Redefining Success

Do you worry about money, even when you have enough?

Are your personal values reflected in your business and financial values?

Do your relationships and regard for customers, clients, staff, colleagues, competitors and shareholders differ vastly from those with your friends and family?

Do you measure your success in terms of quantifiable attributes, be they wealth, fame, position, or material goods?

Are you aggressively competitive?

In my article, The Success Mess, I discussed the stress inherent in the quest for "success," as well as how to be present to the successes we all of us already enjoy.

Did you know that the first dictionary definition of success doesn't have anything to do with wealth or position? It's "the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors." So first of all, it's an end, it's over, you're done. (And, by the way, "prosperous" can mean wealthy, but it can also mean favorable, lucky, or auspicious.

So here's where we get into trouble: when we fail to feel complete and replete with our success. We always want more, more, more...and we're not okay with change (as in, recession and stock market corrections). Success is about termination (we did good!), but we want auspiciousness to last...and to increase. "Now" isn't good enough. What about tomorrow? What about ten years from now? What about retirement? What about legacy?

So think about your definition of success and see if it feels peaceful to you...especially if you are materially successful. Why do you pursue more? Are you afraid of the future? Do you feel lack in other areas of your life?

Consider this quote:

"Corporate success is no longer compromised by humility, surrender, and forgiveness. In today's business arena, success is now contingent on them." --Peter Amato

Why would that be? I posit that the drive to succeed, according to our definition of success, is a misguided search for wholeness. We think that financial security or abundance (meaning, having more than we need, since we always have exactly enough in the moment)--or owning nice things, expensive clothes, a big house, fancy cars, or being a stud with a hot sex partner, or being the most beautiful woman in town, or being revered or famous--will complete us. If we look outside ourselves for completion, we can never be complete.

If success is a favorable termination, can money ever be the end? We spend it, it's taxed, it gets stolen, the stock market does its thing, banks fail, emergencies arise that require more money.

Has power over others ever completed you?

Have you cleaned up your relationships yet, owned your part in conflicts and misunderstandings, made amends? Can any amount of "success" fill the emptiness left by separation from others?

Have you forgiven people for their mistakes? Have you forgiven yourself?

Here's how to redefine success: do The Work. Inquire into the thoughts that cause resentment and fear towards parent, sibling, child, partner, friend, pet, government, religion, sex, health, looks, career, public image and of course, money.

The success we are looking for is the end of suffering. It's what we want money, power, other people and things to give to us, and those "successes" can only be temporary and may not always be within our reach. Peace, however, is always available...and that's the favorable termination, the last story.

©2008 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

The Success Mess

Questioning the beliefs that hold me back has been key to all of the successes in my life, and not just in my business. Increased clientele and cash flow is just one aspect of success, and I've discovered that it's not the most important one. In the end, money alone can't guarantee happiness. Happiness to me is waking up in the morning excited about whatever lies ahead, knowing I'm in my integrity and progressing at exactly the right pace.

There was a time when I was earning six figures and felt like a failure. I would think thoughts like, "I'm not doing enough," "I should be further along than I am," "The future isn't secure," and "Advertising is dishonest." (Most inconvenient, that last one, as I was a direct-response copywriter.)

There are many coaching and self-help techniques that rely on positive visualization, affirmations, and "gremlin-slaying." There is a lot of emphasis on "just say no to negativity," and no attempt to understand where the negativity came from. I used these techniques for years without much movement; my material successes seemed to come and go, no thanks to how I attempted to dictate a life that fit my definition of successful. I also couldn't drop my self-limiting beliefs by trying to substitute them with "positive" ones.

With The Work of Byron Katie--a transformative process of inquiry that I have facilitated professionally since 2002--we don't worry about dissolving self-limiting beliefs; instead we identify and meet these beliefs with understanding. We enter the process, not to change anything (although change may indeed occur, and often swiftly), but to discover what's true for us.

As it turns out, self-limiting beliefs are lies. Stressful thoughts "quit" us when the mind calls its own bluff.

What we may not realize is how some "positive" beliefs are also stressful. Seeing yourself surrounded by riches is just "woman or man surrounded by riches." It's what we think having money and possessions and fame means, not the money, possessions and fame themselves, that turn us on...until they don't.

"I see myself driving an expensive car, living in a dessigner home, turning down speaking engagements, the author of six bestselling books, helping millions of people, traveling the world, always staying at the Ritz-Carlton club floor, with more money in the bank than I know what to do with, and beating Bill Gates at philanthropy." Sounds great, I'm not knocking it...and, can you know that this is what success looks like? Can you know that your life, as it is now, is not what success looks like?

Let's say you have openings in your schedule, and bills to pay. You do not have a car and driver. You haven't been written up in Forbes. You like the big house next door to yours better than your rented room. "I'm not a success now." Is that true? "I will be successful when I have those things." Can you really know that?

In visualizing yourself in the so-called successful life, are you living and working fully in the life you have now? Do you love your life or is it just a piece of driftwood to take you to the next "better" and "more successful" life?

I invite you to make a list of ten ways that you are a success, a huge success. If it's difficult to identify any successes, start with the simplest things: "I got out of bed today." "I didn't skip breakfast." "I was suicidal and didn't kill myself after all." "I took a walk in the sunshine." Keep going: "I raised my wonderful son all by myself." "I lost 10 pounds and kept it off." "I kept my last job for a whole six months." And keep going. "I helped children learn how to read in an after-school program." "My picture was in the paper." "I didn't beat myself up today." "I met my deadline for the project." "After three years, I took myself to the dentist and committed to treatment until my teeth are all fixed." "I was scared to be alone but I left my marriage." "I was scared to commit, but I worked through my fears and got married." "It was really hard to do it, but I stayed in my integrity and said no." "I said yes to something everyone said was too risky." "I built my business from the ground up." "I rebuilt my business after it failed." "I stopped beating a dead horse and got out of my old line of work." "I got a new client this week" "My one and only client all month was very happy with my work and will give me a good recommendation."

When we apply the simple process of inquiry to thoughts around success, breakthrough results occur naturally. A questioned mind is always more creative, more efficient, more appreciative of what is; there is no limit to the success it enjoys.

©2008 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.

You're Not a Success...Is That True?

There's a new blog game in town and I've been tagged again (by Mona). I really like this one, the "simply successful secrets" meme.

What makes you successful on a daily basis?

As Mona noted, when we speak of success, it doesn't necessarily have to mean financial success...although that is what came to my mind first, along with all the yeahbuts ("Well, I can pay the bills because I sold a home last year, but that doesn't make me a financial success!") I had a huge list of things I could be doing daily, think I ought to be doing and don't do (such as exercising, organizing my expense receipts, writing and working on an entire Judge-Your-Neighbor worksheet)...but that wasn't the assignment and also we could be here all day discussing that!

In addition, I thought of a lot of success-oriented things that I don't do every day and don't need to (such as post blog entries). It was harder to come up with five "everyday" items until I sat with this question for awhile.

1. I stay in touch with friends and loved ones. I live and work alone, so whether it is writing an email, making a phone call, seeing people socially or in the street, I reach out to at least one "significant other" each day. (I consider my clients my friends and loved ones too, so they count!) A day without communication feels incomplete to me...so I never have one.

2. I get out of bed. If you have ever been depressed, you know this is no small thing. For years it was a very big deal to emerge from under the covers. I'd wake up and think to myself, "Oh, God," and because I was so burdened with my thoughts, I didn't get out of the bed until I absolutely had to. On the rare occasions that the "Oh, God" thing happens these days, I still get out of bed because I realize I'm believing what I think...and it's time to do The Work. So I'm very successful, each day, at jump-starting my life soon after I open my eyes.

3. I breathe. Those of you who are asthmatic know this is no small thing either! And I am grateful for each inhalation and exhalation. I like to take a few minutes each day to focus quietly on this miracle that, until I had my first asthma attack, I took for granted.

4. I take at least one hot shower each day. It wakes me up, it's soothing, my body unstiffens and even if none of the above were true, I just enjoy being very clean. I shower even when I'm sick and barely able to stand; sponge baths don't cut it.

5. I read something uplifting before I go to sleep. It might be a chapter of a memoir, a passage from a "spiritual" book, a poem, a lovely email from a friend...it might even be something I've written myself.

Byron Katie says,

"We do only three things: we stand, we sit, we lie horizontal. When you're successful, you'll still be sitting somewhere....What is success? You want the three-thousand-dollar chair, not the ninety-nine-dollar one? Well, sitting is sitting....Without a story, I'm successful wherever I am. I know how to stand, sit, and lie down."

Me too.

If you are reading this and you have your own blog, consider yourself "tagged." If you don't have your own blog and you're a registered user of Blogger, I invite you to use the comment section to post your own five "daily success secrets."


©2007 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

How to Inquire Yourself into...Success?

A few years ago, I was talking about my business with my friend and mentor, "Infoguru Marketing" creator Robert Middleton, who works with independent professionals (check out his generous, and complimentary, informational offerings at actionplan.com). Robert suggested that I start packaging my services to offer more value to my clients as well as to earn more money. "What if your absolute minimum price to any client were $500?" he asked...at which point I literally fell off my chair.

At the time I only offered group workshops and individual sessions of The Work of Byron Katie, the self-inquiry process I facilitate. The workshops are attractively priced in order to allow many people to attend and get a taste of what I offer. A number of attendees go on to hire me privately after experiencing group facilitation with me. However, I had come to the (insane) conclusion that no one should work with me for more than three sessions, since the work I was doing was designed to foster skills that clients would ultimately use on their own.

$500 is not a huge amount of money; many life and business coaches get that much per month from each client they work with, often for years. "But I'm not a coach, or a therapist," I reasoned, "I am an educator. And as such, I am not doing my job if someone still needs me after three sessions."

Translation: "I'm not worthy."

Over the past couple of years I've worked with clients who are dissatisfied with their careers. They aren't making the amount of money they'd like to, they aren't attracting the kinds of clients they'd like to work with, they don't feel fulfilled. What is stopping them? They provide excuses, as I did. Nine times out of ten, when we scratch an excuse (I call excuses "yeahbuts" and "whatifs"), we uncover an underlying belief about unworthiness.

Feelings of unworthiness affect our emotional well-being as well as our business, even for those of us who are incredibly successful. I remember watching a Barbara Walters interview with Barbra Streisand years ago, when Streisand was about to embark on a concert tour where tickets cost upwards of $1000. On a TV show broadcast to millions of people all over the world, Streisand admitted to feeling devastated by her mother's cutting question: "Who would spend $1000 to see you?"

Hundreds of Barbra's fans would, and did, pay that much, and gladly; clearly she's worthy. Why, then, would this question throw a wealthy megastar into publicly confessed self-doubt? Because if they say it, and it hurts, they're right -- but only according to us. "No one can hurt me," Byron Katie says. "That's my job. I do that."

Because I believed I wasn't worthy, my business had to follow the dictates of my mind. I couldn't see clients beyond three sessions because that would have meant, in my convoluted thinking, that I had failed them. What if a client wanted and needed six sessions, or 12, or twice a week for three years? Obviously, they would have had to take their business elsewhere. So, subconsciously, I was banishing my clients and giving my business away to people who had no such self-limiting beliefs.

When I examined my beliefs about my business, I discovered that in attaching to my feelings of unworthiness, I was entirely in my clients' business, deciding for them what they needed and predetermining how much they thought my services were worth. I could never really empower them because I wasn't considering their individual needs. At the same time, I was ignoring my own need to earn a decent living in the name of "shouldn'ts" and "shoulds," "yeahbuts" and "whatifs."

Unquestioned, feelings of unworthiness can run our careers and our lives. Met with understanding through self-inquiry, our fears, doubts and resistances reveal wonderful information about the real world, and its real possibilities for us and our work.

How do you limit yourself with beliefs about your worthiness? Here is an example of self-inquiry on one such belief.

Belief: No one will pay me a minimum of $500.

Is that true? Honestly, I don't know; I haven't tried it in this business yet!

Can you know your clients would be better off if they paid you less? No.

Can you know they'd be better off if they had fewer sessions with you? No. Some people need years of therapy to deal with their issues, for example...and some need just a few visits. Some people take three weeks to heal from surgery, some take three months. One person can learn how to fix a car over a weekend, another requires a six-month course in auto mechanics.

Can you absolutely know that it's true that no one will pay you a minimum of $500? No. As a freelance copywriter I never touched a job for less than $500, no matter how small the assignment, and most of my assignments were in the four figure range. People will pay me handsomely for that, why not for this?

How do you treat your clients when you believe they won't pay you a minimum of $500? I want to impress them with how quick and efficient my services are, how immediately life-changing. I don't gauge their needs and concerns individually; I lump them together as generic "people." I'm entirely in their business, deciding how many sessions they "should" have and what they can afford. I judge them (and myself) if they don't "get it" in three sessions. I don't share my gifts with them; I don't honor their individual processes. I live in fear of their rejection; if I say, "I charge $500," and they say no, it means I charge too much, they can do better elsewhere, they don't value my product, they are stupid, they are cheapskates, etc.

How do you treat yourself? As a spiritual martyr who has to live on a certain amount of money and never aspire to more because this work is my "calling" rather than my business. As a result, I play very small.

What's the worst thing that could happen if you no longer believed this thought? I'd have no clients.
Can you know that? No. Could the opposite be true? Definitely.

Does this thought bring you peace or stress? Stress.

Who would you be without this thought? Clearer about the value I offer my clients. Creative about other services I can provide to them to support them. More available to people, a listener. I would be a sharer of information, not a people-pleaser. I would not feel the need to apologize for my fees. I would trust (and therefore empower) my clients to make their own decisions and take care of their own needs. I would be more connected to my clients and to the people I meet each day who ask me about my business.

I would be worthy.

Turn-arounds: Someone will pay me a minimum of $500. It is truer; some have; knowing better than I what is best for them, they have insisted on more sessions in spite of my "policy" against it. Other clients who have worked with me for only a few sessions have sent me referrals, and so have indirectly paid me more than my "minimum."

Everyone will pay me a minimum of $500. Yes; if this is my minimum price, everyone who works with me will pay it!

I will not pay myself a minimum of $500. Truer. Id I think I don't deserve it, I'll never charge anyone this amount.

My thinking will not pay me a minimum of $500. Yes; even if I actually earn it, until I know this is perfect for my path and that of my clients, I can't accept this money as my due. Case in point: Barbra Streisand, earning $1000 per concert ticket, but believing that her mother's question, "Who would pay $1000 to see you?" (and really, it was only a question) meant she was unworthy.


© 2005 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.