Being vs. Doing « Lorin Beller Blake

Gratitude: Making Intentions Work

March 16, 2010

Filed under: #BigFishIntention, Being vs. Doing, Power of Intention, success — Tags: Big Fish Nation, Gratitude, Intent, Intention, Intentions, Power of Intention, Wayne Dyer, ways of being — Starla J King @ 7:23 am

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[text and photos by Starla J. King, Big Fish 2009-10]

It’s week three of the Big Fish Twitter Party, an online 24×7 positive energy party about setting intentions. (Note: everyone is welcome, this is not exclusive to Big Fish Nation members!)

What do intentions have to do with gratitude? Gratitude and intention are the energy circle of success.

Here, I’ll show you what I mean:

Name 3 things you are grateful for. Yep, right now. I’ll wait right here while you write your 3 things down.

… …

So, what did you write… what are you grateful for today, right now?

10 minutes of quiet time in a crazy-busy day?
a soul-cleansing rain?
checking something off your To Do list?

No matter what your 3 “gratitudes” are, I suspect you just experienced a lift in your spirits and a smile sneaking in. Yes??

You have just experienced the power of gratitude – the power to create positive energy. And it is that energy that is so important to bringing our intentions to fruition.

Focus for a moment on that feeling of gratitude (re-read your 3 things if you need to re-invite that feeling). It’s hopeful, right? A little bit excited, motivated, even inspired. Right?

Consider then if you add that feeling to setting your intentions. You’re already feeling the results of having carried through your intention… before you’ve even done the work! You are pre-creating results that you will be grateful for ! You are beginning to manifest your intention as soon as you set it!

Take for example my intention a few days ago (tweeted as @starlajking with the Big Fish Twitter Party hashtag #BigFishIntention): to effortlessly create 2 gorgeous garden designs for 2 clients.

Setting the intention with gratitude, I automatically imagined the satisfaction of having completed the 2 designs. And while working on the designs, that positive “ooh, how cool is that!” (gratitude) feeling hung around. Alas, at the end of the day, I had only completed 1 design…AUGH!

There’s a choice here: flog myself for what I did NOT achieve, or be grateful for what I DID achieve. You can feel the different energy just by reading each choice, can’t you? That is what I’m talking about.

So as you start or continue to set your daily intention, step into your own circle of success by wrapping each intention in real, honest gratitude. Then please do share your intention (and experience!) with all of us either in a comment here, or at the Big Fish Twitter Party (details here)!

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Humility Matters

January 26, 2010

Filed under: Being vs. Doing, Thought Leader, success — Tags: Big Fish Nation, humility, self-confidence, self-image, successful entrepreneur, women entrepreneurs, women small business — Lorin Beller Blake @ 7:13 am

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It’s month one of a new year, and I’m guessing many of us have new or ongoing goals around exercise.

I wonder, though, how many of us are paying attention to our humility muscle? That’s the one connected to the self-confidence muscle which we business owners exercise regularly.

Our muscle groups work in pairs, with one shortening while another one lengthens, and if we ignore one of those muscles, we weaken the effectiveness of the entire pair.

It works the same way with the humility/self-confidence muscle pair.   When we balance our self-confidence with our humility, we become stronger, more effective leaders.

John Baldoni writes in his Harvard Business Review blog that a strong self-image is practically a requirement for success, yet confidence can easily become an overbearing ego.  To keep that ego in check , we need to have honest friends (to tell us the truth!), and to be aware of our shortcomings.

Notice, though (women, are you listening?), that he does not say to dwell on our shortcomings, since that becomes counter-productive and self-defeating.

Starfish ready for BIG BOLD ACTIONS!

While we do need to keep our ego in check, humility is not about down-playing our own strengths and successes or hiding our shining skills. It’s about playing up the strengths and successes of those around us, and bringing others to those same levels with us (or BEYOND us!).

Humility is equal parts confidence + goodwill + compassion, components that all lead to BIG BOLD ACTIONS – the fuel for ongoing business success.

If you haven’t used your humility muscle for a while, make sure to prevent injuries by taking the time to warm it up with some gentle stretching before going all out. It takes some time to get used to a new way of being.

Next time you go to the gym, or work, or any part of life, remember to exercise your humility muscle as much as your self-confidence muscle and get ready to experience wild success!

(Keep in mind, if you need “business exercise buddies” the Big Fish Program is here for you!)

Big Fish!

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Doing or Being?

November 2, 2009

Filed under: Being vs. Doing — Tags: action, being, eastern philosophy, western philosophy, zen of business — Lorin Beller Blake @ 1:32 pm

The Need to BE or DO

A number of years ago when I started coaching, I was written up in the Investor’s Business Daily for having integrated both an Eastern and Western philosophies together to help people achieve success. When they first wrote it up like that I never saw it that way myself but the truth is that is truly who I am. I believe that the power is in the combination between the 2 philosophies rather than either or.

To make this point even more clear, in all of Big Fish Nations program we talk about important ‘things to do’ to become more successful but with that always, we discuss how we need to be ‘being’ as we ‘do’ those activities/actions.

3 Acts of BEING

1.   If you are doing all the ‘right’ steps to complete a sale but you are not excited and being authentically ‘on fire’ about what you are selling it will greatly inhibit your sales bottom-line.

2.   If you are the CEO of your company but standing up in front of your group to acknowledge them at the Christmas holiday party or accepting an award at the local chamber throws you off, you will not be ‘being’ in alignment with the leadership model you want to portray.

3.   If you are saying all the right things during a conflict with your employees but you are not walking your talk and doing the things that you are advising them to do… being incongruent with your advice, how do you think your advice will be received?

Being Matters

You see, how are being matters as much as what we are doing. Doing a good deed in an angry way, is not worth doing.

So today, notice, see if your ‘doing’ is aligned with who you are ‘being’. And if it is you are going to find you are probably experiencing more ease in the course of your day. If not, you are probably feeling like you are working too hard!   Being Matters!

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