What is life about if not to make a great impact and leave the world a better place than when we arrived into it.  That driving force in our life is love, but the impact of that love should leave a great legacy too.

Ten years ago, I had an idea about the way in which I could help people makes positive and sustained changes to their lives and the lives of those they love, out of which grew the two companies I now run, both of which focus on helping people discover and express more of the truth of who they are.  The Elevation Company does this largely through businesses and supporting business growth and development.  Let’s face it, most of us spend more time with our workmates than we do with our family – at least more time awake!  So, it follows then that our lives will be richer and more meaningful if we work somewhere we feel like part of a family and we’re doing something we love.

Push fast forward 10 years and yes, I still absolutely love what we do and the impact we make in people’s lives, but my heart knows there’s more to give and a greater impact to make.  Lucky for me, I was sitting at a conference several years ago when the amazing Paul Dunn took the stage and began to talk about his journey toward finding a way to make a greater impact in the world.  Paul and his incredible wife, Masami Sato, started a philanthropic movement called Buy1, Give1 and in simple terms, it creates opportunities for those of us who are blessed with MUCH to share with those who have LITTLE.

B1G1 is a Social Enterprise and non-profit organisation with a mission to create a world that’s full of giving. Unlike conventional giving models, B1G1 helps small and medium-sized businesses achieve more social impact by embedding giving activities in their everyday business operations to create unique Giving Stories. Every business transaction can impact lives from as little as just 1 cent. Importantly for us, the most powerful aspect of B1G1 is that every dollar we contribute goes to support the charitable project of our choosing. 

When a client connects with us to request support, we contribute to a B1G1 project.  When a client engages our consulting services, we contribute to a B1G1 project.  When I speak or MC at an event, we contribute to a B1G1 project.  When someone receives Executive Mentoring, we contribute to a B1G1 project.  When people apply for our Ripple Makers 12-month business development programme, we contribute to a B1G1 project.  When we come together for our own team training, we contribute to a B1G1 project.  Essentially, giving to projects through B1G1 means everything we do in our business makes the greatest possible impact and ripples out across the world as our legacy.

 

As Kalu Ndukwe Kalu once said, “The things you do for yourself are gone when you’re gone.  However, the things you do for others remain as your legacy”

Each of us comes into the world alone and leaves this world alone.

Along the way, we develop relationships with our families, friends, schoolmates, co-workers,
neighbours and social groups. As humans, we need other people in order to not only survive but to
thrive.

Human beings need to feel the touch of another human being. We need other people to encourage,
support, provide feedback, challenge, nurture and love us. The quality of our external relationships
is a testimony to how well we do those things.

It is the quality of our relationship with ourselves though, that is the subject of this article.
We are the only one who is with us all day every day, from the moment of birth to the moment we
die. Yet many of us spend our whole lives unhappy with the person we are. We speak and judge
ourselves more harshly than we would ever judge anyone else. Many of us continually criticise
everything about ourselves from what we look like, what we eat, how we spend our time, our
money, what we should have said or done, what we shouldn’t have said or done and on and on we
go.

Many of us are constantly looking outside of ourselves for validation and approval. We turn
ourselves inside out trying to fit in and be acceptable to some arbitrary standard. To be good
enough, worthy enough, lovable enough, desirable enough, thin enough, strong enough…enough of
anything and everything to gain the love and approval we seek… from others.

The thing is, we only seek this approval externally when we don’t love and accept ourselves for
ourselves. When we are not enough for us and when we don’t approve of ourselves.

Imagine how your life might be different if you stopped judging yourself. If you stopped trying to
meet someone else’s standards about what is good, worthy, desirable, lovable enough.
What if we loved and accepted ourselves in all our glorious humanness – flaws and all? What if we
spoke to ourselves like we were our own best friend – with gentleness, kindness and understanding?
What if we recognised that our growth lies in our willingness to accept and love the truth of who we
really are? That we are perfectly imperfect – just as we are.

We share life with others, yet our journey is our own.

If you are interested in a better relationship with you, you might like to consider our personal
mentoring program. Feel free to give us a call on +61 3 9016 9575

We all know we need it. But the process is not always comfortable.

I know that in the times when I have felt so horribly restrained that I have just wanted to bust out and get crazy. Yet when I did I also felt insecure and in some ways was missing the confines of my previous restraint.

Then there are the times when I am so keen for growth that the wait seems excruciatingly slow and I get frustrated with the waiting.

I have been in that place lately. So I took myself out to our garden for inspiration.

I looked at every tree and shrub and plant and inspected it for new growth. I was not disappointed.

Yes, I even hugged a tree.

I looked at our grape vines which I had eyed off suspiciously only a few weeks ago wondering if we should perhaps have pruned them more to promote more growth. For all intents and purposes, they looked dead.

But looks can be deceiving. The work that was going on inside the vine must have been intense. In a human sense, it would have equated to growing new arms and legs! Very uncomfortable and even painful I would presume. And yet seeing nothing on the outside at all. No change. Nothing.

Looking lovingly at the vines bursting with new leaves and bunches and bunches of tiny grapes in the making, made me stop and take stock of what was happening inside of me.

Sometimes our best solution to a problem is to stop and breathe and be thankful. To walk in a garden and revel in the mastery of life itself, and to just stop being so impatient to see results.

They will come, as sure as Spring follows Winter.

I recently had the experience of someone I have known for many years, communicate to me that they did not like the ‘new me’.

It got me curious.

Being on a journey dedicated to personal growth, the experience of resistance from others is very common. People feel safer when they have categorised you and popped you in the box of what they think you are. I get that. People may feel threatened when, what they thought they knew about you, is no longer valid. I get that too.

I spent much of my life, as many of us do, wearing a mask. I chose to wear this mask before I realised I actually had a choice. The mask was in place to ensure that I ‘belonged’, that I was ‘protected’ and that I conformed. 6 years ago I made changes in my life that resulted in taking my mask off and being ME. Not everyone like it… and I love that. Some people preferred the masked version, and some the unmasked version…. and I love that. The most important thing to me, is that I love who I am and I know that to my very core, I am living my most authentic life, with all that I have, in this moment.

I most definitely acknowledge that I am not the same person I was when I was masked up. However, I am also not the same person I was when I got up this morning, or who began writing this insight. Yes, people have energetically drifted away after not vibing with the unmasked me…. and I love that. The way I see it, the space they have left in my life has made room for some pretty wonderful people to come on in. People who think the ‘new’ me is pretty groovy….. and I love that.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard the expression “Believe in yourself”.

And for the most part I have gone along in life thinking I did believe in myself, at least up to a point.

But that was when I thought believing in myself meant I could do it. Or I could endure it, or I could conquer it. Whatever “it” was. Having that inner feeling of endurance and strength, the resolve to “never give up.”

Since attending The Power of You in 2017 I have been set on a new track. Initially the changes seemed small, but the further on I travel from that space, I find the changes are now spreading out like the spokes in a wheel. A degree of change was all it took for me to now be worlds apart in my thinking from where I was 12 months ago.

You see, I have found that believing on yourself is not some puffed up acknowledgement of your strengths. It’s more likely to be a quiet resonance with who you are and more especially who you are not. Old stories that we have repeated to ourselves throughout the years are now left unread on the shelf as we choose new stories for ourselves.

It can be downright scary. That limb we climb out onto doesn’t look very strong. But instead of thinking “I’m strong I believe in myself” I now tend to think “I wonder what is out there? How about I climb out a little further and lets just see what happens.

And all of a sudden the unknown doesn’t seem anywhere near as terrifying, and my faults and fears are all OK because now they are acknowledged.

And for me that is what truly believing in yourself means. All of yourself. Believe in all of it. Not just the polished shiny accomplished bits.

I still never give up, but now to believe in yourself means to me showing up warts and all…. and smiling.

What is it that you believe about yourself?  What do you believe about what it will take for you to be happy?  What do you believe about your relationship? What do you believe about the role of men and women? What do you believe about what it takes to be successful?

The Cambridge dictionary defines belief as: The feeling of being certain that something exists or is true. It’s a FEELING that something is true – not that something IS true.

What you believe and what others believe can be very different, yet our thoughts, behaviours and actions are often driven by our beliefs.  

Our beliefs have their roots in our childhood where we are influenced by our families, our culture, our religion, our education, our friends etc.  Beliefs are thoughts that we have had repeatedly, which we have come to believe as true. They are not actually true.

Some of our beliefs are enabling – they are helpful to us, and some of them are constraining – they work against us.  Some of them are both. Let me give you an example. For many years I had a belief that if I wanted something done, I had to do it myself.  On one hand this belief is quite empowering, and I just got on with whatever needed to be done and developed resilience and skills in lots of different areas.  I was a “can do” kind of girl. At the same time, I often felt unsupported and alone and that I couldn’t ask anyone for help. My belief was getting in the way of allowing others to support me and of me asking for help when I needed it.

It’s a very useful exercise to examine our beliefs and check in to see whether they are still working for us.  So often, are beliefs are unconscious – yet they drive our behaviour, patterns and decision making.

I invite you to set aside 15 minutes and think about an area of your life that is not working.  What are the beliefs you hold about that area? Are your beliefs useful? Do they support you? What are the impacts on you and those you love if you continue to believe that.  When we have awareness about our beliefs we have the tools needed to make a different choice.

Time is a strange and wonderful thing. It seems like only yesterday I was graduating from my first stint at university, celebrating my 21^st birthday, our children were little peeps, and suddenly, here I am now on the wise side of 50.  Time isn’t measured so much in weeks and months in my mind, but more in the memories of those moments and people that create true meaning.

So, it’s by this same “measure” that I am currently stopping to reflect on what it means to have a company celebrating its 10th birthday.  Yep, The Elevation Company is 10 years old this month and we are looking back over the journey and taking stock of what we have achieved in that time.

The first thing that stands out to me is the PEOPLE. The people in my family who have supported and believed in me, those who have joined me along the way as part of our staff team, the ones with whom we have partnered to make certain things happen, those from whom I have learnt or by whom I’ve been mentored, those I have reached as a speaker, the children who have attended our Green SuperCamp® Australia programme, the children we work within Myanmar, Indonesia, New Zealand, India and Guinea, those running or working within the businesses with whom we consult – it’s all about the people! 

In fact, we recently undertook an exercise to determine the number of people we have reached directly through the full range of activities and services provided over that 10-year period and it measures well over 92,000, which has me feeling very humbled. 

Ten years ago, I set out on a journey to share my unique “weirdness” with the world and as I look back now, I think I had my savings in one hand and my courage in the other as I took the leap.  I paid no attention to the statistics that say 50% of small businesses fail within 5 years and another 30% within 10 years.  Failure was never even a consideration for me and the reason was because my WHY was so unshakably strong.  There’s a saying that if your WHY isn’t big enough, your excuses will be, and I had no need for excuses.

I fundamentally believe all any of us really wants in life is to love and be loved, and to be known, loved and “got” for who we really are.  With the certainty of this belief, I set about creating and delivering programmes and services that connect people with a greater sense of their own truth and help them find the inspiration to share more of themselves with the world.  In our increasingly fast-paced world, it is the moments of true human connection that I believe are the most important and profound.  It is the matters of the heart that must get our greatest attention if we are to lead meaningful lives and create great businesses.  My motto is, “your business must be “good” for everyone for it to truly be good business!

Our General Manager recently asked me, “what’s been the highlight of the last 10 years in business?”  My answer was simple and resonant – the PEOPLE! 

Happy Birthday people!

 

Have you ever put a postcard in a letterbox?

Now, have you ever wanted to deliver a bulk post package, then tried to deliver it through that same small letterbox?

You might reply: “That’s stupid, why try something that doesn’t work?”

Exactly, yet this analogy reflects how we often communicate.

The package (our message) doesn’t fit the letterbox of the receiver (what is important to them). 

And we all have a different letterbox.

What happens when you receive a telemarketer’s call?

Do they ask you for your current requirements, your satisfaction level with services, what is and what is not important about the services?

No, right?!?

They share their messaging, their offer, their version of that bulk package that, more often than not, doesn’t fit our letterbox.

So what can you learn about yourself and the way your communicate with others?

For us to build any relationship and develop any level of trust, whether it be with a team member, colleague, prospect:

“Seek first to understand”

The foundation of trust – which impacts the relationship quality.

When we understand what is uniquely important to the other, and genuinely demonstrate this understanding and our care to help the other, then we can develop, nurture and deepen the relationship.

Not before.

So, what can you do differently today to speak into the listening of the people around you?

 

 

My favourite impact made by TEC is too see the transformation in the young people that attend our Green SuperCamp program. To have young people deepen their understanding of themselves in their formative years fills me with joy.  It’s exciting to see them get connected to the fact that ultimately the key to our happiness is to love ourselves exactly as we are. (Of course they learn many other things too.)

So many of us spend our life time finding this truth and go through a lot of grief and heartache before we discover this for ourselves. Our Green Supercamp Program hopefully short circuits some of this and opens the hearts and minds of our young people so they can make their unique difference in the world.

 

 

The first time I heard Heather speak about the ‘Action Vortex’ where we get caught up in the “How” of things and the ensuing action and reaction, I knew she was speaking to me. It may as well have had my name on it.

Having continuously seen my purpose in life to make everything better, I have always looked at “How” to fix the current problem. It has, without exception, caused me to work harder, or faster, or take on yet another extra job, making me busier and more and more frantic. Awareness of this pattern lead me to discovering my overwhelming Default drama of “I’m responsible for everything!”

It is still something I need to be aware of as I continue to have a tendency towards this state, but now that I understand the concept of asking myself “Why?” and not “How?” I find I am becoming much more attuned to the flow of life and in identifying why I need something. I seem to find a new path in exploring that “why?” and it doesn’t involve pushing myself, or being busy, or burying myself in the rush of life. Indeed the more I ask “Why?” the more I am becoming aware of what is important to me on a daily basis, and at last the Vortex is slipping further and further from me.

I am probably as busy as I have ever been, however because I am no longer caught in the whirlpool of how I am going to keep it all together, I am free to explore why it is important and enjoy the flow of energy that comes from being at peace with that.