How do you know if he’s the ‘one’? Have you been on so many bad dates, that the thought of getting dressed for another one feels like work? Many singles are disgusted with the dating scene. It feels so unnatural to date someone you met online, and yet, there are hundreds of thousands of singles registered on online dating sites. Not to mention the sleazy married people masquerading as singles. What’s a girl or guy to do in order to increase their dating success?

The unfortunate thing is that if you don’t date, you’ll probably never find the ‘one’. He will not be beating down your door any time soon. You will probably not be meeting her in a grocery store or at the library. But meeting the right person is only half the battle. The more important piece in solving the dating dilemma is making yourself the ‘one’, the one you love hanging out with, the one who is doing what makes her/himself happy and fulfilled. Because if you don’t love yourself, you are not so lovable.

One of my favorite Sesame Street memories is the “One of these things doesn’t belong here” segment, where you have to guess which object doesn’t fit. This is a great way to look at dating. If you don’t date a lot, you won’t know what doesn’t fit. And if you don’t know yourself, you won’t know what DOES fit. You may even miss the ‘one’ when he or she shows up.

So be sure to be actively involved in activities that make you happy. Don’t put off the big dream, whether it’s writing a book, taking a class in something you’ve always wanted to know more about or be better at. Travel. Read. You will become interesting. You will set yourself apart from others. And you will have a much easier time recognizing the ‘one’ when they show up at the library or the grocery store in front of you in the ‘ten items or less’ aisle. Or more realistically, when you see their profile online.

The more you love yourself, the more irresistible you will be!

I am in the pre-launch stages of my new coaching business; percolating new ideas, writing curriculum for workshops, and talking, talking, talking to everyone about my exciting new niche: Dating After Divorce Coaching. I am targeting women over forty, who are having some difficulty in dating after divorce. And I am very excited!

This morning I met with a good friend, Nan, over a cup of Starbucks coffee to strategize about my new business. She is filled with common sense and intelligence, and every time our paths cross, we have lively intense conversations on deep topics. Today was no different.

After catching up on the triumphs and challenges of our children, we focused on my new business. She knows several people who can help: a divorced woman, a makeup specialist and a wardrobe consultant for future workshops on image.She also introduced me to an administrator at a local school who happened to be in Starbucks, and I followed up with an email promoting my other business, teaching art classes. An added bonus that I didn’t expect at all.

You never know what may come of a connection. I am always delighted at what happens when I make the effort to get out of my small circle and increase my network of business contacts. The possibilities are limitless. One connection leads to another, and another.

Five tips for growing your business

1) Network: Make the effort to get out of your small circle of people you know. Go to networking events. Go often.

2) Follow up: You made those connections, now contact those people and ask how you can be of help in the future.

3) Be a connector: It feels great to be a good resource for others. Offer the services of other businesspeople you know.

4) Be grateful: Find ways to thank others for their help. From a phone call to an email to something more elaborate, thanking people is so important. Hold a thank you evening of cocktails and snacks. Take a referral source out for lunch.

5) Keep building relationships: My coach, Jane Pollak, invited me to a concert to raise money to support Haiti. I was so touched by her generosity, and am honored and delighted to be going with her. She is building relationship with me, and I in turn, have continued to refer her as a wonderful coach. Never underestimate the importance of kindness.

Building your business can be a scary, daunting endeavor, and the above tips can make it less so. I am grateful for Nan for supporting me this morning, and I feel surrounded by a network of loving support coming from so many that I have reached out to.

Can you think of another tip that has worked for your business?

Last night, after rushing from picking up my daughter at the train station to feeding my kids dinner, I traveled a half-hour during rush hour traffic to get to a networking event at EWN. I was a bit frazzled as I entered the lecture on networking etiquette, but I was not nervous at all. I walked in with confidence. Over the past year, I have gone from being anxious and a little nauseous to feeling at ease and comfortable with networking events. I owe that ease to the many skills I have learned along the way, the most important being, Just Do It. Feel the fear, but do it anyway. The more I do, the easier it gets.

Kelly Solway, CEO of One Etiquette Place, spoke about the skills necessary to bring confidence and poise to any networking situation. She engaged us in a lively discussion about body language, for example the effect of uncrossing your arms in order to invite people to get to know you. She gave helpful hints about what to do when someone corners you. And she emphasized the importance of a good first impression.

These same skills are useful in the dating world.

As I embark on my new career as a dating coach for people dating after divorce, here are a few tips to make a good first impression.

1) Smile

2) Put your best face forward. Dress to flatter your body. Feel your best.

3) Stay open. Uncross your arms and legs.

4) Make eye contact.

5) Stay curious. Ask questions. Use more “You”s than “I”s in conversation.

Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Give it all you got.

I remember my first time. I was driving in a neighborhood about a half hour from my home, and there they were at the end of someone’s driveway, exposed and begging for a second chance: twin oak headboards and footboards, in mint condition and perfect for my kids’ bedroom! With a quickening of my heart and the thrill of a sneaky adolescent, I pulled my car to the curb, opened the back of my forest green station wagon, and shoved in my newfound treasures.

My heart was pumping and the adrenaline was flowing. How exhilarating to imagine the myriad of possibilities that lie ahead for these headboards, the excitement of turning trash into treasure.

When I got home, I unloaded my stash and began sanding and priming. While a blank canvas might intimidate many, these newly primed white headboards filled my creative mind with a plethora of ideas. I finally settled on an aquatic motif, and painted the background a deep blue with a black and white checkerboard border. My kids helped me design the whimsical fish that I painted in bright colors and patterns to match the fish theme in their bedroom. I had so much fun collaborating with my kids and creating furniture from someone’s garbage. My friends soon noticed the whimsical furniture and commissioned me to paint furniture for their kids. Thus began a new career in furniture painting, “Wonderfully Whimsical”, borne out of necessity, lack of funds, and ingenuity. I loved having a new outlet for my art expression, and most importantly, I discovered an important truth about myself. I learned that it brings me tremendous joy to take things that are considered lifeless and bring them back to life. I believe it is one of the things that I was put on this earth for…to know when to discard something and when to explore the possibilities of bringing new perspective and breathing new life into the very same thing.

As a life coach, I work with clients in very much the same way. I help them to access their inner core, to release and unveil the beauty that lies within them. I help them to breathe new life into old dreams, and to make some of those dreams become a reality. Dr. Dale Turner speaks to my passion about people and their dreams in the following quote:

“Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.”

There is no time like the present to begin the process of renewing your dreams and living your fullest and most joyous life. If you are curious as to how life coaching can ignite the possibilities within you, please contact me for a free consultation.

Back in Biblical times, when the Jewish people left Egypt, they witnessed one amazing miracle after another. From the nature-defying splitting of the Red Sea to the awe-inspiring capacity to draw water from a rock, miracles were abound. And yet, the Jewish people were constantly complaining. No sooner had they crossed the sea to dry land, saved from the Egyptians, they were whining to Moses about the water situation. Manna fell from the sky every day so they were never hungry, yet they complained about the lack of meat. How could the Jewish nation be so ungrateful?

At a class I attended yesterday following Sabbath services, I learned a new perspective on miracles, then and now. Imagine someone from those Biblical times today, viewing our world as we live it. From their perspective, we have no right to complain about lacking for anything. Unlike the Jewish people post-Egypt, most of us don’t live in the dessert. We are lucky enough to turn on a tap to get water or go to the store to buy what we need. We can plant seeds and grow fruits and vegetables. We don’t need to rely on big miracles. We are self-reliant. We are at choice.

Imagine for a moment living in biblical Egypt. If the Manna didn’t fall for a day or two, you could die. If the rock didn’t produce water, where would the water come from? We are luckier than we think. We are living in a time of great opportunity. If we open our eyes, we can see the possibilities that lie before us. We can use our skills to achieve a great deal. We can reach almost limitless potential. It is there for the asking.

I encourage you to take a moment to appreciate the miracles in your life right now. What miracles are you overlooking?

Yesterday was another example of the Universe changing course and good things happening because I went with the flow. It was another case in point that we can’t control the outcome of anything, but if we are open to what might happen, we can experience great things.

I had signed up for a luncheon lecture by Linda Kaplan Thaler on The Power of Small at the Entrepreneurial Women’s Network (EWN). I was anticipating a powerful inspirational speech by this highly successful woman business owner, and was disappointed when the morning of the lecture, the speaker cancelled due to a family emergency. Debbie Fay of Bespeak Presentations, had graciously offered to take her place. I had heard Debbie speak before, and I knew she would be dynamic, but I had signed up for Linda, not Debbie, and like a petulant child, I wanted my Linda!!

A year ago, when I attended my first EWN luncheon, I was shy and a bit intimidated. I hadn’t yet considered myself an official entrepreneurial businesswoman, even though I had been working for myself for the past 25 years. Yesterday, as a member of EWN who has forged many wonderful EWN relationships over the past year, I entered with the confidence of the businesswoman I have become. I immediately connected with the delightful women I have come to know, and eagerly bonded with new entrepreneurs.

Debbie Fay is an energetic natural speaker. Petite with streaked blonde shoulder-length hair, don’t let her small stature fool you. Debbie engages you from the moment she begins to speak. And her topic was right up my alley, I am, I can, I will: Building a Lifetime of Meaningful Success. Here’s a brief synopsis of the lecture from EWN:

Whether we’re 3 or 33 or 93, we’re all guilty of harboring talents, desires and wishes that can go our entire lifetime unfulfilled.  What exactly are we waiting for?  What do we think needs to happen in ourselves, in our world, in our life span in order for the time to be right?  What if the time is now?  What if the person is you?

Join us as Debbie Fay, entrepreneur, dog owner, and lead singer (all begun at mid-life) peels away the excuses and prods, pokes, teases and tugs, and ultimately dares us to take steps TODAY to do the thing we might otherwise let slip by.

Debbie first spoke of the many highly successful people throughout history who experienced failure after failure and kept on going to achieve great success, such as Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Julia Child. She walked us through some valuable exercises to identify what fears were getting in the way of our success, our dream. Once we identified the fears, she had us fill out a second form and list five things in each category. I invite you to do the same.

I am:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

I can:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

I will:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Everyone suffers from self-doubt, and everyone fails, again and again. The difference between those who reach their potential and those who don’t is the ability to keep on trucking, to maintain enthusiasm and momentum, no matter the number of failures.

Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
Winston Churchill

We all have gifts, talents, and the potential for success in life. When we move past our fears and identify what our competency is, the sky is the limit. So, thank you Debbie, for helping me get out of my own way in order to get even more clear with my life purpose. Thanks, too, for helping me realize once again, that while we may not always get what we thought we wanted (Linda Kaplan Thaler), we get exactly what we needed (Debbie Fay).

Life is rarely a smooth road. The bumps can be difficult to navigate and sometimes throw you off course. Change can feel hard. Whether you are trying to lose weight, change a job, leave a spouse, adjust to an empty nest, whatever your challenge is, it doesn’t have to be that hard.

Here are five tips that can help you make sustainable change:

1) Have positive thoughts and beliefs. To sustain change, you must believe that the change you want will bring good things to your life. Focus on those good things, and you will bring more positivity into your life.

2) Adapt a new belief about your capabilities. You are much more capable than you think. Most of us think we are not smart enough, savvy enough, don’t have enough experience to make big changes. You are, you can, you will, if you only believe!

3) Quiet your negative voices, your inner critic. Your saboteur can be the biggest deterrent to change. It will try to fill your head with negative self-defeating thoughts. It can and should be tamed. (Working with a life coach or therapist can ease the pain)

4) Surround yourself with positive support. It is important to ask for help when navigating change. People who are good at navigating change ask for help, hire help, and surround themselves with the support they need. You can’t do it alone!

5) Just do it! Have an action plan and stay accountable to someone. You may get off course, but if you know your direction, you will get there, step after baby step. Make sure you know where you’re heading, and keep on truckin’. Working with a colleague, friend or life coach can help you stay on task.

Are you navigating a big change in your life? Start a dialogue here!

Call me Doctor Love. I happened upon this new career by accident, as I stumbled through the sometimes daunting, often exciting adventure of dating after divorce. Through my own trial and error of dating, I discovered that I am much better at understanding men the second time around. Whether it’s due to my maturity, self-confidence, or better communication skills, I have been enjoying getting to know men through online dating.

This past week, I was able to help two divorced friends. Friend number one is a young woman in her thirties with three young children. She has been divorced about a year, and I convinced her to take the leap and  join an online dating service. I helped her write her profile, pick good photos, and figure out who was worth emailing and who was to be avoided like the plague. We barely knew each other before she joined the dating world, and now we speak several times a day. Her profile was viewed by almost 300 men in a week, which is remarkable! She has a possible date this weekend. She is learning to weed out what she wants, to get clearer in her communication. Her self-confidence is growing. And she’s learning to lighten up and trust men, difficult to do after an abusive marriage and contentious divorce.

Another friend, in her fifties, divorced four years, has been dating online for about a year and a half. She hasn’t had much luck with sustaining a relationship. She recently began dating someone, but she wasn’t that into him. Besides, with his heavy travel schedule, he wasn’t so available. Things were looking bleak until she received an email from a major crush. Confused about how to interpret his words and how to respond, her initial instinct was to express her anger and confusion.  I advised her to write down all of her responses and send them to me. Give it 24 hours, then come up with a new letter.

She came over the next morning, and I helped her take her angry, defensive, heavy response and transform it into a light, objective, curious and warm letter. She sent it later that afternoon and the result couldn’t have been better. They ended up having a heart to heart talk, after which he invited her over to his home for the first time. She brought chicken soup, they watched a great movie. The upshot is he didn’t realize that she wanted a relationship with him. He had gotten the wrong message, one of anger and defensiveness. And he had stayed away. Had she sent her first response, they would never had ended up together. This morning, he sent several loving texts. The confusion is over!

She just called me to suggest a new name for my dating service: Man Whisperer! By no means am I an expert in men, but I do seem to be clear about what it is that I want, and communicate that clearly. Most men understand focused conversations, and are not so good at subtleties, which is how many women communicate. I used to be very abstract, coy, and wanted men to read my mind. No longer.

So, ladies, the Love Doctor/Man Whisperer is advising you to speak your mind. Get curious, don’t jump to conclusions, and say what you want. Your man will thank you!

I almost forgot how much I enjoy painting. The sensuality of blending the acrylic paint colors, the wonder of making something from nothing. My eighteen year-old son had been bugging me for months to paint a scene from the book, Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. It was one of his favorite children’s books, especially since the main character shares his first name, Max.  Part of me was yearning to paint again, while my sabotaging voice was saying, “You aren’t so good at painting anymore. Use it or lose it. And face it girl, you lost it!”

I managed to listen to that negative voice and avoid painting the wall until a few days ago, when I decided to just go for it. A few hours later, the outline for the wild rumpus was drawn in charcoal. “Hey, I can still do this”, I thought to myself. And then came the scary part: applying paint to the wall, indelible marks, the real deal. Once I started, there would be no going back to the original baby blue of the bedroom wall. It was all or nothing. And I began.

After a few hesitant strokes, the feeling of joy and confidence returned as I smelled the acrylics, and the colors were squeezed onto my palette. I hadn’t painted with acrylics in about five years. And I hadn’t painted a mural in maybe twenty-five years. My creativity had taken a turn in a new direction, towards life coaching. I was fully immersed in this new creative career, and the urge to paint furniture, my occupation for twenty years, had waned.

It is kind of like riding a bike. You never really lose the ability to paint. But practice does make perfect, and I was rusty. However, my confidence and skill level returned as I realized I still had talent. And more importantly, I loved the process. By the end of last night, the mural was complete. Max was delighted with the end product, Max and a monster hanging from the trees. (See photo above)

Painting the scene released my inner ‘wild thing’, that part of me that I often keep under wraps. While I was painting, listening to Jack Johnson and Crosby Stills Nash and Young on the ipod speakers, I was fully in the ‘zone’. I was connected to my source, my essence. I was totally in the ‘flow’, as they say in new age speak. It was meditative and empowering to see what emerged when I was connected to my source.

Now, my inner ‘wild thing’ wants to paint again. And I will. I emailed a new business acquaintance who does home styling, and she is interested in possibly working together to paint murals. Regardless of what I create, taking the risk to move past my saboteur was essential to opening the door to get my creative juices flowing in many directions. It has even opened the floodgates to brainstorming new ways to grow my coaching business.

Where’s your ‘wild thing’ hiding? What would be possible if you released her?

I first heard the beautiful poem, The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, in coaching school. I remember how, four years ago, it touched my heart with a sense of knowing, finding myself deep in its words. I happened upon it again this morning in a compassionate blog post by Ronna Detrick of Renegade Conversations, and I feel compelled to share it with my readers.

This poem has particular relevance to me today, as I look more deeply into what I need to thrive. I am not talking about food and water, a warm house, clothing on my back. I am referring to the deeper level of feeding my soul. Aligning myself with my values. I am constantly choosing how I want to live my life, refining, getting closer to my soul purpose. And sometimes I slip. I may not listen so closely to what I need. I occasionally let my head take over, convincing me to make choices that don’t work for me. Some of my worst decisions have come from overriding my intuition. The place that trips me up the most is in relationships with men.

In the past, I have made some bad decisions based on scarcity, the fear that if I don’t choose this great guy who has so many wonderful qualities, even if he is not quite right for me, I won’t find another. And now I know in my heart that this is not true. Not for me, not for anyone. And not necessarily because I have found Mr. Right. But because I know that a life of severe compromise of the soul is a life I can not choose.

It’s a big world out there. There are millions of people I haven’t yet met. And like anything else worth having, it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right time, and of being able to notice when the right opportunities fall into your lap. It is a fine balance between serendipity and creating opportunities, especially learning to take action when those opportunities show up.

And so, in that light, I share this poem with you.

The Invitation

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and stand still at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

(Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Invitation)

Will you not betray your soul?