Elizabeth Potts Weinstein » decision

The Other Kind of Resistance: Listening to the Quiet Message From Your Soul

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:11:43 +0000

It wasn’t happening.

Every time I sat down at my desk to complete the next drawing lesson in Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain … something came up.

I didn’t have the right plexiglass frame. There were emails to answer. The lighting wasn’t right. The pencil needed sharpening. The kid was too loud.

For weeks I kept at it, trying to make it happen, trying to break through …

Until this morning, when I finally stopped to listen.

Yes, there are thousands of books and blogs and butt-kickers out there preaching on how to break through resistance, how to eat the elephant, how to write every morning or fight a war to create the art or just do the work.

And yes, I agree that many times, the resistance is from ego, the bitch in the corner, the fearful caveperson inside of us who is screaming at us, trying to keep us from not dying. At the expense of killing our purpose and passion and our changing of the world.

But there is another resistanceish message that comes from an opposite inside of us.

This opposite feels completely different than that ego.

She is a quiet whisper.

She is kind yet direct, accepting yet persistent, understanding yet strong.

She nudges.

Honey, that writing book is not the one that will work for you. I don’t care that it got the best amazon.com reviews or that the big writing schools use it in their courses or those other people said this is the one to get.

You need something more fun. More nurturing. More expansive. More gentle.

That other book … the one you bought and it’s sitting on your floor because it seems too informal and unprofessionalish and kind of weird and artsy? Yeah. Use that one.

Oh, and that drawing pad you bought because it was what the book said to get and what looked the most normal when you were in the art store? Yeah, that’s not what you need right now either.

You need a drawing journal. Something you love. With paper that feels good under your fingers, that’s sized so you can carry it around and draw from anywhere, with a blank front cover so no one is tempted to look at your neophyte drawings.

This morning, I listened to her.

To that little voice of wisdom, who knows what is in resonance with our souls.

She knows what is the right option – when we are trying to think ourselves into a should, when we are really close to the right choice and starting to force it instead of waiting for rightness to be received.

She knows when it’s the right time – when instead of spending months to force a manifesto, we could just wait until it’s ready to be written and spend two hours in a coffeehouse getting the thing done, on a lovely Friday afternoon.

She knows when it’s the right person – when we are trying to twist ourselves into a pretzel for this guy, instead of letting it happen with the guy who thinks we’re awesome, just by being ourselves.

She always knows our truth.

All we have to do is shut up and listen.

–

Do you have a little voice in your head that speaks the truth? How do you tell between that voice and the mean/unhelpful voice of your ego/resistance?

Please leave a message below – I’d love to hear from you!

How to Decide if You Should Buy Build Your Tribe

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein — Thu, 27 May 2010 14:55:17 +0000

If buy Build Your Tribe, magical fairies will plant money trees in your backyard, you will make millions of dollars while you sleep and have hot sex with beautiful people, and you will fly first class on your neverending world tour, never needing to work again.

#notatruestory

No, I’m not going to talk you into this with bullshit promises of fame and glory. That’s not my job.

My job here is to help you make a decision – yes or no. Anything but a maybe.

So in honor of you, of this program, of my purpose in empowering you to live your truth, here’s my guide on how to make the decision to buy Build Your Tribe.

Read the information. Watch the videos. Ask me any questions that come up for you.

For some of you, that will be it. You’ll know, and you’ll join us on the adventure.

And for some of you, you’re still not sure.

You’re still worried, concerned it may not work for you, unsure if spending the $97 pre-sale price is a good investment for your business, for your life.

So for you, I ask you to sit quietly and check in with yourself.

That feeling of uncomfortable – where is it coming from?

Does it feel slimy, coming from the outside of your body? Does it feel like you “should” buy this, that if you don’t buy it you’re missing out on something everyone else will know? Does it feel like this is the thing that will “save” you from yourself? Am I talking you into it, even though your gut knows better?

If that’s you, then don’t buy it.

That feeling of uncomfortable is your soul talking to you, saying that this is not the right program for you today. (Maybe it will be later, and you’ll join us next time. Either way, I still love you and you’re still in my tribe.)

Or … does that uncomfortable feel bubbly? Nervous? Excited-scary?

Is your brain making logical excuses for why you shouldn’t spend the money, why it won’t work for you, why you’re not ready or how you already know this stuff? Are you feeling weird about pushing your boundaries, being yourself online, revealing your truth to the world, taking big steps you’re not quite sure you’re up for yet?

If that’s you, today is the day. Build Your Tribe is for you.

That’s just your ego talking, that reptilian part of your brain who is trying to keep you mediocre and safe, who’s trying to make sure you don’t take any risks, that you keep to the rules of your industry or culture or family and do what everyone else is doing.

You deserve more.

Your business, your message, your story, your calling on this earth deserves more.

Join us for Build Your Tribe right now.

Don’t wait any longer to start creating the rest of your life.

#thatisall

The Illusion of Security and the Uncertainty of the Real

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein — Sat, 08 May 2010 13:54:27 +0000

It’s 2:14 AM and I just cleaned my bathroom. Folded the laundry. Tidied the top of my desk.

Because I woke up from a nightmare depicting what I most worried about in one of my relationships.

Setting me off into a sleepless whirlybrain about love and friendship and the future and money and business and motherhood and stuff and my never-ending to do list.

It comes down to this.

When I stepped off the road of employment and marriage and a house in the suburbs, I abandoned the illusion of security that is the shoulds.

I have no idea what I should do. What you should be doing. What I should think. Who I should believe. What program I should launch. What opportunity I should choose. What I should spend money on. Who I should pick to be with me.

I have chosen relationships and a business and a life that are undefined by external standards.

There is nothing objective to judge my life against.

The only measurement is whether it works for me.

Whether I feel challenged and ecstatic and cared for and supported. Whether I’m fulfilled and growing and excited about life. Whether I’m empowered. Whether I’m happy. Whether I’m changing my corner of the world.

Sounds all fun and adventurous in the afternoon sun, but at two in the morning, with no one to ask except twitter and a blank TextEdit document, I am wallowing in the angst of uncertainty.

The shoulds – they felt certain. They felt secure.

Because that’s how the shoulds are designed.

The shoulds are an unspoken agreement in our culture of how we should behave and what we should believe in and what we should want and where we should be going. To conform us to that standard. To control how we feel.

By default, we are opted into that standard. We learn to feel comfortable. Secure that we are doing the right things, feeling the right feelings, thinking the right thoughts. Easy, because we don’t have to decide for ourselves. We can sleepwalk our way through life.

Unless you decide to opt out of the illusion.

Unless you decide to get okay with being uncomfortable.

Unless you decide to live in the uncertainty of the real.

A real that is delicious, challenging, alive. Frustrating, confusing, heartbreaking. Beautiful, energizing, fun.

A real that is everything.

So when I lose faith at two in the morning, when I’m drifting in angst and the illusion of uncertainty, I write. I ask myself the difficult questions. I act on inspiration.

I remember to trust.

Trust in the real. Trust in me. Trust in you. Trust in my truth.

#thatisall

The Many Ways in Which I Suck

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:28:12 +0000

I am blessed to have a never-ending skip chat open on my desktop with Allison Nazarian and Sarah Robinson called “the daily confessional” where I can share all of my insanities, the snarks about who’s annoying me, the bizarre yet amusing serendipities of life, everything that’s going wonky in my business or with my daughter or with my love life …

… and be free.

Because hiding behind an artifice of perfection is tiring.

Hiding drains my life energy until I have nothing left to give.

Hiding is a slow progression to death of my soul.

But there is this incessant voice inside my head who constantly judges me, who wants … no, who demands that I be perfect.

Or, at least that I appear to be perfect.

As if that is the only way to succeed.

The only way to get people to read my blog. To follow me on twitter. To buy my stuff.

As if that is the only way to get someone to love me.

Yet in a fundamental irony of life, the exact opposite is true.

Only by confessing my inadequacies, only by revealing the ways in which I deviate from the norm, only by letting out the part of myself that is my greatest fear to be shared … only then can profound, intimate connections be made with other like souls.

So here are some of the things I don’t want to confess to you.

I’m taking alimony.

I can’t afford this amazing apartment in San Francisco, to pay for groceries and clothes for my daughter and plane tickets and new furniture … completely on my own. Yet. Right now a majority of my living expenses are paid for via spousal & child support.

I hate that I’m taking this money. Feels like I’m a failure of feminism, that I’m one of the lame gold-diggerish women who live from ex-husband to ex-husband, instead of financing my own life. Feels like a failure as an entrepreneur, that my newly-profitable business doesn’t yet produce enough cash to support my live-your-truth life.

My secret plan is the very second my business can replace the alimony, I’m releasing my ex-husband of any future obligations.

And from then on, I will be financially independent. Never ask a man to support my life. Always keep money separate from love.

But until that day, this is how I pay a majority of my bills.

I have raised my voice to my child.

Two weeks ago I taught the preview upstream class for the 6 Weeks to Live Your Truth program with my 4 1/2 year old daughter in the house.

Now usually (always) when I teach a class, my daughter is with her dad, or in childcare, or being watched by another person … never in the house with me. But it was a national holiday that are not in my current awareness, meaning that childcare was not available. And I thought, oh, I’m sure she can be quiet for just an hour. And I discussed the situation with her and she agreed (the agreement of a 4 year old? yeah. exactly.).

It did not go well. And everyone listening to the ustream got to hear me get impatient with my daughter. Lovely.

The thing is, I’m an introvert living with an extrovert child. And as much as I need private time to recharge, physical space every day, to energize myself … she needs constant connection, she needs other humans who love and care about her, to energize herself.

And after 3 weeks of being together almost 24-7 … both of us were energy deprived.

So every time people say, oh, you’re such a great mom, look at what you are doing as a mompreneur, it’s so amazing how you balance your life … I am saying to myself, yeah, if you only knew. If you only knew when I stick a DVD in her iMac and shut the door to my bedroom to gain a few minutes of peace. How relieved I am to drop her off with her dad for the weekend so I can have 48 continuous hours to simply be myself.

There are women where being a mom is their calling in life, where they can raise a dozen children and spend 24-7 with them and play all the time and homeschool them and cook them organic food and never run out of hugs.

But that is not me. Sometimes, I am full out of hugs. And sometimes, I just need a freaking break.

I have not been doing my bookkeeping.

Remember how I’m a financial expert? How I teach that “Money Meetings” thing, where you look at your numbers every week, keep on top of your finances, track your marketing stats, use cash flow projections to make important decisions about your business?

Yeah. I agree with all that. I teach all that. But I don’t necessarily do all that.

I mean, I have done it. But the last few months, I’ve been running around on adventures and moving and launching new programs and various other stories I could tell blah blah blah, and stopped doing my weekly money meetings, and even stopped inputting stuff into my bookkeeping program.

Not that I don’t look at my numbers, but it’s random and not I’m tracking historical trends more than late night obsessions over my google analytics.

And … I’m still deciding what I think about that, whether the way I was teaching weekly money meetings (as useful as it is for many people) actually works for me.

I forget most of my marketing.

I have dozen of affiliates that I forget to tell about launches. The last two launch preview calls, I forgot to tell my list about it until 48 hours before. I don’t remember or have a place to track who makes special inquiries about which upcoming program. I rarely remember to follow up.

Doing guest posts has been on my to do list for 9 months. I am a guest on radio shows and teleclasses and get press, but I don’t know why or how they found me and I don’t follow up with them or seek out such opportunities.

I launch programs without any upsells to something afterwards. I don’t let anything get out of beta before I abandon it and move onto the next thing. I even launch free programs with no upsell to a paid program. Up until very recently, I neglected to have anything for sale on my website.

It’s a wonder I any money at all.

And if one of my clients was doing this, I would flip out at them.

This is something I’m working on, and I know (for the most part) what to do. But it’s important for me to let you know … just because I know something doesn’t mean I always do it.

My websites are completely screwed up.

So most of you are on my website right now (and for the few of you reading the RSS feed, go ahead, click through to my site) … and let me ask you a question — what do I do?

rflol.

Yeah, exactly. When people go to my website, they can’t tell what I do.

And that’s not the only thing that’s screwed up. There’s no picture of me in the header or anywhere above the fold. There’s not even a real header. Half the stuff in the sidebar is broken. There are 64 different links off my homepage. There’s no way to buy anything.

And don’t even get me started on my sales pages.

Everything is in one column because I did it all myself. Too much white space in random places. It’s almost impossible to find the buy links. The copy is probably way too long. I forgot to ask for testimonials and didn’t put in pictures or any borders around the testimonials I do have on there. There are no buttons or graphics or colors of any kind.

I’m going to launch a new website soon, and get all of those sales pages revamped. But, in the meanwhile, they are out there on the interwebz, completely screwed up.

I don’t answer all of your emails.

I preach connecting with your tribe, building relationships with your community. Making that your priority.

But I miss emails from you. I have dozens sitting in multiple inboxes and follow up queues on multiple computers. And I don’t think I’ll ever catch up. And I just can’t let go to delegate to an assistant or automate anything.

I miss your @ replies. I miss your DMs. I have thousands of stuff sitting in my Facebook message box.

Sometimes it’s because I’m overwhelmed with amazing replies and just can’t get to all of them. Sometimes it’s because I can’t decide what to respond, so I put it off until the situation resolves itself or the opportunity passes me by. And sometimes it’s because I’m chickening out on conflict.

So yeah, I need to figure out how to balance connection with freaking getting stuff done.

And those confession are just the start of everything I fear you could learn about me.

The hearts of men that I have broken. How I’ve texted while driving. The dirty dishes left in my sink. That I didn’t put up a Christmas tree this year. I can’t iron. I don’t play with my cat. My car is a mess. The mail is piled up. I don’t always recycle. I’ve deleted my entire website by accident. I’ve filed tax returns late.

And I feel so much better from writing this down. And posting it. And that you’re reading this right now.

Because the secret is … some of you will be offended or lose faith in me.

And you will leave. As you should, because we were never meant to be.

But some of you will stay.

And here’s the awesome, amazing, delicious thing … with you I get to be myself. And not only is that okay with you … that’s why you like me, for the whole of me, including those parts of myself that I was afraid to share.

So … what are you afraid to share with us?

What are you thinking and not saying? What are you hiding that is leaching energy and life away from you? Who can’t you tell? What are you not speaking?

EPW’s Tattoo Adventure in Florida

Elizabeth Potts Weinstein — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:45:48 +0000

In February 2010 I packed up my kid & flew to Boca Raton, Florida to hang w/ my BFF Allison Nazarian and her two kids … and while I was in town, we drove to Orlando to hang out with our friend Jason Rubacky & get my tattoo!

The tattoo is not because “Live Your Truth” is my brand (lol), but it is a visual reminder, a renewal of the decision I made back in June … to live my truth, to choose to be uncomfortable every day, to be a visible leader.

My new tattoo is the ink on my live your truth contract. The contract I made with myself.

But … good thing you don’t have to get a tattoo to start living your truth, eh?

If you want to learn more about living your truth, or make your own commitment to your “live your truth” journey, join us at http://theliveyourtruthproject.com

And … I’d love to hear your tattoo story, your adventure story, your “how you memorialized your commitment to yourself” story … or anything else you’d like to share or comment about.