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Last Friday I attended an ICF Coaches networking meeting. There were about twelve of us there and we all had a great time, except for when I discovered that someone had mistakenly picked up my notebook and taken it home with her. Oops…

And that’s why you’re reading this post now rather than last week – my notebook has all my mindmaps and notes that I use when writing posts in it and I wasn’t able to get it back until yesterday. The lesson in that is to always make sure your notebook looks different to everyone else’s, or at the very least has your name and phone number in it…

Moving right along… one of the things that was shared at the meeting was a great tool that one of the Coaches (coincidently the same one who stole picked up my notebook) shared with the rest of us. I thought it was great, and so I’m now sharing it with all of you.

The tool is called “Above the line or below it” Have a look at the diagram below:

Above the line are three words : Ownership, Accept and Responsibility. Taking ownership, accepting and taking responsibility for your attitude and actions.

Below the line are another three words: Blame, Excuses and Denial. Not taking responsibility, not accepting your responsibilities and actions, and blaming others.

Above the line is OAR – the mindset of champions – Row your boat where YOU want it to go.

Below the line is BED – the victim mentality – Make your bed and lie in it.

Next time something happens to you, ask yourself: Am I above the line or below it?

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Last week I was reading the blog of Christine Martell. Christine published a blog post recently entitled My Business has Cracked! This post really struck home for me, in particular where she says:

“The hardest part for me has been to let go of the dream. To disconnect from the years of effort and begin to allow it all to unravel. Knowing what I’ve been doing isn’t working, and allowing myself to feel it have been two very different processes”

Our businesses are so much a part of ourselves. We get pregnant with ideas and hope and possibilities. We gestate and treasure the development phase, we tolerate the uncomfortable and painful processes because of the potential that we know will be birthed in due time. We labour and sweat and push to give birth to this business and create and develop it to be everything we hope for it.

And then sometimes it fails. Dies. Goes under.

It takes our dreams and vision with it. Our self-esteem, our identity was tied up in that business and now it’s gone. Who are we, what is left of us, when so much of our effort has been wasted and misdirected?

Early this year I closed down the Life Coaching side of my business, Excellence Coaching Solutions. I had delayed making that decision for nearly a year. I was struggling to run it, my heart wasn’t in it, it was agonising work to write anything. My amazing huge vision from when I had started it four years previously, my vision to change the world, to help people, to improve their lives, had died a slow and painful death.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t done a lot of good work, because I had. I had coaching clients, I’d helped people, I’d changed some people’s worlds. However, I had changed and that business wasn’t what I needed to be doing. I had to destroy it before I could move on. And that destroying hurt.

Christine goes on to say “I have new images; some photographs, some illustrations. I’m starting to discern new directions. It’s still big and fuzzy and doesn’t lend itself to coherent description yet. I’m looking in. Surrounding myself with new groups of people who are doing totally different types of things in the world.

I’m realizing I created tools to help people feel more connected and alive inside organizations, to combat soul death. I created soul death for myself doing it. So I need to allow myself to come alive again. Regroup. Find my authentic voice again.”

She’s recreating herself, digging deep to work out exactly what it is that she needs to be doing now, what it is that’s going to create that life for her soul that she craves. She’s replacing soul death with creativity and authenticity. For myself, I can’t wait to see what Christine creates from this, what wonderful new creation rises from the ashes of her dreams.

When we let go of something that isn’t working, be it a business, a toxic relationship, a bad habit, the clutter that ties us down, we feel pain. The pain of change, of our ego letting go. However we’re also freed to start anew. To take the experience we’ve gained and look at what we really want and need and what is important to prevent that soul death.

What are you persevering with that you need to let go of in order to release you for what’s next?

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Personal Development on a Business Growth Blog?  Why do that?

Ok, I know this is unusual.  Most business blogs are all about the business growth, how to market, how to sell, create products, building a website, attracting customers.  This site does that too, however we go further.

I firmly and totally believe that you can’t run a successful business, at home or elsewhere, without developing yourself.  Business growth will only be as effective and successful as the businesses owner and/or manager.

There are two sides to every business – the public side that clients and ‘everyone’ sees, that’s out there in the street, on the web.  And then there’s the private, and more important side, what’s behind and inside the business.

The public face of your business is like the tip of an iceberg, showing only a very small portion of the whole.  Underneath is a mammoth structure that supports that visible tip.  The larger and stronger the base structure, the more business growth and development the tip can have.

For a Work At Home Mom business, having a strong foundation – yourself – is even more important than in a bricks and mortar business.  Our businesses are a part of us, we develop, birth, grow and nurture them ourselves – often in blood, sweat and bucket loads of tears.

Most women – not all women but most – struggle with self esteem issues, negative self-talk, mental blocks and inferiority.  These issues inhibit our ability to grow our businesses.  We hold back, don’t talk about it, dismiss it as a little home business.

What can you see happening in your business if these were not an issue for you?

This is where WAHM Biz Builder is set apart from other WAHM Coaching businesses, this is what makes us different.  While our main focus is your WAHM business, our foundation is based on developing YOU.  Getting rid of those mental blockages, helping you feel good about yourself and your business, working with you to demolish the negative thinking and habits that have bound you in the past.

Where has fear stopped you in the past?

When are you going to let go of it and stop allowing it to run your life and stunt your business growth?