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All right I am on a rant.  I can’t keep quiet about this anymore.  Ever since I was yelled at in LA airport for being pregnant because that was a symbol of pro-life I have been wondering what has happened to our society.  Everywhere I go outside of Utah, I get the most shocked looks when someone finds out I am a mother of eight children.  It is such anomaly that they make a reality shows out of the mere fact you have some kids.  What is going on?  It wasn’t that long in the far past that a lot of families knew the “secret” of having a lot of children and really what that was all about, now not so much.  Now people look at the burden and sacrifice it would create to their life.  They don’t know or appreciate those children are one the greatest blessings a person could be granted with.

I was at a conference last weekend and met a lady older than me with seven kids.  We were chatting about how hard it is to wait for grandchildren to come.  I jokingly told her I was thinking about having another one to tie me over until my older kids get on the ball.  She told me she had seven children, the youngest 30 and guess how many grandkids she has?  In the olden days I would say 35, but no, she had none.  NONE!  Unbelievable.   Most her kids were putting off marriage and the others putting off having children.  One of her daughters was there and I told her, “Shame on you for putting your mom through that.”  She laughed.  I laughed.  But then I wanted to scream.

Is it hard having a large family?  Yes.  Does it require a lot of sacrifice and headaches?  Yes.  Do I sometimes wonder why I choose to have 5 teenagers all at once—of course.  So why am I so worked up?  The reason is that nothing—not success at work, not making lots of money, not being in the best shape of your life is as great as raising up productive human beings.  Nothing can be more rewarding that spending time with kids and helping form a life.  And absolutely nothing is better than holding a little one in your arms and loving them or watching them grow and become their own person.

If you are not happy right now and you are mentally and financial stable and in a great marriage I highly recommend children.  They are one the best kept secrets of happiness.  If you are overwhelmed and the kids aren’t so fun anymore, write me and I can help you get that authentic smile on your face.   Parenthood can be a blast. It really saddens me that it is a dying secret.  I am calling for a revolution—Let the joy of parenthood be picketed in front pages in the newspapers and on the talk shows.  “Have kids!”

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 12:51 pm | Comments (1)

Often times when people start getting swallowed up with being overwhelmed, their vision narrows to tunnel. They hyper-focus on the issues pressing upon them, risking the loss of perspective and the gain of amplified stress. If this condition lasts long enough, they hit burnout and languish. In other cases, people react to being overwhelmed by being underwhelmed: they shut down constructive responses and go into some form of withdrawal. When either of these—or any other self-defeating response—happens, there are options…

Option #1. Become anxious and start worrying obsessively about all the things that can go wrong. Let your imagination run wild. The worse you can project the final outcome to be, the better. With this option, common physical side-effects will be an upset stomach, headaches, and shallowness of breath. Not to mention people who choose this option become irritable, not fun to be with, even go somewhat crazy.

Option #2. Pretend nothing bad is happening. Pretend that any irritation you are having at the current situation is a momentary lapse from looking at the bright side of life. Make sure any disturbing feeling is not acknowledged, or if it is recognized, then shove it down. If you are asked how you are handling the situation, smile broadly and say, “Great.” Or play dumb, “What situation?” Then turn the tables on the person by asking, “Why are you making a big deal out of nothing?”

The risk of option 2 is that very likely your feelings will ooze out of you like a leaking radiator, and despite the good face you’re showing the world, stains will be left behind wherever you interact. People may react to or withdraw from you, adding to your tension and isolation. Not to mention that you cannot resolve problems that are not admitted, encouraging things to worsen.

Option #3. Honestly acknowledge the stress and compounding of the problems, then stop to see the beauty in the present moment. Beauty? Does that sound funny?

Posted in: Business Mastery, Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 7:00 am | Comments (0)

What to do to curb the overwhelming wave:

1. Delete all the unnecessary.
2. Delegate. I’m talking to the control freaks here. If someone else can do it, let them. No kid I’ve ever known has died from doing dishes, laundry, or making dinner.
3. Go on an information diet. Only read books and emails with information you absolutely need for your next step in goals. Cut and unsubscribe to all else.
4. Delete everything that’s not top priority. I know this is repeating number one, but it’s important. Go back through the list—which projects can survive on hold for the next week, month, or six months, or can be deleted all together?

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 7:00 am | Comments (0)

For most my life I have been plagued with the desire to be a master at something.  And for most of my life I have felt like a complete failure.  I used to hate it when someone would get this bright idea that it was time for a talent show.  I would do anything I could to skip right out of that event, but there were times, mostly family reunions when some over energetic aunt would think it would be so cute to have all the kids do something for the whole group.  Having been blessed with two left feet, fingers that had a mind of their own on the piano, a memory that always failed, and a voice that would sometimes hit the right note on accident, there wasn’t much to do but hide behind the other performers and hoped no one would notice.

So it came as a big surprised the other day when I realized that I had mastered something in my life.  This huge revelation came to me as I read Malcolm Gladwell’s landmark book, Outliers.  In the book he explained people like the Beatles and Bill Gates didn’t just come from nowhere.  They had lucky breaks, talent, plus a whole bunch of time to learn whatever they were gifted in.  Gladwell analyzed the facts and concluded that it takes 10,0000 hours of doing something to become quite good at it.  Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a lot of hours, something that I could only dream about doing, especially with my current lifestyle.  (EIGHT KIDS!)

But then I went on a trip to California to escape the nasty cold of Utah.  While there I love meeting people and learning about different ways people live.  Okay, I admit it I also enjoy being asked how many children I have because I just love people’s expressions.  Their eyes get really large, they start choking, “Eight,” they stammer.  So I add, “That doesn’t count the step-children.  That would make it twelve.”  The next thing they say is, “but you don’t old enough.”  Which of course, I love hearing.  Then more times than not, they say, “You don’t looked stress enough.  You don’t look worn-out and don’t have bags under eyes.  You seem like you are happy.”

I had always laughed that off, but then as I thought about Gladwell’s findings of the 10,000 hours I realized that I had put more than that into childrearing.  I had started help raise my siblings since I was three.  By the time I was ten, I was often left for eight to ten hours a day to watch the other seven children.  My siblings would often call me, “Mom.”  I have put my time in big time.  I only had a year and half of my life where I wasn’t watching children so it’s no wonder that having eight kids isn’t as stressful for me as it would be for others.  (I am going to make the exception of teenagers here.  I am real good with the younger kids.  The teenager thing I don’t have the 10,000 hours and I am not sure that I want to.)

I wonder how many of us have an unseen talent or mastery in something that we don’t realize and give ourselves credit for?  I think if we looked at what others are amazed at in us we can discover our master skills.  I would love to hear what you are really good.

Posted in: Business Mastery, Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 9:11 pm | Comments (0)

All right I’ve had it.  When you self proclaim yourself as the Step It Up Queen, well, you kind of have to step it up.  That or be called a liar and live with the guilt of not measuring you to your self proclaimed title.  Most of the time I do step it up that is why my friends came up with the Step It Up Queen.  Most of the time when I hear that label I get warm fuzzes, but not tonight.  Tonight I am having a dark cloud of guilt hanging over me.  All week I haven’t been Stepping It Up.  I went on a trip to the coast last week and had a great exhausting time.   When I arrived home, I was tired, grouchy, and had eight kids wanting attention along with the old hubby.  Fine.  They deserve it.  I’ve been gone.  I give them the attention and then the bills, and then backed to work, start on the laundry, etc… everything and anything but taking care of my diet.

Yep that is right.  It has come time that I can’t make excuses like I just had a baby when she’s eleven months ago.  Besides it is more than vanity pounds, I have health issues that I must stay on top of and I know one of the first things to do is to stop eating white flour and sugar, but have I done it?  NO!  I’ve been too busy, too tired, too much to do.  Enough already.  I don’t let my clients get away with all those excuses so why do I do it to myself?

That ends now.  Tomorrow—all day tomorrow I am not eating one bite of sugar or white flour.  I don’t care what temptation I come across or how much I deserve or need it.  All day Friday no flour and sugar.  Anyone else ready for this challenge?

PS How many grammar mistakes did you find?

Posted in: Step It Up Living at 1:48 am | Comments (3)

How often do we go through the journey of life suffering needlessly, thinking we have to put up with uncomfortable situations, being convinced that things can’t change, and the best thing to do is just suck it up and go on? Unfortunately, more often than not, a lot of us are guilty of this. This habit has really come to the forefront for me as I worked with one of my clients.

She confided in me that she couldn’t have another child because she’d never be able to handle it. Curious by what she meant by that, I probed deeper. She then described this huge scenario that made having children seem dismal.

I told her, being a mother of eight, that if I had her belief system, I’d never want to have children either. The way she was looking at it made the child-raising experience seem really burdensome.

She laughed and said, “You’re right!”

We explored different ways she could look at the same situation, and then left it at that. Months later she came running up to me at a meeting. “I have to tell you something. I’m pregnant!” She radiated so much peace and happiness that I knew all the doubts had dramatically diminished. As the months go by, and I watch her in the pregnancy, I have witnessed a happy pregnant woman. She has totally embraced this new experience with enthusiasm and joy.

If she had never examined her thoughts and beliefs, she would have missed out on all this joy in her life. Wow. Are we missing out on our own joyful experiences because of not examining our current beliefs? How do we know what is an unhealthy belief and what are things that we can’t change and need to accept?

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 7:00 am | Comments (2)

Competition?  Promise of peace?  Driven by passion? etc.  I still remember when I consciously started doing better in school.  I was a junior in high school (yeah, we can’t all be early bloomers), and I sat next to Jeff Gardner.  We were in social studies class together where I had already determined I was going to struggle through and hope for a B instead of a C.
One day we had just gotten our tests back.  I looked at the seventy-three percent with a sinking feeling.  Here I was going down the path of hardship and misery again.  How many more years of school did I have left?  I was calculating the answer when Jeff leaned over to my desk and looked at my test.
I quickly turned the test over, but the damage had been done.  He had seen it.
“Having a bad day?” he asked.
“What?” I asked, confused that he was even talking to me.  He was in the goody-good-guy-group and a wrestler—not really the type of person who talked to me.
“Your test. That’s not a very good score, and the test was easy.  See,” he said, holding up his test with a big juicy red A splattered across it.  “That score isn’t like you. You always do better.  So, are you having a bad day?”
I agreed, not knowing what else to say. Having a bad grade wasn’t like me? What was he saying? It was totally like me, but I wasn’t going to argue. I would let him believe his positive lie about me.
The teacher interrupted us to give us our assignments. We had a quiz to study for the next day.
Jeff turned to me and smiled. “I’ll kick your butt tomorrow on that quiz. You’re going down, Jones.”
My shoulders squared as I gathered my books.  “Not a chance,” I said with conviction.  And I didn’t go down.  I scored close to him.  It took a few more quizzes for me to outdo him.  Then the competition spread to other classes we had together.  I wasn’t going to let some “wrestler boy” take me down.  I had a cause. I had a mission.  I was pulling good grades.
The semester after that, I hit the straight A list.  I had done what many people thought would be impossible for me—including myself.  Why?  Because I was challenged by some boy?  Because someone told me it wasn’t like me to pull bad grades?  Well, yeah.
We can have self defeat pull us down, like I did for years.  I pulled the cloud of feeling inferior and inadequate over me because my grades weren’t measuring up.  One boy.  One competition completely changed my academic life.  Why?  Because I rose to the challenge.  I could have blown him off, but truthfully, I was too proud for that.  Going head-to-head with a boy and proving the worth of my gender worked for me.
What will work for you?  Maybe you are not as furiously competitive as I am, but what could you put in your environment that would change the whole way you approach your “hard” task?  What would give you the leverage to get what you want?
“Decide not to turn back” scenario.
Sometimes it’s not “other people” that give me the leverage to go for the BHAG (Big Hair Audacious Goal).  Sometimes it is as simple as deciding that such-and-such is simply what I am going to do.  That might sound too easy, but it really isn’t.  You not only have to decide what you want, but you have to decide that you have the abilities to get or accomplish what you want.
I was amazed how I put down a goal to be a NSA (National Speaker Association) speaker for years.  In order to qualify as a speaker, I needed fifteen paid engagements.  Year after year that goal seemed impossible to accomplish—until one year, through working with a friend, I realized that I really wanted it.  So I sat down and made a plan on how I would make it happen.  The plan wasn’t the normal way most speakers approach this task.  I skirted the traditional method, and in five months I easily accomplished what I wasn’t able to accomplish for the past two years.  Was it that my talent was better?  Well, of course I had gotten better from all the experience those years gave me. But I know that wasn’t what made the difference.
Was it that this particular year was a better time to be hired to speak?  Actually, no.  It was a down market—worse than many speakers had seen.  So what was it that made me successful?  And what will you apply in your life to make you succeed with your big goals?
Ready?  Drum roll.  It was that I believed that year that I could do it.  I sat down and came up with a plan.  I followed the plan.  I worked hard—really, really, really hard. I got a couple of lucky breaks, and voila, I did it.
For most things it is really no more difficult than that.  When you cut off all excuses or options but to succeed, it is amazing.  You don’t have time to wallow around in misery.  You have to get going and do what is set before you.  If I would have continued to feel sorry for myself, or accepted the fact that I wasn’t earning a good grade, would I have the experience of achieving a higher test score than Jeff?  Not a chance.  The only way I was able to accomplish a task that was challenging for me was to focus all my energy on doing what I needed to do.
*If you gave a single focus to your BHAG, how would your experience change?
*How would the results change?
*How might that benefit your life?
*If it would be a big change, when are you going to implement that task?

*What excuses are you using to not get going and stepping it up?*Or if it is not an excuse, what is the obstacle, and how can you work around it?

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 11:45 am | Comments (0)

Choosing Better Step 1: The Hard Decision
Making the tough decision to do the hard work doesn’t happen naturally for most of us. In fact, if my children are any indicator of what is natural human behavior, our first impulse is to look for any way to get out of work.
When I announce dish duty at the beginning of a chore season, I sometimes get tears and debates about why dishes are not appropriate for that particular child. Either they already learned the dish-doing skill or another sibling hasn’t had as much opportunity to do the dishes. They will say and argue whatever is necessary to avoid the task.
How many of us are exactly like that when it comes to . . . let’s say . . . tax season? We feel like we shouldn’t have to worry about this. Or we wish we didn’t have to mess with that. Although my children don’t like the consequences when they don’t do the dishes, I can tell you that the consequences of not paying your taxes are worse.
Choosing Better Step 2: Figure Out What is Motivating the Decision
Most things that are set before us aren’t as clear cut as taxes. Most law-abiding citizens complain when taxes are imposed on them, but then they pay them and work like a workhorse to recover from the damage. The same level of fear of consequences generally isn’t there for other decisions in our life. When I chose to take the harder route for my education, I wasn’t worried what would have happened if I took the easier route. The thought never entered my mind that I would be building more brain cells, nor was I thinking about how this choice would affect my later years in things like college or my professional life. None of those thoughts entered my head—although my decision did affect all those areas. Nope, my only real thought was that I didn’t want to be stuck in that “stupid group” in junior high.
I know. I hear gasp of shock for my lack of political correctness, but back then, in seventh grade, if political correctness was around I hadn’t heard about it.
I didn’t want to be stupid. That was it. That was enough motivation to kick me out of bed early in the mornings so I could study more for tests. It was enough to kick my shyness in the stomach, driving me to either raise my hand for help or to get in line to talk to the teacher. It was enough for me to avidly write down any extra credit opportunities and to complete every last one of them. (The worst, by far, was seeing the dead cadavers in high school. I got sick and passed out on that one, but still earned my bonus points.)
I chose hard out of the desire to “not” be something. It worked. It drove me on. But if I would have had more self-awareness of what was driving me to succeed, I could have worked on my motivation to be more positive.
What will it take for you to choose hard and start to live the life you truly want? Not wanting something? Wanting something?
Sometimes the choice to choose hard or easy comes tiptoeing in our lives, looking innocent and harmless. Sometimes it presents itself as a simple choice, like whether to get as much sleep as needed or to get up and do some exercise or meditation. Other times it looks like there really is no choice, like eating a great dessert or a salad. On impulse, most of us would choose the great dessert. It wouldn’t be until we got a bigger picture of what exists down the road that we ever make the decision to choose more salad in our lives.
Sometimes fear of consequences motivates us. Oftentimes this happens when something we thought harmless makes too big of a presence in our lives—for example, food. If we continue to choose the desserts, the carbs, and the fats, we might have a couple of spare tires around our middle, or we may be hearing the warning alarms sounding off in dramatic ways, alerting us to decreasing health.
Usually choosing hard doesn’t happen naturally. We must will it at some point.
Choosing Better Step #3: Immediate Satisfaction
Choosing hard doesn’t usually reward you with immediate satisfaction. In fact, when I chose to go into the mainstream of school, I was laughed at by others when they saw the grades I’d get back on assignments. “That was so easy. How could anybody not get it?” was their chant.
I’d turn red, sink in my seat, and hope that no one would pay attention to me. I would forget that I had dyslexia and that I had made the choice to be in mainstream education. Instead, I would sit there and wonder what was wrong with me and why everyone else got it and I didn’t. I would tell myself that I was stupid. Yep, the very thing that motivated me to choose hard, I labeled myself. I had help. My delightful younger brother would join in with the others and chant that I was stupid on a daily basis. He would try to recruit other cheerleaders to join in. Oftentimes he was successful.
Would it have been easier to escape all of them and feel good about coloring a paper? I seriously doubt it. Sometimes it appears like one route is so much easier than the other, but once you’ve traveled down the road, you realize that that road wasn’t so easy after all. Sometimes you will run into difficulties, no matter which road you take.
If I would have chosen resource (that’s what they called it then), I would have been laughed at, mocked, and demeaned probably in a much bigger and more dramatic way than I was in mainstream. I wouldn’t have been developing the tenacity to push through hard things. That choice would have hurt me on many levels and impacted the rest of my life.
Did I know, when I made that decision, that it was going to be so important? Uh, no. Do you know which decisions that you are making on a daily basis are going to be the important ones? Would it help if you did?
Are all of your choices going to be correct ones? Of course not. But fortunately—at least from my experience—life grants you the ability to goof up and then go back and try to get it right. Life is really patient that way. It will give you plenty of chances.
Choosing Better Step #4: Stay On Own Path and Stop Detouring
When I would peek over at the papers of other students and see the beautifully formed letter A sprawled across the top of their homework, my heart would immediately start twisting. I would struggle to take in air as I waited to see what would be written on the top of mine. I knew that there was a great chance that I wouldn’t be getting an A to match theirs, but I always hoped I would.
If I did get that A, it would be one of those times where I’d run the assignment home for Mother to look at instead of what I normally did, which was to rip the paper to shreds and find the nearest trashcan.
When I became focused on what others were doing, and how they were succeeding, I would sink into a depression, feeling stupid and hating myself for having put myself in that position. I was embarrassed and would develop terrible headaches. In class my mind would be filled with dreams of escaping elsewhere where I would be accepted. That, of course, did not help my retention of what I was supposed to be learning.

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 9:17 pm | Comments (2)

1.    Identify all the items that are stressing you.
2.    Step back, take a deep breath, and become the observer. Ask yourself these questions:
◦    Out of all the items on my list, what are the things that I can do something about?
◦    What items are not really that important that I can delete or delay until more conducive and necessary circumstances?
◦    What items can I delegate?
◦    Out of the items that are important to do, which one is the most important, second most, and third most, etc., on my list?
◦    What is the very next step I need to take?
3.    After you have answered these questions, go through your listed items and act accordingly:
1.    Delete what is not absolutely necessary for you to do.
2.    Assign who you will delegate to, and come up with a follow-up plan that will ensure relief instead of increased stress.
3.    Outline your priorities and the baby steps needed to be taken.
4.    Start initiating the plan, following the outlined priorities.
5.    Check your list on a regular basis to be sure that it is still in the best and most serving order. Make adjustments as needed.
6.    Relax, knowing you have a way to deal with the issues.
4.    If your overwhelmingness is due to stressful events in your personal life:
1.    Stop
2.    Take a breathe
3.    Take another breathe
4.    Become an observer
5.    Figure out what you can do right now, acting on your heart’s intention. This last part is important, needing to reflect on what you truly want for the relationship or to convey to the other person—from your heart and not from a defensive reaction.
6.    Let go of what you can’t change.
5.    Hey, I know number six is really hard, and sometimes, in certain situations, feels impossible. If you are in the middle of one of those impossible events, ask, “Can I let go for now?” or, “Can I let this go for the next thirty seconds?” I haven’t found a person yet who hasn’t been able to “let it go” for thirty seconds. Doing this exercise throughout the crisis will greatly relieve the stress.

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 8:10 am | Comments (0)

1.    Stop Blaming, Shaming, and Rationalizing
2.    Taking Responsibility for Your Life—Know What Can Change and What Can’t
3.    Plug into Your Life Purpose
4.    Stay True to Your Values
Love to hear how these steps works for you.

Posted in: Self Improvement, Step It Up Living at 7:35 pm | Comments (0)