I am a big fan of getting outside perspectives. Generally, we can only see as far as the next obstacle. Also generally, we can only see into the dark as far as the flashlight of our mind will allow. From where you stand, you will see new possibilities for me. If I invite you to do so, your flashlight will illuminate my dark corners.

(I sense it’s what we’re here to do for one another.)

What do you think about this? How am I showing up? Here’s my plan…do you see any holes?

If the feedback is resonant and feels right and true for me, (even if it feels tough…sometimes especially if it feels tough), I’ll integrate it and move forward.

If it’s dissonant and doesn’t feel right and true for me, I’ll dig a little deeper, see where the disconnect lives, and try to discern where I’m willing (and not willing) to compromise and move forward.

This is progress. It wasn’t always that clean (more on that another time).

I’ve poured my heart and soul into my Step into Your Starring Role program. I know it like the back of my hand. I know its value, its power, its worth.

And, like every former marketer who has fled the corporate world and has inexplicably lost the ability to write their own copy (ahem), I have struggled to find the words to adequately convey said value, power and worth.

It’s not just about coming up with clever marketing copy. I’ve also been sensing the value, power and worth have been what I’ve ASSIGNED it. And that’s felt out of integrity.

Because what I also sense is that the program is its own entity. Beyond the heart and soul that I’ve poured into it, I’ve wanted to understand:

What does it know? What does it want?

I’ve asked the program myself…but I keep getting my own words back.

Time for some outside perspective. And not from someone who had done the work. (I have plenty of exquisite testimonials for that.)

I mean really outside perspective.

Oracle-like perspective.

Enter Theresa Reed and her deck of tarot cards.

On my behalf, she asked her cards what I needed to know about the program.

The response:

Eight of Cups - as people go through the program, they gather what they need to finally make the changes they have been seeking. This program encourages the participants to move ahead, to leave baggage behind, and to LEAD. This is about stepping away from the noise (both inner and outer) and walking a courageous path. Step Into Your Starring Role is the sacred circle where courage is encouraged and leadership is born.

GOB.SMACKED.

Step Into Your Starring Role is the sacred circle where courage is encouraged and leadership is born.

There it was. There it IS. Not a testimonial, not a sales page, but a PROPHECY.

Truth that I knew but couldn’t see or name. My flashlight beam wasn’t reaching that far.

But hers did.

For the millionth time, I’ll say this:

• Ask for help.

• Get outside perspectives.

• Work with the best.

You, your body of work, and the people who need you deserve nothing less.

+++++

Speaking of the best, I think you need to know Theresa. An incredibly generous and gifted woman, I trust her implicitly and respect her profoundly. Her new Tarotcast offering has informed the scheduling and shape of my entire year. Like I said, Oracle-like.

---

 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

It’s frustrating, I know. You ask the hard questions and get easy answers. Like E-Z answers. Ludicrously trite answers…the kind we’re all guilty of doling out. (Yeah…me too.) These answers endure because, well, their simplicity is magnetic. And stitched right into them is TRUTH.

But it’s partial truth…the kind that is ignorant and unconcerned about context.

So without further ado, 24 easy answers.

And one really really hard one to swallow.

On wealth

1. Buy low, sell high.

2. Spend less, make more.

3. Income up, debt down.

On health

1. HDL up, LDL down.

2. Move more, eat less.

3. More water, less booze.

4. Sweat every day.

On beauty

1. Laugh more, worry less.

2. More sleep, less TV.

3. Loving your outside is an inside job.

4. Coconut oil.

On relationships

1. Hug more, text less.

2. Keep your word.

On everything

1. Quality over quantity.

2. Write like a lover, edit like an ex.

3. Work hard, play harder.

4. Ease up, effort down.

5. Pray more, complain less.

6. In good time.

7. The grass is always greener…

8. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

9. Make every moment count.

10. It is what it is.

11. Don’t worry about what everyone thinks.

But the hardest one of speaks to a truly deeeeeeep desire.

How do I become free?

The answer:

Forgive.

Forgive.

Him.

Her.

Yourself.

Set yourself free.

Hard. Trite. And as true as anything you’ve ever read.

---

 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

You've made the decision to leap. You're gonna DO it. You're going to step into your starring role, overcome your Imposter Complex, seize the brass ring and own your authority.

The angels are singing glory hallelujah on high (we are too.)

But you're worried what others might think. You're sure there is someone...or maybe SOMEONES who don't want that for you.

Oh. This is a tough tough place to be.

I've seen it from every side.

And I've got some thoughts for you.

Watch on.

Bottom line: real love, unconditional love…that’s wanting for someone else what they deeply want for themselves.

---

 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

There are some roles in my life that I’d LIKE to master. And I likely won’t.

Y’know: Hallowe’en costume sewer, flat tire fixer, origami folder, rock climber, devoted skin care regimen follower (or, at a minimum expert makeup applier), igloo-builder, runner, speller (writing “regimen” right first time around would be cool), painter (of walls), reverse parallel-parker, Wordpress wrangler, gardener, paella-maker, photographer, designer (of like, everything), and so on.

It’s possible that my life would be fitter, simpler, more playful and less expensive if I mastered all the above.

Possible.

But frankly, I’m “good enough” in all of those roles. And that’s good enough.

And there are some roles in my life that I’d really like to master. And as such, I invest time and energy in deepening into practice.

Yogini. Painter (of art). Teacher.

But when I roll out my mat, survey the blank canvas, approach the flipchart, I recognize how long the road to mastery is, AND I imagine how delightful the pursuit will be.

I know these are important to me…and I also know they’re not the calling of my soul. Besides, I’m good enough and working towards great.

The roles that are REALLY important to me? The ones I really REALLY want to master?

Mother. Coach. Writer. Partner. Speaker. Leader.

Yeah…THOSE are the roles that matter to me.

Profoundly.

And in the shadows of those roles, the Impostor Complex lies in wait. When someone projects “fabulous mother” or “great partner” onto me, it takes effort to find Thank You. My mind scans to all the places where that’s simply not felt true.

(In honesty, Speaker, Leader, and Coach aren’t quite as springloaded these days, as I’ve been doing some pretty deep work in all of these roles. I hear the lies of the Impostor Complex and I can move along.)

But Writer? Oh how Writer haunts me. Not with shoulds and musts and oughttas. But with deep yearning. Heart-pounding, soul-shuddering desire. And the no-holds-barred assault of the Impostor Complex.

Nothing quite like telling, like, EVERYONE you’re writing a book to bring on the Impostor Complex in all of its ferocious glory. Seemingly impassible.

But most insightful. Reminds you just how close something lives to your heart. JUST how much it matters.

Every time I run my Step into Your Starring Role Coaching program, I pick the next role I ALSO want to step into. When I heard the words of a former participant, I knew in an instant which role it needed to be:

“There are plenty of places in our lives where we feel like Impostors. But it’s the role that we want the MOST that has us feeling the MOST like an Impostor. And that’s why we need Step into your Starring Role.”

This time, the role I’m stepping into is capital-W ‘Writer’.

Because it’s the scariest place for me to look. And it’s where “good enough” simply isn’t good enough.

Your soul knows when “good enough” is true AND when it’s an excuse. Ask for discernment. (Tweet this)

---

 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

About two years ago, I went into a pet shop to grab cat litter and heard a cricket chirping away. Without giving it too much thought, I made up the story that the little critter snuck his way in via a bag of feed and was holed up in the ceiling rafters, singing his song ‘til his death.

(I also imagined that the cashier couldn’t wait for it to die. It’s a sound that would most certainly get annoying anywhere but in a garden on a summer’s evening with a chilled glass of sangria.)

Every time I’ve passed the pet shop since, a vision of a little cricket carcass up in the ceiling tiles has flashed before my eyes.

And then this silent question:

Did I REALLY hear that cricket?

And then this narrative:

Huh. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I imagined it, or it was part of one of those waking dreams. Odd, but not the oddest one I’ve had. I mean, it was the dead of winter. How impossible that a cricket would find it’s way into a store and survive in the rafters for like, three months? Unlikely, to be sure.

Every.single.time. And I pass that pet shop a LOT.

Passed it again yesterday.

And saw this.

Aha. I finally have my answer.

I’ve spent the last two years passing that sign, not actually SEEING it and continuing to give time and space to that nonsensical narrative. 

Sometimes we doubt what we know to be true. And we even ignore the signs that are right there.

Stop doing that. (I will too.)

Or more helpfully:

Pay attention to the divine winks that remind you what you already know, even when you’ve chosen to forget.(Tweet this)

Hold space for the possibility that you were right all along. Chances are, you were.

+++++

Okay. Now.

Maybe you think you’re hearing metaphorical crickets in your business. (See how I did that?)

No one seems to be showing up.

I’m not going to lie...You might well be.

But that doesn’t mean that your offering is wrong.

Or that your marketing it wrong.

Or that anything is wrong.

Take the time in the relative silence and root back into the why of your offering. Back to when you loved it and trusted it and it loved and trusted you. Pay attention to those divine winks who’ll lead you home. Back to that loving feeling.

In that feeling lies the truth.

And from there, show up.

And they will too.

(No more crickets…except, apparently at the pet food store.)

---

 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.