When my husband and I got our first apartment in LA, we moved in with some clothes in a suitcase, a TV, a bed with no frame and an ironing board. The radio sat on the carpet and siphoned off the only outlet in the living room, down at the end where the window faced 6th and Lafayette. It was as if we were trying to fill space with sound, or hoping to see an orchestra or a dance troupe march in at any moment, yet weeks passed with no change in our furniture uncollection. In the evenings we screeched open the ironing board and ate dinner, standing.

Doesn't that sound youthful and nostalgic? Looking back, I can make a case for youthful, but the nostalgic part is cloudy. We were on a budget, and we had a standard, an ethic about furniture: We would buy what we would buy if we had a million dollars, but we'd get it used, incredibly cheap, yet cool, antiquey, retro, something hip and amazing. It was hard to find all those adjectives in one garage sale, so weeks would pass between pieces. And even though we lived in that apartment for only six months, the collection process continued in a similar vein for years.

What I see now is the schism between the drive for perfection and the fear of failure, and the cost was huge. Most of our friends were like us--waiter/actors, artist/secretaries, writer/marketers--people who'd be happy to share a salad and a beer over an ironing board ANY time. But nobody was invited to our apartment. There wasn't any furniture.

Many clients arrive at the coaching table with this perfection/failure monster wrapped around their necks. People dying to make huge splash with an idea or a product or a move, but afraid to make a mess, choose the wrong thing, get their hands dirty, and be known for being human. It's cost them dearly over the years--jobs, marriages, children, friendships, money.

If you're about to make a shift or a change, or unravel a pattern like this, especially a life-sucking, job-stealing, joy-stomping routine, it's going to be uncomfortable at first, and definitely messy and confusing at times. But here's the real deal: when you're on your deathbed, you aren't going to be wishing you had the right furniture for your wake. Know wuddimean?

Loving the day,

Lisa 

I like to call to-do lists too much ado lists. Lemme splain.

My partner Maggie and I just held a workshop last week about time, that illusory squiggly thing we think we we need to control and manage. But we didn't talk about time management, and we didn't talk about productivity strategies, and we didn't talk about technology. We figured we all have that handled. What we talked about was being. Who we're being when we're flooring it down the freeway, showing up late and pissy, commanding our children like they're recruits, forgetting birthdays and I love yous. We talked about being, who we want to be, and about letting our values write our to-do lists.

We asked a provocative question or two:

• Where is your real life, the one you want to set to blaze?
• Where is that book you meant to write? That marriage you meant to tend?
• Where is life you will say you shoulda lived when you're breathing your last breath?
• Where is that life, your core values married to your big fat vision, showing up on your everyday walkin' around schedule?

We are such good storytellers, but sometimes we forget we're the ones inventing the tale. So this week, how about a little challenge. What if you shake out your schedule like a sandy beach blanket and fill it with nothing but what really matters.

Okay, one last gasp for objections:

But I have to pick up the dry cleaning, schedule six meetings, take my kids to ballet and violin and soccer and buy new socks for everyone and finish the budget, and empty the cupboards for the canned food drive and fly to Toronto on Friday, and conduct 12 interviews, and if I have time I'll sit down at my potter's wheel, and if I have time I'll plan that trip to Zimbabwe.

Oh how deliciously human we all are. What's really important here?

Loving the day,

Lisa

More of this...?  Much more of this?

Imagine yourself ten years from now.  You are at the top of your game, your happiest.  Everything has worked out in the best possible way and you are full with life's pleasures.  You have everything you want, everything you dream of.  On a scale of 1 to 10 your life is a 10++.

Now imagine that your future self has a magic phone.  She picks it up and calls you.  What does she say?  What advice does she have for the road ahead?  What wisdom does she share?  What's most important for you to know today?  Listen closely.  

"Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits."

Satchel Paige had it down. And yes, it's really that simple.
Go ahead, right now...and remember, the clock is just an illusion.

Pause.
Breathe.
Listen to your breathing.
Listen to the sounds in and around you.
Connect.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. All right, you're free to go.

Lisa

Join us for Pay it Forward Friday--it's coaching for a cause.

In Santa Barbara we’ve had a big, delicious breath of Spring this week and man it stirs things up! I’ve been itching to clean out closets, slap on a fresh coat of paint and plant something in the dirt. Funny how a few days of blissful sunshine can do that.

Boing!

I met with a delicious group of women this week for a vision workshop. While everyone was checking in about what they were wanting from the day, one woman mentioned that Spring feels like a good time to start fresh, plant new seeds (so to speak) and brush off the old thinking. Wow. What cool insight. And based on the reaction from the group, she's not alone in that thinking.

So, here's an invitation for you all, no matter the weather in your parts, to do your own Spring clean-up.  Roll up your sleeves, clean out the cobwebs and clear the way for some new vision. Whatever your process, journal, action, conversation.....consider:

• What areas of your life could use a good Spring cleaning?  Take inventory.
• What’s working?  Be grateful.
• Shine a light on the areas that are collecting dust.
• What needs tending, nurturing, cultivating?   
• What’s dangling and calling out for completion?   
• What's ready for the giveaway pile?
• Step back and admire your work.  Celebrate. 

If you're inspired, share your findings....   In joy, Elizabeth

Two of the most prolific, amazing writerly types haunting the internet have something delicious to share with you and you will want to devour everything. So writers, dust off that short story hiding in the cobwebs of your hard drive. Pull out that 427-page novel from the drawer and fire up your muscles and your will.

First is the Spring Issue of RKVRY Literary Journal.
Literary editor Victoria Pynchon (here's a link to an interview I did with her last summer) brings us poetry, fiction, shorts and photography. Here's the fiction:

lighter than air by beverly akerman
in the morning by ryan crider
cry your happy tears by phillip gardner
swan dive by mel hicks
rocking by scott kauffman
baseball like roses by mikkilynn olmsted
paying the piper by jaime samms
backbone by sarah voss
snowed in by david a. willis

Here's RKVRY's submission guidelines lest you think you can slither away without your homework.

Next is Cicily Janus's Writing Away Retreat, scheduled for October 17-21, 2008 in Vail, Colorado.

Writing Away Retreats serve writers who need to get away and focus on their projects with minimal interruption. We will provide ample time to write, discuss your goals, dreams and projects with like minded creative individuals. As  a self-guided retreat, you dictate your pace, activities and meetings. This all inclusive retreat takes place in a luxurious mountain side lodge that is isolated on 120 acres, and includes a hot tub and sauna for total relaxation, with quick access to hiking trails. MS consultation with authors and editors are available at no additional cost. A one hour consultation with a Coach and Project Muse [that's me, guys] is also available at no additional cost. Delicious organic meals will be prepared three times per day and snacks, coffee, tea, wine and linen service will be provided throughout the day and into the night.  

Join Guest Author R.A. Nelson, along with Lee Ann Ward, author and senior editor/acquiring editor for Champagne Books, Cicily Janus, writer and retreat host, and me for an amazing (and highly affordable) retreat. Click here for more info on the retreat and facilitators.

Delicious! 

When you're going out the door, you typically have to remember a lot of things. Cell phone, keys, laptop, lunch... Do you remember to take your values with you? Or your heart?

Oops. Have they gone missing again?

Join us for Pay it Forward Friday--it's coaching for a cause. 

If you're in Santa Barbara, or traveling this way in the next couple months, come check out our free workshop series at the Montecito Library.

Thursdays May 1 through June 19
6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Montecito Library
1459 East Valley Road, Montecito

Click here to register in one or all. 

Thursday, May 1
How to Stop Saying I'm Too Busy
Lisa Gates & Maggie Rauen
 
Thursday, May 8
Radical Self Acceptance: Sourcing Your Own Freedom
Tamra Rutherford

Thursday, May 15
Using Your Intuition as a Springboard for Exercise
(even if you don’t workout)
Andrea Dieck & Beth Flynn

Thursday, May 22
Finding the Work You Love and Loving the Work You've Got
Lisa Gates & Elizabeth Gaynes

Thursday, May 29
Loving the One You're With: Reviving Relationship Intimacy
Maggie Rauen & Tamra Rutherford

Thursday, June 5
Home as Haven: Crossing the Threshold to Serenity
Andrea Dieck

Thursday, June 12
Uncommon Conversations on Midlife
Nica Guinn & Jan Kovarick

Thursday, June 19
Big Ideas: First Step and Beyond
Elizabeth Gaynes & Kirby Gillispie

Looking forward to seeing you!

I went over to my brainy friend Robyn McMaster's blog, Brain Based Biz, and found a lovely post about what she learned about picking apples. Turns out Robert Hruzek of Middle Zone Musings and Marcus Goodyear of High Callings, launched a group writing project / meme called "What I Learned from Odd Jobs." Couldn't be a better place to play on a tax prep weekend.

Here's my story: 

One day I sat with my best friend at the beach--both of us huddled in wool blankets in the middle of winter--trying to remember and count all the jobs we'd had since our first. On the surface, you might think this was a simple, linear task, but anyone who knows the Etch a Sketch trajectory of female conversations knows it was anything but. Hey, no worries, we get to the destination, but we meander to find meaning and connection, and about 62 jobs between us.

We laughed the kind of snorting, out-your-nose blurts like you do when you're a kid eating Oreos and milk. Her worst job was picking artichokes with a bunch of gossiping women with pink curlers buried under scarves, mine was picking zucchini. Too small. I'm compelled to be snarky and small-minded and caution (remind?) you, never believe a man who says, "about this long" -- it's a measurement that can only be relative.

Years later, I stole pieces of our conversation for a short story I published over at Literary Mama. Here's a snippet from that piece that summarizes my work history:

My thoughts turn inward and backpedal through all my jobs since the first—the one from which I am fired for picking zucchini too small. I see the windowless room of the weekly newspaper where I intern as a copy editor, full of men with stubby pencils, all smoking non-filtered cigarettes. I wince at the memory of my stint as assitant to the movie producer, his hot, condensed breath on my neck, needing help with nothing more than his zipper. Like a flipbook of outdated want ads, the list widens and obscures, a series of blunders and detours. Soul cravings stuffed inside time clocks.

The psychologists in the audience will like say I have been working out my "man" stuff, relationship with authority, etc. But I say I've been working out my solopreneur path my entire life.

What did I learn? I love the heat on my face and back in the summer. I love the smell of rich, loamy river soil, I love the palate of descending greens the farm's geometry offered. I thought, for a millisecond, that I liked the challenge of finding out what "this big" meant, but I was wrong. Life was telling me I wasn't a conformist, and I'd better get ready for the ride.

What's your story? Kammie, you have something lurking? Kirsten, can Circe cook something up here? (If ya do, go take a look at the "guidelines."

360 Chicks, what say YOU? 

It's Friday, and it's time to jump in, request a Pay it Forward coaching session, and get out there and change the world.

Brad Pitt's Make It Right project in New Orleans now welcomes groups and organizations who are willing work together in raising money to sponsor an entire home for those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. So that's what we did as a group here at 360 Alliance Coaching. We established the 360 Alliance Coaching House. So now, when you request a Pay it Forward session, you can make your contribution of $30 (or more) directly to Make it Right and our 360 Alliance Coaching house.

Here's how it works

• Complete the Pay it Forward Friday Form to request your 45-minute coaching session.
  
• After receiving your form, you will be contacted by one of our 360 Alliance coaches to schedule your session.
• Your session must be scheduled within one week of your request.
• After the session, please make your $30 donation. Simple honor system applies.

Looking forward to working with you!