You’re a traveler. You travel to all of the most exotic places in the world. From one air-conditioned airport to another. You arrive at this current destination, the doors of the wonderfully air-conditioned airport open, you step out and YOU’RE HIT BY THE BLARING SUN AND SMOOTHERING HEAT & HUMIDITY OF HONG KONG, CHINA!!! … that is what it’s like for people who THINK they suddenly realize what parenting or running a business is really all about!

I help parents, which includes parents who are business owners, with the stress and aggravation of parenting… whether their child is 5 or 50! Over the years, as an entrepreneur and parent, I’ve dealt with an overwhelming amount of stress and aggravation and a while ago I realized that for many business owners, their business is like their child even if they don’t have one. For example –

When there is a mess, who cleans it up?

Does your worry over it keep you up at night?

I’m sure there are growing pains, is it talking back to you? … So, hopefully, everyone will get something from this talk.

There are many aspects of parenting that apply to our business and working life.

Daymond John, founder of FUBU reminds us “As an Entrepreneur, you love your business like a child and you’re taught to be laser-focused on the business.” Are you laser-focused on your business? Are you laser-focused to the exclusion of everything and everyone else?

Many business owners think they must slog through the day to day stresses of owning a business because that’s just the way it is! That it is what it is! But, it’s really deeper than that. If they would just realize that their levels of emotional and financial well-being are of equal value and their health is effected by both, then they would accept the help they so desperately need. I have a Family System that I use to help parents that has one part in particular that helps business owners as well!

Today, I’m asking if you’re making these 3 mistakes in your business. … not that you’re making them all or any! I’d like to discuss them with you in the context of my personal story. May I? Thank You. I’m a Mother, a Healer and a graduate of CAL, Berkeley. I am now and have been a Financial Expert for over 15 yrs.

I currently hold 4 Securities Licenses, an Insurance license and I have over 32 years of intense training and experience in meditation and what it takes to be happy. All of this encompassed working with families and raising my Son whom I gave birth to over 30 years ago. In fact, he says I am the best mother he’s ever had.

He appeared with me as I launched my first parenting product back in 1996 when The Today Show flew us to NYC to be interviewed by Bryant Gumbel. I was also on the O’Reilly Factor, Local TV News, Newspapers and in International News and Radio talking about parenting. I lead a charmed life now. But it wasn’t always this way…

In the 80s, I was married and a successful Real Estate Agent when ‘irreconcilable differences’ in my marriage got in the way. My Son was just 3 years old when his father & I separated.

Who here has been through divorce? How did this effect your business/parenting?

What I want to remind you of is that communication starts before words even happen: … with yourself and your integrity.

1) What is the blind spot that’s wreaking havoc in your parenting and/or your business? It’s the neglect of your moment to moment awareness of the communication you have with YOURSELF. The unrelenting need to increase profits compromises quality AND efficiency in the business AND in the home. Expansive opportunities are missed in the moment (where they happen) because You are focused 1 or 2 steps ahead of where you are.

Note this: It’s ALL about the moment. Who can tell me why this matters? It’s ‘in the moment’ with people that you make the sell. People = profits!!! Work and home, emotional and financial have equal value. Your business is you. Your child, a reflection of You! — YOU! …expressing and broadcasting your unique voice over the airwaves of humanity – as parent and/or business owner. The blind spot is the lack of loving attentiveness to the ‘Moment’ in your broadcast.

For example: Have you ever had someone blow you off because they were preoccupied with something else? Do you remember how that bothered you? How much juice did it take out of what you wanted to do for them?

Have you ever BEEN the person who blew someone off because you were too focused on something else? I have. The negative impact of even these subtle types of exchanges on your life is profound because the health of both of you is damaged in that moment. Do you know that even subtle stresses and anxieties wear on the body? It’s as if you’re carrying a 30lb weight in each hand 24/7!!! In business, goodwill and money are damaged as well.

A tool for improving your moment to moment awareness is Meditation. Do you meditate? If you find yourself overwhelmed with too much administrative minutia in your business, delegate as much as you can to the Apps that have been developed to free you up! [share the apps article]

Note this:Quiet mind, Easy flow.

It’s in the moment that you find money and Joy in unexpected places. A simple example is, I’ve found $20 bills and more on the ground walked over by others in front of me. Money sticking out of seat cushions at hotels and airports. Do you think this doesn’t happen in business? Do you remember a time when you pounced on some money that others overlooked?

What if we continue to ignore ourselves? My marriage was supposed to be the ‘Happily Ever After’ little kids are taught to believe in and I had failed. I felt like a failure. I felt unloved, couldn’t even love myself. My Son was the only person I felt loved me. I had ignored the communication from myself that said “Stay in the moment with your husband and family.”

My business fell apart. I could no longer pay my bills, PG&E was turned off, food was a struggle to get. I lost my car. I was facing homelessness. Worst of all, I realized I had hurt my Son. I had to turn my Son over to his father for a while as I worked through depression and wanting to die. I was devastated. Have you ever faced homelessness?

Picking up subtle buying signs in body language and tone of voice of others is done best when we’re in the Moment. Who you’re being in business is who your employees or team or your child (if you have one) is modeling. Do you esteem yourself that way?

Do you have the voice of YOUR parent(s) still in your head? Are you STILL ‘interacting’ with it? For example: Did you choose your profession or did your parents choose it? …or… Did you choose it to rebel against them? Did they tell you ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’ or you have to ‘work very hard for it’? How many different kinds of exchanges and decisions happen in your head that are rooted in these things they said?

Many of our business failures stem from unreasonable fears, phobias and anxieties. Do you have a fear of speaking, of pressing for the sale and asking for money or … what have you… related to your business or parenting?

The turning point for me came from within as I was walking down the street one day picking up cigarette butts… to smoke. I realized that if I continued in this way I would die in poverty and THAT would be the legacy I would leave for my Son! I made the DECISION right then and there to re-enter the path to prosperity & Joy! …well it was actually a crawl onto The Path. Crawling…, I said “This isn’t me.”

What I learned from divorce is there is no ‘happily ever after’. I needed to accept MYSELF and love MYSELF. I am GRATEFUL that I was never homeless because there were people who cared and took me in.

I realized I didn’t know it all … I went on a learning quest, a spiritual quest, all over again. I got my Son back and became a better parent. With business colleagues, I needed to trust what I KNOW. Do you have confidence in yourself?

In business, I realized it was my fault that I failed. I hired MENTORS to feel more confident, build myself up and get back on my feet because I knew by that point that no matter how hard I worked, I would not reach the level of freedom I longed for without them.

Mistake #2) Do you ever feel like you say the same thing over and over again without getting a result? It’s tiring, stressful, detrimental to your health AND unnecessary. As in parenting, it’s UNNECESSARY because you ARE being heard. They just don’t care for what you have to say or HOW you’re saying it. SAVEYOURBREATH!!! The Parenting Breakthrough Sessions I do for parents functions as a way to help them understand that and save their breath.

Maya Angelou states that “If we accept being talked to any kind of way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.”

Communication can be a very complex activity and the paradox is, if we consider how we would truly react if things were said to us in the same negative way and tone that we speak to our associates and children sometimes, our reaction or lack thereof would be the same as theirs.

Getting your kids or your business colleagues to listen; having your living wisdom absorbed and sticking, is important to having lessons learned the easy, productive way versus the hard “OMG what happened” way. Having to repeat yourself over and over again takes time away from other stuff you have to do, show them or have them do. It’s the economy of energy that you need to employ.

Why is understanding communication important? Because of the integrity it does or doesn’t establish. Ninety-three percent of all in-person communication is nonverbal (38% vocal elements, 55% body language). Only 7% is picked up in the words being said. SAVEYOURBREATH!!! On top of that, forty-five percent of high-earning managers are too tired to converse with their spouse or partner after a long day at the office.

An average of 50% of parent-child communications are “not happy” with 48% of those parents being in denial of that fact. Twelve percent of parents are aggravated ALL or MOST of the time!!! This is important to know if you’re a business owner dealing with parents. Don’t you think? How many here have a business that serves parents?

For example: Your employee(s) or partner(s) take shortcuts in your instructions and end up costing you BIG MONEY! I used to resort to yelling & screaming at my child when saying it repeatedly didn’t work because I thought I wasn’t being heard or was being ignored. …and I was….

Note this: Repetition requires reflection. Here’s a training technique: Don’t repeat until you’ve found the hole in your communication. Sometime later I learned an important tool: stopping in the moment to look my son in the eyes to see & find out what was going on with him then addressing whatever that was. Explaining the reasons behind what I was requesting, having him repeat what he understood it to mean and why I was asking it of him alleviated a lot of tension and repetition. The result was better communication, more conversation, understanding and compliance… for both of us… because I needed to learn some stuff from him too.

OK, let’s do an exercise. Do you observe your emotions? Do you look at your fears? Write down a list of your fears, anxieties and phobias. Circle the ones that get in the way of your being more effective in your business or at home. Do you know how much they cost you? Put a star by the one that costs you $1,000+ per month, 3 months or a year. Really look at them and size then up! Raise your hand if you would like to be rid of it in minutes rather than months and years of therapy. I can help you do that!

I’ve turned failure to success. I live at the top of the world. My Son’s a success in his own right and my business speaks to the soul of people! This is why I’m so passionate about helping parents, and especially parents who are business owners, with the stress and aggravation of parenting!

And finally, #3What is the biggest mistake you may be committing in your business? It’s thinking that struggle and effort are necessary to succeed.” Marianne Williamson reminds us “The #1 Root of all Illness, as we know, is Stress.”

Note this: Seven people die every 2 seconds from stress. What percentage of them do you suppose are business owners, parents, parents who are business owners? What does this belief suggest? Struggle and effort suggests you are some sort of slave.

Why is it important to abolish this belief? Because it harbors stress which is at the root of what ails us, prematurely ages us and kills us. Ninety percent of Americans are stressed at work. Entrepreneurs experience more anxiety than employees and 47% of parents with children under 18 have stress that has or can lead to health problems.

The old paradigm of struggle and effort being necessary for success is obsolete. I know this sounds too good to be true but we are not living in the wagon train days anymore. What gets the job done faster? It is ‘knowing’ the result is already in place. All you have to do is get out of the way. Decide what you’re going to do, then do it without the noise in your head. The noise is ‘you in the way’.

How do we live our lives? The tip on how to do this is the understanding that we lead our lives ‘Energetically’. What’s the importance of the intensity of our intentions? Our Intentions direct our energy. Your life right now is the result of the level of Intensity you placed on your stated and subconscious intentions years ago, months ago, moments ago.

When I say ‘intensity’ here I talking about a deep ‘feeling’, not a ‘jam as much activity as I can in a short period of time’, hard physical thing. I’m talking about making a strong impression in your Intention, feeling it is done and then coming out and having a relaxed focused ENJOYMENT OF YOUR CURRENT ACTIVITY in any given moment!

For example: I have had very intense experiences of being in this ‘Aura if Intention’ so deeply that as I expressed what I wanted, it would appear miraculously. Things that would normally take weeks for me before would happen the very next day. This is not something exclusive to me. It’s available and used by all of us to varying degrees.

I even got to the point where I would play with it and with something that would normally take me 3 or 4 months through much struggle & hard effort, I would say and impress in my Intention that I want it to happen NEXT week and miraculously it happen next week through no struggle on my part and with nominal activity!!!

How to do this? Note this: Know in advance.Intend. Write a big result that you want already in place! What is YOUR tool for getting to this place WE ALL HAVE?

Are you ready to let struggle and effort go? It’s all about the Moment in your time here on the planet. Every Moment. Whether you’re a parent or business person or both, free yourself to enjoy it. Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us, “All the suffering, stress & addiction come from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.”

I’m offering a Complimentary Parenting Breakthrough Session (a $250 value) to all the parents who are stressed. How many of you are parents of a person under 60 yo? Also take advantage of a Get out of Fear and Stress Now session whether you’re a parent or not, though it’s not complimentary. Contact me via the same link.

Thank You for your kind attention and I bid you eternal Joy.

References:

Harvard Business Review (2006 Study) … 45% of high-earning managers…

f the National Survey of American Families, and the 2003, 2007 and 2011/12 waves of the National Survey of Children’s Health. … 12+% aggravated most or ALL of the time.

We’re all under a lot of stress and feel pushed to the edge: one study shows that 9 out of 10 of us are highly stressed most of the time (Rose Medical Center, Denver CO)

Check this out: 9 out of 10 of us (88%) feel that incivility is a serious problem and getting worse. And 9 out of 10 Americans think that incivility increases opportunities for violence (Bozell Worldwide/US News & World Report Civility in America Study 1999) Statistics prove that more than 8 in 10 of us, both with kids and without kids, agree that bad parenting — the failure to instill good behavior in kids — is the major cause of bad manners (Bozell Worldwide/US News & World Report Civility in America Study 1999)

Younger generations and parents are also more likely than other Americans to point to financial concerns as sources of stress. Money is a somewhat or very significant source of stress for the majority of Americans (64 percent) but even more so for parents (77 percent), Millennials (75 percent) and Gen Xers (76 percent). Parents and younger generations are less likely than Americans overall to report being financially secure (parents: 5.0 on a 10-point scale, where 1 means “not at all financially secure” and 10 means “completely financially secure;” Millennials: 4.8; Gen Xers: 4.8; all adults: 5.5).

More than half of parents (58 percent) and Millennials (57 percent) say that paying for essentials is a somewhat or very significant source of stress, compared with 44 percent of Americans overall reporting the same. The majority of parents (71 percent) and Gen Xers (70 percent) say they have “just enough” or not enough money to make ends meet at the end of the month. ~ APA 2015