Many of us walk around feeling like we have limited choices in many aspects of our lives. Take notice of how many times a day you say the words have to, should, and need to. Whenever you feel like you must do something, you’re a victim to your thoughts or circumstances.

In fact, when you’re faced with a task or something to do, there are five basic ways you can respond, and of them, only one is by full conscious choice.

The five ways of responding are “I won’t,” “I have to,” “I need to,” “I want to,” or “I choose to.”

When you say “I won’t” do something, you’re saying that you have no power, that life happens to you no matter what you do or believe. You don’t believe that you have a choice. You also don’t really think there’s anything in it for you – so why do it?

If you say “I have to,” you’re looking at the short term perspective. You “have to” complete the task in front of you, or else you will experience dire consequences. You feel forced to do it, and that you have very little to no choice.

The third response, “I need to,” is a more powerful place to come from. Here, you’re aware of your choices and you seek to find the opportunity in the challenges presented to you. This perspective brings more chance of success, but you still don’t feel like you’re fully at choice.

So these three responses involve either non-action, or action by force. Since you are not energetically bought into a situation, goal, or project, you are creating a recipe for failure. Even though you may think you are choosing to do something, at your core, you chose not to do it, or not to do it well.

The next response, “I want to,” indicates that you are mostly at choice. But, “want” still comes from a place of lack.

The most powerful response is “I choose to.” When you respond this way, you feel you have complete choice. There’s a powerful connection between who you are and what you do.

So how do you get to choose to? Simply come from a place of having everything, and choosing to experience, rather than fill a need. Easy? Not at all, but you can choose to try it.

Join me tonight on my monthly E-Factor broadcast as I discusses the recession, the real impact it's having on us all, and what we can begin to do about immediately. This is a show that many of you have asked for – and that eveyone needs to hear!

Overcoming the Fear of Recession

Recession is the word that seems to be heard (and felt) everywhere. But what's really driving the recession? What else may be compounding the economic concerns? What else is becoming "recessed?" If you're ready to stop being at the effect of the economy, and be part of the cause of the "turnaround," then join this call.

You'll be able to submit questions throughout the show on this topic, and even other issues that you may be encountering and want to pose to me. If you want to submit questions early, send them to efactor@iPECcoaching.com.

Date: Monday, March 23, 2009
Time: 8:30 - 9:30 PM (EST)

To register and receive dial-in information, go to http://www.ipeccoaching.com/the-efactor/index.html

If you’re not achieving what you want to, it’s most likely one of the Big 4 energy blocks that’s keeping you stuck. My last few posts looked at limiting beliefs - things that you accept about life, about yourself, about your world, or about the people in it, that limit you in some way; assumptions – expectations that, because something has happened in the past, it will happen again; and interpretations – opinions and judgments that you create about an event, situation, person, or experience and believe to be true.   

It is now time to examine the last, but certainly not the least, of the big four energy blocks. The final block we’ll talk about - the gremlin - is the most difficult to overcome, because it’s the most personal and holds the most energy.  

This barrier is the gremlin within every one of us: the inner critic. You know that little voice in your head? That voice that tells you not to try, never to take a risk, always to take the safe road, and to compromise your life by playing small? That’s your gremlin, and the message from your gremlin’s warnings is that you’re just not good enough to reach the summit of success. 

Regardless of any evidence to the contrary, the gremlin’s annoying voice continues to whisper: “It ain’t gonna happen.” This debilitating message bubbles up in many forms: “I’m not smart enough, experienced enough, and attractive enough.” It all comes back to a simple and quite vicious block: “I’m just not good enough to cut it.” 

Your gremlin is highly personal. It is rooted deeply inside you and carries the most intense emotional charge of any of the blocks we’ve explored. Your gremlin thrives on fear. When you hear its whispers, your motivation to try withers. You dread failing, feeling pain, and being embarrassed. You can even be scared of succeeding if the gremlin convinces you that you’ll fail eventually. 

So what are some typical gremlin statements? Do you hear any of these statements from your own inner critic? 

I’m not effective.
Who am I kidding, here?
I’m not smart enough to really do this job right.
I don’t have enough experience.
I don’t deserve great success.
They are going to find out I am a phony. 

Being aware of your gremlin is the first step towards lessening its power. Once you realize that your gremlin exists, give it an identity. Name it – and then, if you’d like, make it even more real by drawing it, sculpting it, or seeing it in your mind – whatever works for you. In doing this, you discover that the gremlin is only a part of who you are, not your whole identity. By seeing it in objective terms, you sap some of its strength. Gremlin work can be quite involved and is most effective when you are guided by a certified coach.   

Information on coaching and the process we at iPEC use to help clients overcome energy blocks can be found on our website, www.iPECcoaching.com, as well as in my book, Energy Leadership (Wiley).

The Big 4 energy blocks keep you stuck and prevent you from achieving what you want to in your life. We’ve already explored limiting beliefs and assumptions. Now, let’s look at the third energy block, interpretations. When you interpret something, you create an opinion about an event, situation, or experience. In essence, you create an explanation and then look for evidence to support its validity.  When you make an interpretation, you don’t even see that other explanations exist. In actuality, though, an interpretation often represents only one viewpoint among the many that are possible.

Your interpretations hold a strong energetic charge, which affects your emotions and actions. If you believe your viewpoint of a particular situation is the only explanation, you might not be aware of another point of view. You may end up wasting a lot of time and resources marching off in the wrong direction. Because you don’t see that other possibilities exist, you remain stuck in your story, and feel like you have no control over the outcome.

So let’s say you come home into work one day, and your boss barely nods hello, and then goes into his office and closes the door. If you think that your boss acted that way because he is angry with you, you might spend the morning wondering what you did to get him mad, and you might be hesitant to approach him with the great idea you’d come up with on the way in to work.

As with assumptions, interpretations are personal and are somewhat difficult to let go of and challenge. Holding onto them may seem like the easy way out, as facing them may move you into uncharted territory. However, challenging your interpretations opens you up to a world of possibilities, literally.

Typical interpretations may sound like this:

He doesn’t like me.
She thinks I’m incompetent.
They don’t want to follow orders.
My son is just not interested in doing his homework.

Interpretations can be directly challenged by asking: “What’s another way to look at that?” Just realizing that there are other ways to look at something lessens the power of your interpretation.  One way to do this is to imagine what another individual’s perspective of the situation might be. Asking for someone else’s point of view on a difficult situation (even if they are not directly involved) can break existing paradigms and open pathways for more successful solutions. Challenging yourself or others to argue the point of view directly opposite your interpretation also works remarkably well to arrive at new information, new angles, and new paths to success.

In the example of the boss above, perhaps the reason why he barely acknowledged you was that he just received a disturbing phone call about a family member, or he had a deadline that had to be met – or…….well, there are many possible explanations.  What an opportunity you’d miss if you decided not to present your great idea based on your false interpretation.

Before you “jump to conclusions” and believe the first story that comes to mind, consider other possibilities that could lead you to new and empowering choices and actions.

My last blog post explored limiting beliefs, the first of the “Big 4” energy blocks which prevent us from making conscious choices and reaching our potential.  Let’s take a look now at another one of those blocks – the assumptions we make.

An assumption is a belief that is based on the premise that because something happened in the past, it is automatically going to happen again.

When you make choices based on your assumptions, you are letting the past control the future. Assumptions hold you back, because when you already “know” that something won’t work, you probably won’t even consider doing it. Even if you do attempt it, you won’t have a lot of energy for, or be engaged in, what you’re doing, since you don’t really believe it can work. When you hold on to your assumptions, you miss out on many possibilities.

Imagine this scenario: A new financial advisor has done five presentations, and none of the prospective clients have decided to hire her. If she’s makes the assumption that she is not good at doing presentations, then it’s unlikely that she’ll put her all into soliciting them. And, even if she does end up doing one, the catabolic energy she brings with her to the presentation may actually repel her potential clients (and without her even realizing it, she has created more proof that her assumption was correct.)

Here are some typical assumptions:
If I don’t do it myself, it won’t be done right.
My kids are lazy and unproductive.
I’m no good at interviewing.
No one listens to what I’m saying.

Because assumptions are primarily based on personal experience, they are internalized and emotional, and somewhat difficult to let go of. Delving deep to remove the emotion of the past experience may be necessary before moving forward. 

The main question to ask when challenging an assumption is simply “Just because that happened in the past, why must it happen again?”

When you just “know” that something won’t work based on your past experience, recognize your assumption for what it is, question it, and consciously choose to let it go and to take positive action.

My last post discussed Self-Fate and how, because we are making choices based on our past experiences, we cannot change our future unless the control of the past is removed. We need to learn to make conscious choices, choices that are made in the present moment, without all the emotional “baggage” we carry around.

You can think of that baggage as being packed in four kinds of suitcases - the “Big 4” energy blocks that we carry around with us that dictate how we see the world and that hold us back reaching our unlimited potential.

The first suitcase contains your limiting beliefs. Beliefs can either help you or hinder you; limiting beliefs are those that hold you back from success. If you do not believe something is possible, you’re not likely to attempt it. Even if you do attempt it, you won’t devote much energy to achieving that goal.
 
Limiting beliefs are general beliefs about the world, your environment and situation, and the people around you that stand in your way. More often than not, you accept a limiting belief as true because you’ve learned it from someone else, or from an “authority,” such as the media, a book, or a movie. You assume that it’s “just the way it is.”

Here is a classic example of a limiting belief: Up until 1954, it was commonly held that running a mile in under four minutes was impossible. Moreover, physiologists believed it was extremely dangerous even to attempt it. Yet on May 6 of that year, Roger Bannister crossed the finish line in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds, thereby disproving the myth forever.

It’s remarkable that Bannister accomplished his feat. It required that he completely ignore the prevailing, limiting belief and construct an entirely different belief system for himself. What others saw as a limitation, he perceived as opportunity. And once he disproved the presumed limits of the human body, less than two months later, another runner, John Landy, broke Bannister’s record with a mile dash of 3 minutes and 57.9 seconds. What’s more, within just a few years, dozens of runners were leaving the four-minute mark in the dust.

Here are a couple of common limiting beliefs that hold many of us back. How about you have to work really hard to achieve success? Or that successful people are lucky? Or that you have to have money to make money?

There are several ways to challenge limiting beliefs. You can explore the effect the belief has had on your life, look for proof of its truth (or lack of proof), or modify the belief or aspects of the belief to better serve you. Simply examining the belief with questions like “How true do I believe that is?” and the rhetorical “Where did I get that idea?” can also work remarkably well. Once you overcome limiting beliefs, they can no longer hold you back.

Think about examining the contents of your limiting beliefs suitcase. Unpack it, and see how much lighter you feel.

In my previous post on “Maximizing Your Potential to Create Your Future,” I discussed Self-Mastery and how by resonating at a high frequency of energy, we attract what we want into our lives with little or no effort.
 
What holds us back from living the lives we desire? Some people attribute the lack of having what they want to fate – that their lives are somehow “meant to be” the way they are. Many people don’t like the concept of fate, however, because it negates free will. But what if neither the traditional concept of fate, nor free will, really existed for most people? An unusual concept called self-fate helps explain why so many of us don’t have what we really want.

Self-fate is the idea that because our past is dominating our thought processes, and because most people are not consciously living in the moment, our past actually creates our future. Because we are making choices based on our past experiences, we cannot change our future unless the control of the past is removed, and we choose in the now. So self-fate really means that for most of us, fate does exist, and we do not have free will. It is us who creates our fate because we are imprisoned by the past. We have pre-determined choices that we are programmed to make, and our past does the programming.

Think about a financial advisor who is unhappy with her clients, saying that all they do is complain and expect unreasonable things from her. She says that she seems to get the same kind of client, over and over again, and fears that she’ll never be in the position of being a true partner and advisor to her clients.  It’s no wonder she feels this way, as she’s had many experiences that have created those beliefs. In fact, it’s quite normal that she believes what she does, which poses a real challenge - since she sees clients as demanding and complaining, she is putting out “victim” energy. She is being a victim to the beliefs she has. And what is the result of that? The vibration she emits is picked up by those whose energy matches those beliefs: clients who will complain to her. To them, she’s an easy target. And so, she actually creates her future relationships, and will continue to do so unless she changes her sense of self, or, who she is BEING, in relationships.

The traditional concept of fate proposes that our lives are pre-determined by an outside source. Self-fate, however, is something that we can control.  In the next post, I’ll begin to discuss how we can reprogram our futures so that we achieve our unlimited potential.

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate with Andrew Gluck in a webinar about communicating with your clients during a crisis. During the webinar, I shared two essential coaching skills to help you as you deal with your clients during these troubled times. These skills, acknowledging and validating, are actually communication skills that seem logical and basic – but are actually very powerful and not quite so easy to master.  If you missed the webinar and would like to know more about these, and three other coaching/communication skills, please click here for the document, Communication Skills for Financial Professionals.

During the webinar, I also discussed some ways of acting – and not acting – during this crisis. It’s extremely important, especially now, that your client sees you as someone who is calm, knowledgeable, and trustworthy.  Though you can’t magically put money into their accounts, or rebuild their net worth overnight, you can instill a sense in clients that you are confident, real, and have their best interests in mind as you do the best that you can do under the circumstances. The five tips I talked about are:

Don’t take the blame….Do be real
You didn’t cause this crisis, so don't take the blame or pass it on.  Be real, and realistic. Everyone does well when the market goes up. The great financial advisor is the one who manages when the market does not.

Don’t apologize, or ignore your client’s anger…Do acknowledge and validate
You don't need to apologize, nor should you ignore their anger. Most people just want to be heard and vent.  By showing your clients, through your excellent communication skills, that you understand them, and that they have the right to feel the way they do, you will build rapport and trust.

Don’t explain or justify your past actions…Do share your current and future plan
You did, and will continue to do, the best that you can do under the circumstances. Justifications and explanations aren’t productive or necessary – what will be helpful to your client is to move forward, and for you to be open about your plans for doing so. Though you don't need to explain yourself or your actions, you do need to explain how you care about the people you work with

Don’t panic…Do lead with confidence
Your clients are likely panicked now, and what they need is a voice of reason and calm. You cannot change what has occurred, but you can show them that they are in good hands, and that you will be there by their sides, as a partner to help them weather this storm. Your calm, confident manner and belief that “this too shall pass” will go a long way to making your clients confident as well.

Don’t buy into the fear…Do assess the personal crisis
You don’t want to, nor do you have time to spend hours on the phone discussing the ups and downs of the market, but you do want to help people understand the nature of THEIR crisis. Taking time to talk to your clients and realistically assessing their situations will help your clients understand where they are, and help you develop a plan for getting them to where they want to be.

Earlier this year I received a request to be interviewed by Andrew Gluck. In the interview, I talked about my belief that who you are being - how you see yourself, how you react or respond to situations, and how you view the world and the people in it – determines your success and the results that you get. (To read the full article, which appeared in Financial Advisor magazine’s August issue, please click here.)

Especially in these challenging times, it’s important that you create your own future by maximizing your potential.  In my upcoming blog posts, I’ll talk a lot about potential, about choices, and about the skills and philosophies that lead to becoming a master - someone who resonates with success. A master is a person whose mindset automatically attracts the right people, places, events, and opportunities. The same mindset allows that allows the master to jump all over all of those opportunities with gusto, and without fear or hesitation.

This mindset is something I call the “E-Factor.” The “E” represents energy-the energy of success. Your E-Factor, which is a measure of your level of consciousness, is what determines your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions.  The exciting thing is that your mindset, your E-Factor isn’t set in stone – once you have an awareness of why you do the things you do, then you can change.

There are three steps to the process of working towards self-mastery –

1. Choosing who you want to be, today, releasing the past and becoming aware of the present
2. Acquiring the tools to live to your potential
3. Implementing your new way of being

In these blog posts I’ll share both practical skills and tools for creating success in relationships and business, as well as concepts and philosophies to help you choose who you want to be, today. Together, we’ll look at many things that get in the way of discovering and sharing your true self, the person that you will be when you become a master.  One by one, I’ll identify those obstacles, limitations, and challenges and reveal them for what they are... distractions that can be rendered powerless through awareness and self-mastery.  We'll transform and mold your world into all that you desire, to reveal your unlimited potential.

If there’s something you’d like to discuss or know about, please let me know.