words of someone like that would be part of my daily practice. I saw marketing as a way of tricking people into paying for something crappy or something that they didn’t need. And this is why I had huge resistance to “marketing” myself in any way. But if I was going to reach anybody, I needed to change that. So, I started looking for someone out there whose vision of what marketing was would inspire!

What made it so interesting and impact-ful?

Surprisingly to me it’s the shortest blog I’ve ever come across. Sometimes it is just a paragraph, usually two to three maximum.

It is evocative- a lot is said with very few words but you get ideas that can change your mindset, the way you do and see things, your culture, and why not even the world.

It’s an agent of change.

It doesn’t impose, it inspires.

It doesn’t point fingers, it gives perspective.

It doesn’t tell you what to do, it makes you think and make educated choices.

It is liberating, yet encourages you to look at and deal with the “uncomfortable”.

It is something the focus of which is deceivingly small but in the end it turns out to be anything but.

It always pertains to the larger picture of our lives and our world and how “little things” and “attitudes” shape them. It uses examples from our daily lives . It opens the scope and broadens the context within which everything functions…as if to remind us that there’s a bigger reason why we are here. 

It’s an invitation to check and see if what we say or do, or not do, or give our focus and attention to, is aligned with that reason…. or not!  And this is by far one of the most powerful things we can do for each other. Remind each other why we’re here and check regularly if we’re staying on track….

In one sentence, what makes this blog so powerful is that it’s a daily reminder that even a single word, thought or action matters and has an impact both when in and out of alignment with our core reason for being here! Now that’s marketing I feel inspired to do!

P.S this person has no idea I am writing this by the way but if you’re curious to check out his blog, it’s here.

P.S 2 One of the things I am most interested in in life is emotional connection. How to connect with each other in a safe, loving space. My two latest videos are dedicated to just that and if you missed them, you can find: The 5 Love Languages here,

And The Original Point of Connection here

Love

Milena

Success is…. desired, pursued, achieved….. or not, a goal, a life mission for some, a measurement of worth and value for others, hard to get, need-to-get -at-any-cost, and a million other things. According to the dictionary it’s one of two things: 1) the accomplishment of an aim or purpose or 2) the attainment of popularity or profit.

Now, we KNOW that we can create our own definition for things regardless of what they are but often even if we do that, we tend to live by a different definition to the one we set for ourselves.

Here’s one example. I asked my students once to write their own definition of success and they all took turns sharing them with the class. I got to one of the students and asked him first:” Are you successful?” His response was:” Oh, Noooo, I am not.” I asked what his definition of success was and he said that it was spending time with his family and friends- the people that he loved. “OK”, I said, ” Do you spend time with your family and friends?” “Yes”, he says immediately. “So”, I continued, “this means that you’re extremely successful.” “Oh, noooo”, he says . “Ok, let’s repeat”, I continued…..and we went over the same question and answer sequence again and he kept disagreeing he was successful. I found this fascinating.

What he was using to gauge his own success was not HIS definition of success but some other version perceived to be commonly accepted although it was very dissonant to him. Now, it would be extremely difficult and unsatisfying to pursue and even achieve a definition of something that is dissonant to us. So, why bother? Well, because we hope that “others” will see us as successful (or whatever it is ) and the if “enough” of them do, we will eventually start feeling this way too. That’s the illusion that we go by but by the time we realize this, we’ve already spent a ton of our time and energy trying to get to this point.

Is there an alternative? You bet! How about we go with the first dictionary definition:” To achieve an aim or purpose”. Ok, we can CHOOSE what this aim and purpose is. Someone once suggested:” What if we gauge success by how much we’re able to enjoy every moment?” Or maybe, how ok we’re willing to be no matter what happens?

One of the traps is that we tie or definition of success with a very specific outcome or result. If this outcome is not manifested, we feel like we’ve failed. But what if the purpose of this whole thing was for us to go through the experience and the “desired outcome” was just there to ensure that we go through it. Then weren’t we extremely successful? If we decide that success is to simply move through an experience, then success is always assured. And still, we have fulfilled the dictionary definition in order to make it more easily believable story for ourselves.

I had a conversation with a loved one once about why they were envious of a person. She said that it was because this other person had been successful and I (their loved one) wasn’t. Of course, here I could’ve gone into all kinds of reactions of hurt or defending or what not. But I was very curious as to why she didn’t see me as successful. So, I asked more questions. It turned out that this person had achieved the dream she had had for me. (without my knowing or agreement, of course) Ohhhhhhh, it all made sense now. All I could do was tell her that I felt very successful. That I was the happiest I had ever been and that if it was my happiness she was concerned about, I was already there….oh, and that I never wanted this particular outcome and if I had, I could’ve achieved it.

All these examples come to show that not matter what we achieve or not, there will always be people who think we’re successful and other who don’t. And some of those people would be people we love a lot.

Which voice do we hear? Do we choose to outsource how we feel and make it dependent on the perceptions of others or make it dependent on dictionary definitions? We can….. or we can choose to be our own bosses…and pretty amazing ones at that.

For what it’s worth, I see YOU as super successful- you’re here, you’re experiencing, you exist! And this is plenty and more than enough!

I now raise a glass of strawberry-mint green tea to YOUR SUCCESS 🙂

You know those times when you start doing something and it feels quite difficult or uncomfortable at first? Or maybe a bit later after the initial excitement of it has worn off? And it is these times when we usually give up and feel like it’s never going to work! I have felt this way several times in my life and always wondered whether this  ”never give up” thing was actually a good idea or maybe it just promoted suffering and pushing for the sake of pushing but not really for the sake of being happy and fulfilled. In my up-bringing I had been taught to push and push I did.

At times, though it felt so exhausting that not wanting to start anything knowing that I’d have to “push”.

This whole idea of so much effort and suffering did not sit well with me and I kept thinking that there is gotta be an easier way to live life.

My aversion to “pushing” had apparently become so strong that I even manifested an experience of giving birth without being told to “push” even once 😀 (But this is another story)

I’d like to tell you a story that finally brought some clarity about when it’s a good idea to persist and when to drop something.  

I broke up with “running” so many years ago that I didn’t even remember that I used to like it and actually be pretty good at it. I even own a shirt that says: ” The World’s Okay-est Runner: “ 😀 which in my view is an over-statement. I did all kinds of other activities but never running.  Recently my nine-year old daughter has been continuously asking me to run with her.  She’s either on her bike and wants us to keep talking and the only way for me to keep up with her is to jog, or simple because she loves running and wants to play tag. I always say ”No” and leave it at that. But one day, I just so happened to be wearing my comfiest shoes and clothes. Something made me say “yes” and I started what I thought would be a 30 second run. This is how long I would last before I’d start getting winded and thinking that this whole running thing was BS and definitely wasn’t for me.  We were chatting and she was ecstatic. We were on a long walk at a beautiful place by the ocean where simply being in appreciation of nature is not hard to do. I started getting the initial “out of breath I don’t think I can go any longer” feeling but this time I didn’t stop. I kept running telling myself that if I really wanted to, I could stop any moment. I pushed through! To my surprise, not long after, the feeling of discomfort disappeared. My body found its breath and its rhythm again. It felt good. I felt strong and free. Why hadn’t I felt this way before, I thought. Why did I not push through but always stopped at the initial phase of discomfort. The answer came:” Because I believed that the pain and discomfort will linger throughout the whole thing and probably even get worse…and I wasn’t into suffering, so I wasn’t going to do it! Aha, I thought. The discomfort, as it was, wasn’t strong enough to stop me. But the thought of it persisting or getting worse, surely did!

This is a true story but it’s only a metaphor for an attitude toward things in life many of us have in different aspects of our experience. Where do we avoid change or action because of fear of the initial discomfort? Do we do it because we fear it will last or get worse? What aspects of our lives are affected by this?

So, how do we know when to push through and when not to? Does this mean we should always try to push through no matter the pain and discomfort?

Well, we can ask ourselves a couple of things:

 Why am I doing this? Are there any potential gains that I really want out of this? Do I want it because I really like the feeling, because it makes me happy and feel good? Then, I would say -yes, push through!

Why am I NOT doing this? Is it because of fear although I really want to do it? Then yes, process the fear and push through!

Or…. maybe because I feel like I “have to”, “it’s the only way to get there”, “to prove something to somebody, or even just myself?” Then I’d say, release these beliefs and see if your reason behind it has changed to something similar to the first group of answers mentioned. If yes, push through. If not- don’t…. unless you want whatever it is that you’re doing feel like some sort of punishment.

The other important thing to consider is- how bad is the discomfort? Am I at my intelligent edge? Is it my mind that’s playing games with me telling me it’s unbearable? Do I have fears that it will never go away or get worse?

If the end result excites you a bit more than the discomfort, keep going.

If the end result seems pointless in the face what you’re experiencing, maybe drop it. But ask yourself one more thing: If the discomfort was to last just a little while longer and then, I would feel a release, would I still want to do this?

If the answer is yes, keep going! If not- then stop.

Basically, putting ourselves voluntarily into hardship and suffering just so we’d “get stronger” or ”prove something”, isn’t a good idea. But getting out into the unknown, experiencing change and riding the wave of our experience at our own intelligent edge, is a FANTASTIC idea and in my personal opinion- the most expansive and satisfying way to live life.

All they needed to do is tell us that we’re not perfect, that NOBODY is perfect and that perfection is unattainable nevertheless “we should strive for perfection“. A genius formula that basically has the system running itself or more precisely us, investing all of our energy, to run it for THEM . Who is THEM is irrelevant to this discussion and we can look at it in a separate post.

We don’t even know where this came from. Do you remember when and where you heard this first? But we believe it and we live our lives from the standpoint of “knowing” this to be true. What kind of a conundrum is this? I am not perfect, I don’t know what perfection even is, I should strive for perfection but I’ll never reach it…but still I should strive for it….but I’ll never reach it and I don’t even know what this means, and nobody can tell me either….and so on and so forth. A wild goose chase???? You BET!

Of course there is the bait, the alluding of what perfection is, little hints that tell you what it is you should be pursuing. “Well, we don’t really define perfection but here are some suggestions about what it might be, wink, wink.”

I looked up perfection online to find a picture that would represent it. Can you guess what I found? Many images of women’s beautiful Photoshopped faces and bodies- very thin, even toned skin,bodies with no marks, bumps, curves, wobbly bits; women using make up, working out; men’s “perfectly-ripped” bodies (those images didn’t even have faces , sorry guys your faces don’t matter) , bulky, muscular…all along those lines. I saw images of expensive homes (think money); pictures of women getting Botox injections or other medical procedures….you get it.  So, now we sort of know what it is we’re striving for, right???  Plus it is literally all around us-every bus and train stop, every movie, song, social media posts…literally everywhere.

In order for this to work, for those of us who didn’t bite the bait up until this point, they had to tie this whole idea of perfection with one of our basic building blocks as beings- HAPPINESS. Everybody wants to be happy, right? So what they needed to do is convince us that we’re not happy (although happiness is basically part of the energy that we’re made out of, it’s our natural state of being) and tell us that PERFECTION=HAPPINESS . And we bought it friends, we bought it big time. Tell me that you haven’t, at some point in your life, and most likely still today, striven to have at least one of these: the perfect body, the perfect job, the perfect marriage/relationship, the perfect business/company, the perfect home, the perfect performance, the perfect reputation, the perfect you and the perfect life! Boom! Now the formula’s got almost everyone. And we go and like cute little hamsters on a wheel, we start chasing, and chasing, and chasing….and the wheel turns to generate enough collective power to create a whole Universe. And we do, we create it, moment to moment, with OUR energy…. but it’s not the Universe WE wanted.

What it took was for us to be convinced that  who and what we were was not enough, we needed to change , to be better, to keep chasing…and the more unattainable that goal was- the better. The harder and longer we’d keep spinning the wheel.

And if they didn’t get you so far, the last piece of the net probably did. The idea that if you thought of yourself as perfect, you wouldn’t move, you wouldn’t learn, you wouldn’t expand, that you’d become a static swamp of un-moving life-less matter. And this is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard.

We are in truth natural explorers, fearless and bold, creative adventurers of the multiverse, nothing about us is static …..and nothing on this planet, or others, can’t prevent us from being that. But doing it from a standpoint of spinning a wheel of unattainable goals, that are not really ours, and doing it from our natural energy of expansiveness and a sense of adventure, are universes apart in both how they feel to us, who they serve and the results that they yield.

There’s no one to blame. I look in the mirror and see. I believed that nobody is perfect, that I am not perfect, that perfection is unattainable.

In fact, I uttered these very words just a few days ago. I have been one of those hamsters on the wheel, running and feeding with my energy the “perfect” creation of somebody else.

Who does this serve? Not me, not you, not us, not our families, not our lives, not our collective, not human kind, not our planet.

Perfection, you say? Hmmmmm, look at the sky, the stars, the sunrise, the sunset, your child’s face, their smile, your loved one’s embrace, an act of kindness, the sweetness of your favorite fruit, the aroma of a fragrant flower, the softness of your sheets in your bed, a bite of your favorite meal, the sight of your favorite color, the beauty of nature, the sounds of birds flying free, the list is endless……but mostly….look in the mirror-THIS is PERFECTION. Perfection in human form. You, yes YOU. And, please, don’t, even for a second longer, allow ANYONE to tell you that you need to be anything else other that what you already are. I stop now.

So today, I declare myself PERFECT. I declare myself FREE of external definitions of who I am or what I should be. I stop turning the wheel and I start walking consciously and intently using my energy to create a moment, a day, a life, a Universe that I want- a light, loving, supportive, high frequency Universe of authenticity, of happiness and joy and enough-ness of curiosity and exploration, of collaboration and co-creation, of connection and abundance.

But I am not separate from you, and you are not separate from me. Are you willing to declare YOURSELF PERFECT as well today and walk together and use our collective energy and intent to create the Universe that WE want? I hope you say YES!

Why am I experiencing life this way?

Individuals often ask questions of this kind but not quite this way. They usually sound more along the lines of :” Why is this happening to me? Why are people like this? Why are situations like that? Why is life like this?”

They might even ask:” What do you mean I am experiencing life this way, it IS this way. And I agree with them, because for them, at that moment, this is true. But it’s not the whole truth and it’s not inevitable and unchangeable either. Once, I was talking to a friend about this and he had a similar question. I asked him to finish the following sentence with the first thing that came to his mind. ” Life is…….”

Now before you read any further, pause for a second to feel into what your personal answer to this question would be. Play along if you’d like, the answer is very revealing.

I am…

I was working as a teacher and one day I walked into the classroom and wrote the words: ” I am….” on the board. Then I asked the students to finish the sentence however they wanted. The only thing I asked them not to write was their name because we’re so used to introducing ourselves that our name is very likely to come up as one of the first things to finish this sentence with , but this was not the purpose of this exercise this time.

I was so curious about what the students would write. The answers ranged from I am afraid of going back and home and having to look for a job, to I am a student, a good friend, feeling tired, excited or sad; a sister, daughter, a woman, a man, a pretty woman, a handsome guy, son, brother, member of my family, a lawyer, a teacher, a human being…..

Before you read on….try and answer the question yourself, if you’d like! What do you get?