Become all you can become by raising yourself higher on the Tree of Life

Do you know enough?

If you didn’t ask… “Know Enough For what?!” then you can consider that you are trapped, at the moment, by the question in the title.

That was the purpose of the title, by the way. To trap you.

While you read your article, to get the most out of it, allow yourself to find yourself in my experience, instead of agree or not agree… OK?

Every person with a mind (that is every person alive!) moves back and forth on a continuum (scale) of knowing enough or not knowing enough… Some days you feel you know everything, on others you feel you know nothing.
Continue reading “Do you know enough?”

How to Improve Your Perspective? Perspective Series Part 2

Imagine yourself driving down the road and you want to change lanes to the right. You look in the rear view mirror and you look in your side mirrors to make sure there are no cars. Yet there is a blind spot and you aren’t 100% sure it’s safe to move over. So you lean a bit forward – you lean a little to the right and it looks good. You check out the lane next to you from both angles. Then, signal flashing you speed up and start to steer right and just as you do – HONK!!!!

There, in your blind spot, is a car that you were about to roll right into. WHEW!

Heart racing you slow down a bit, steer back to your lane and let the car pass. Then going through the check again – check the mirrors, lean forward, lean to the right, This Time throwing a glance over your shoulder and when you are certain you’ve seen the road clearly, you switch lanes so you can arrive at your destination.

WHAT IF – you are going through your life and not seeing all the perspectives? What if?

Continue reading “How to Improve Your Perspective? Perspective Series Part 2”

On feeling slighted. Your profound life experience Part 1

Warning: this article is a stream of consciousness article, and you need to read it like a poem, or it probably won’t make a lot of sense. On the other hand it is very important to read, if you want a chance at having the rest of your life not a continuation of the life you have had… That predictable download spiral.

When your whole life experience is that others are more loved, more supported, more appreciated

I had a dream last night that rocked my world. Not in a good way… by the way.

I dreamed that my older brother achieved what I worked, unsuccessfully, to achieve for 26 years… and it took him only a few months.
Continue reading “On feeling slighted. Your profound life experience Part 1”

The invisible context gives you the quality of your life

I got the following story in an email. Great story to illustrate context. Another word for context is frame, because it is outside of the picture, it is not part of the picture, yet the picture changes when the frame changes, just like the stories of your life change when you manage to change the context, even if the new context has to be helped by a coach, like myself.

You see, what makes the stories and their meanings stuck is that the frame, that the context is invisible.

If it were readily visible, you would see to it that you change it. But as with everything that makes you miserable, it is the invisible that needs to be made visible, if you ever hope to get rid of the misery.
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Misery: When you are locked into your own perspective of things…

The biggest difference between animals and humans is the capacity to being aware of your effect on another or your environment

They say that the biggest difference between animals and humans is the capacity of being self-aware… but I say that it isn’t so… it is being aware of how you appear to others.

In my coaching calls, whether it is a mindset call, or a marketing call, the biggest issue I see is that people are locked into their own perspective of things.

One of my students asked me to help her create a way to have an enjoyable July 4th holiday with her family.
She is away in school, and while she is away, her husband needs to take care of everything, including taking care of the children, and all the chores she did before she went away to school.
She commutes back for weekends, and she says her husband has a permanent scowl on his face.
Continue reading “Misery: When you are locked into your own perspective of things…”

What will you do when the trouble you are afraid of happens?

I have a wide cone of vision (I see the big picture) in most issues regarding “the economy.” Maybe because both my parents were economists? Who knows.

But having a wide cone of vision, especially in this arena, has its advantages.

People call me to find out, if their personal experience is indicative of a personal issue, or if it just feels that way.
Continue reading “What will you do when the trouble you are afraid of happens?”

Is fear only an emotion? If it is: it rules. But maybe it isn’t… Maybe it is something that you can control

fear says: I cannot deal with it!

Fear talks… Depending on what it says, you’ll run, you’ll hide, or you’ll continue charging forward

I now have a coach to report to on what I accomplish in the project I started a week ago.

Just like you, my first report was something like this: “I know I did little, but there was this fear…”

“What does fear have to do with anything?” he asked… and I was dumbfounded. I know the guy, we’ve been friends now for 3-4 years, and he is always stopped by fear… Who is he kidding?!

I didn’t spend our time together to explain things, after all his role, this time around, is to coach me, not the other way around.

But, in this article, I’ll say everything about fear, and how it works. I will also talk about how to gain the upper hand, at least some of the time, in the face of fear. OK?
Continue reading “Is fear only an emotion? If it is: it rules. But maybe it isn’t… Maybe it is something that you can control”

A coach’s job is to make you do things you don’t want to do

A discussion with hidden argumentative undertones is going on in the comments of some posts.

It’s about coaching.

Most people want gentle guidance. They want the results, but they want it all to be easy, nice, a walk in the park. They can’t find this anywhere, so they sign up to my coaching calls, but they don’t like what they are getting. They wanted gentle guidance, but they get coaching.

A coach’s job is to make you do what you don’t want to do so you can have what you won’t have if you do what you want to do.

Continue reading “A coach’s job is to make you do things you don’t want to do”

Can an idiotic sounding sentence alter your life? Forever?

Here is the idiotic sounding sentence: “For you Everything is the same as everything else … except not always” Let’s begin… Ok, Sophie, but how do I start to see that everything is not the same as everything else?

First let me explain what that weird statement means… It is a koan, and understanding is just the booby prize, meaning consolation prize, meaning that understanding has no value.

The value in the koan is when you can actually catch that you misjudged something. If and when you even just catch (yourself!) something that you were wrong about, you have just stepped on the path to become a person with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Continue reading “Can an idiotic sounding sentence alter your life? Forever?”

When something isn’t working, doing more of it is not the answer

Summary: In my search for finding transformational methods, I have come to the startling realization that everyone I know in the business of transformation is doing the wrong thing, teaching the wrong thing, and thus helping the Dark Side.

In one of the episodes of the House MD TV series, Dr. House has a patient who is dying. After a lot of tests they find out that the patient’s father gave his son a graduation gift from his scrap metal yard.

The son honored the loving father by keeping the gift on his person all the time.

The gift, a highly radioactive piece of metal, kills him, and maims his friend who was exposed to the radioactivity on a long flight when he sit next to him.

Why am I telling you this story? Continue reading “When something isn’t working, doing more of it is not the answer”