This past weekend at Ali’s SHINE event, I sat on stage as part of Ali’s diamond success panel and couldn’t stop the tears from flowing as I thought about the past year and how happy I was to be sitting there as a symbol of hope for the hundreds of women in the audience.

Only a year ago, I was so confused about my identity.  Mommy blogger?  Lawyer?  TV personality?  Author?  CEO? Something else entirely that I couldn’t even see yet?

Today, I realize my identity is not what matters at all. (Anne McKevitt, Ali’s mentor, would surely disagree.  But, that’s a whole ‘nother long blog post.)

What matters is who and how I serve.

Here are a few more of the big awarenesses I’ve gained over the past year:

• For the first time in ten years, I have discovered that first and foremost, I want to be with my kids a whole lot more.  I realize that in many ways I’ve used my work as a way to escape from the pressures of motherhood. Today, I’m a homeschooling mom and I want to be the one to teach my children how to be in the world.
• Over the past year, I’ve discovered how to relax into my feminine energy much more deeply.  I can finally stop trying to make things happen and allow.
• I’ve learned to say no to myself and others.  My value no longer comes from all of the things I can do.  It comes from saying yes to what I love to do and letting go of everything else.  Even when that’s scarier than heck.
• I’ve learned to set boundaries with an open heart.  At our first diamond meeting in Phoenix last year, I was in the process of closing my law firm after having sold it to a man who ultimately could not fulfill on the commitments he had made.  The diamonds helped me to see that what I was experiencing was a reflection of my lack of clear boundaries.  And that boundaries didn’t have to mean what I thought they did.  I could set boundaries and keep my heart open at the same time.  What a revelation!
• I discovered that often the path to playing big requires me to think a whole lot smaller than I’m used to, at least temporarily.  That’s a whole blog post in itself to explain.
• I’ve learned to stop doing so much.  Looking back at what I was letting go of last year, I did it - I let go of so much:

1. I stopped trying to fit myself into a box;
2. I unfollowed everyone I was following on Twitter and now only follow people I want to connect with regularly;
3. I turned my email inbox over to my amazing assistant Michelle;
4. I no longer spend anytime on facebook looking up old highschool peeps;
5. The lawsuit has been long settled and the law firm itself has been closed for several months.

• And I recognize that I’m still doing too much.

Did I have to invest $100,000 to have these discoveries?  Apparently, I did.

Many people have asked me if the investment was worth it.  Before I answer the question, I’ll ask you.  Especially if you saw me at SHINE this weekend.

Does it seem like it was worth it?

Photo courtesy of Flickr

I had just graduated law school was newly married and despite living where I grew up, really didn’t have any “in real life” friends.  The few friends I did have in high school were long gone.  And, at only 25, no one else I knew was pregnant yet.

So, I made friends online.

It was perfect.  I had spent the summer as a summer associate being wined and dined by one of the biggest law firms in the world.  I didn’t really have that much work and spent all day in my office surfing the internet researching anything to do with pregnancy and babies.

I stumbled across the November 1999 Moms Email group on Yahoo! Groups or it may have been somewhere else and we migrated over to Yahoo! after a big brouhaha within our original group regarding breastfeeding/formula or maybe it was cry it out/family bed.

Either way, I made my very first group of mommy friends and these amazing women supported me through my pregnancy and the first few years of mom life.  I don’t know what I would have done without them.

In my real life, I was so lonely it was painful. After my clerkship in Miami, I moved to California, away from my family, to start my prestigious full time job as an associate at a big law firm.

I was only 26 years old and from the outside it appeared all my dreams had come true - husband, baby, prestigious job, 6-figure paycheck, etc. …  But, I was so miserable.

My daughter who was just turning 1 cried constantly when I was at work.  My husband was staying home to take care of her and for part of the time his mother (who was dying of cancer) lived with us. I was the only new mom among my law firm colleagues and my husband had very little desire to make any mommy friends.

I felt so alone.  If it wasn’t for my online friends, especially the November 1999 Moms Like Me, I don’t know what I would have done.

Happy Birthday Ladies - each one of you has more than a little credit for the mom I am to Kaia and Noah today.  I love you.

I believe my blog readers are the most intelligent, creative and business-savvy people on the web.

For that reason, I’m asking you to help me make an “executive decision” and choose a logo for my latest venture—LIFT.

• LIFT stands for Legal, Insurance, Financial and Tax. And the LIFT program will help micro business owners get excited about building their business with a LIFT Foundation.

• Millions of small business owners each year lose money or face serious setbacks in their businesses because of lawsuits, conflicts, audits, bookkeeping issues, unnecessary tax bills and having the wrong type and amount of insurance in place.

• Lack of knowledge about these issues personally cost me nearly $750,000.  Combine that with my law school and undergraduate education and I’ve got a million dollar education to share with you about these topics.

I’m really excited about the launch of LIFT, but of course I can go no further until this logo is chosen.

So here are your choices below (double- click on the image to enlarge it if you’re having a hard time viewing the designs):

Please leave me a comment letting me know your preferred font choice (each column has it’s own font) as well as your preferred color scheme (each row has it’s own color). Also, and this is very important, please let me know whether you are a current business owner or an aspiring business owner. And, of course, if you have any other thoughts/feelings, please let me know that too.

Based on your feedback I’ll make my final decision!  Thank you so much in advance.  I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Smart (at least for  law school purposes) meant an extraordinary capacity to study non-stop and have an intuitive sense for what the professors looked for in exam answers.

More than ten years have gone by and I find myself being forced to completely re-examine the meaning of “smart” within the context of my own children and I have to tell you, it’s painful.

I knew that being “law school smart” l was only one type of smart and that there were lots of other ways to be smart, but I was secretly grateful that I didn’t have to rely on any of those other ways for proof of my smarts.  And yes, I did feel as if I had to prove it, to myself and everyone else.

Now, ten years later, I’m reminded once again that the Universe never lets me get away with anything.  If I don’t work through something and learn to drop the conditioning, it always comes back up.

So here it comes through my kids.  They are not test-taking/law school smart.  I was reading at the age of three.  They were barely talking by two.

My daughter reads now, going into 4th grade, but only because we forced her to learn.  And she doesn’t like it.  I’m holding out hope that she might one day begin to love it.  But, I’m no longer holding my breath.

For the past four years, my daughter has been attending the most prestigious (and expensive) private school in our community.  We decided to apply “just to see” and then couldn’t not send her there after we got in.

I thought we could fit in, but no matter how much I wanted to, it didn’t mean we would.  I could fake it for short amount of times, but the truth was I was faking it and integrity is one of my highest values, so it felt really bad.

I was willing to have my kids be there even though we didn’t fit in if it was a good fit for them educationally.

After my son attended his first year there last year, I knew for certain, it wasn’t.  My daughter was more easily fit into their box, but after going through it with her and contemplating doing it with him, I recognize how much I just don’t want to do it.  I don’t want to tame my son.  Not like they want him to be tamed.

And now I’m faced with re-examining my own beliefs about what’s smart and what’s not.

As we embark on this journey of homeschooling, everything I ever thought about education and learning is being challenged.  It’s bringing up every fear, uncertainty and doubt I’ve ever had about so many things.

I’ve been silently dealing with my demons - alternating between letting it be, trying to control everything, and beating myself up for failing.  Today, I finally had enough.  I can’t answer these questions alone.  And I asked my online communities for help.

Jo (my BFF who is living here with me and homeschooling her kids and mine) asked me to do some reading, inquiry and investigation before I made any decisions about how the kids should be schooled.  She’s been unschooling since the beginning.  Her kids (same age as mine) are more advanced in some areas and less advanced than others than my kids (there’s that comparing thing) yet there’s a part of me that says “unschooling” is okay for her kids because they are inherently “smarter.”  My kids aren’t smart enough.  My kids can’t be trusted the way her kids can.

Where does that come from?

Why do I believe I can’t trust my children to know what they need.  I get it that the conditioned culture tells us we can’t trust, we must control, it’s up to us to know what their needs are better than they do and meet them.  They cannot be trusted to make smart decisions for their well-being.  And the piece of me that still desires to “fit in” to societal norms wants to agree.

But then, there’s this other piece.  The piece that says %*@! all that.

I can trust my children.  They inherently know and if I just give them the chance to re-discover what they know, they’ll remember everything.   While I know that this is the truth in my heart and soul, it scares me to death.

What if I’m wrong? What if they spend all day watching TV and playing video games because I’m too caught up in my own work to guide them properly?  What if they never learn to read, write and do math?  What if they always hate reading? What if … what if … what if … what if I fail in my most important job as their mom?

Thankfully, my spiritual foundation has somewhat prepared me for these what ifs.  I know it’s all perfect.  I know I can’t fail them.  I know I can trust.  But, damn, it’s hard.

I need to redefine everything I ever thought about education. And parenting.  And being smart.  And working hard.  And fitting in.  What a blessing.

My honey is waiting for me to come to bed, but I wanted to let you know that I shared some of the learnings I gained on my last Play a Bigger Game NOW call.

When you subscribe to my Facebook fan page (wish it was called something else), you get those calls each month for free and can get access to the archived calls as well.

So, jump on over to my page, click the “become a fan” button and then go check your updates tab for the deets on how to access the calls.

If you already are a fan, go check out your updates tab now.  The info on how to get the recordings and listen in on future calls is there.

I’ll have some photos posted soon, but for now on the fan page you can see one with me and my partners in fun, my private coaching client and very close friend Max Simon and one of his clients and now another great friend, Aaron Ross.

When our RV broke down on the way to Burning Man we had to use all of our manifestation skills to make it to the event by Monday.  And we did it!  You’ll absolutely want to hear how because what we did can be used anytime you confront a massive roadblock in your life or your business.

It really works whether you are trying to get to Burning Man or trying to build a million dollar company or trying to get your kids to do what you want them to do.  I share the specifics on my Play a Bigger Game call, get it on the fan page.

PS - while everyone else’s kids are back to school, mine are not.  Yep, we are officially homeschooling.   And maybe even unschooling.  The whole things is quite scary, but I’m being afraid and doing it anyway.  I hope you are doing that in your life a few places too.  It’s where the growth happens.  Ciao for now.

PPS - one lesson I didn’t talk about on the Play a Bigger Game Now call this month, but I will next month is that Burning Man teaches you how to be radically okay with whoever you are and however you show up in the world.  When you can really do this, life becomes truly exciting and joyful.

I’ve already got a couple of businesses though and knew I couldn’t invest the time and energy necessary to give this one what it would need.

I set the intention to find someone I could build it with and shortly afterward thought I found just the right person in the mastermind group I had begun to participate in.  But, as we began to move forward she discovered a renewed commitment to her own business and handed the project back to me.

Rather than taking the whole thing on myself, I let it go once again, trusting that when the time was right it would happen.   (BTW, that’s generally a difficult thing for me to do - when I catch a vision and it sticks, I have a strong drive to move forward on it, which is how I end up doing so many things - but, I began to exercise patience, restraint and, yes, trust.)

It looks like the time might be right now.  IF 10 or so moms can come together to truly build something extraordinary based on a radically new business model of trust, common values, and without ego.

Over the past few months, I’ve found myself connecting with a community of mompreneurs who are each individually committed to serving moms in business.  A couple of these moms are already doing that in their own primary businesses.  A few are doing it in the way I am here, when they can fit it in amongst their other primary business activities.  A few want to serve moms in business, but haven’t figured out how it fits in with everything else they are doing.

We’ve gotten on the phone twice now to birth the beginnings of something that has the power to be transformational for mommy business™ owners throughout the world, if we can move beyond our own egoic desires for recognition and validation.  And when I talk about “we”, that by all means includes me.

As moms of young children and business owners, we are pulled in so many directions.  To even think about building something that will impact the world on the level I’m visioning will require full cooperation and using our greatest tools for working together.

It will give each of us real life opportunity to show up as the embodiment of our highest selves.  What does that look like when real life restrictions of time and money are present and we are coming together to build a business that creates real change and is far greater than any one of us individually?

I look forward to finding out!

The ultimate mommy business™ we birth is one in which all owners of the business will be equal.

Conflicts will be worked out with open communication.  Additional c0-business owners will be added only upon 100% consensus of everyone involved.  Participation is and always will be 100% voluntary  - our governing agreement will have clear provisions about what contribution looks like and clear “out” provisions for those who are not able to continue to contribute.

Some will contribute money.  Others time.  Each of us, our deepest gifts.

Is it really possible?  I believe so.  I’m holding the space and the vision.  And I say yes!

A few seconds before I sat down, I thought who knows what will happen - stay open to the possibilities.

Within minutes, my twitter friend T.C. Coleman showed up.

I had thought we were meeting at 3p, but she thought I said 2p and there I was.

Dave decided to leave to go to Nordstroms and buy clothes for our dinner out at Alinea (he’d worn the same shirt too many times and needed something other than jeans).

Minutes later, I hear my name and when I look up there’s a friend of mine from law school.  A guy who was one of my few good friends.

I studied a lot in law school.  So much so that I ended up graduating first in my class.  Maybe I studied too much!

The only friends I really had were in my 1st year small section.  Carter was in that group.

After catching up with Carter for a few minutes, I discover he’s a Professor.  A full, tenure track Professor at a damn good school - Notre Dame.  WOW!

That’s some serious stuff.

It’s been TEN years since we graduated.  It feels like it was yesterday.

In those ten years, Carter has worked at a big law firm, been general counsel to the Presiden’t counsel on Bioethics, and now he’s a Professor.  Oh, and a dad and a husband.

I’ve worked at a big law firm, built and sold my own law firm, built another 7-figure business, written a book, and appeared on television as a legal expert a number of times.

Holy moly, it almost feels as if it’s happening to someone else.

And then I look around at lawyers who have had the same job for ten years, or those who have had no job at all, or not started a business, or haven’t had children and I wonder what’s the difference?

How is it that Carter and I have had all of this amazing stuff happen in just ten years?

If you would have asked Carter if he end up a Professor, he’d probably tell you no way.

If you would have asked me if I would end up an entrepreneur, TV expert, author I’d have said no way.

We were going to work at big law firms and become partners.  Because that’s what top-tier law school grads do.

And yet we didn’t.  We each realized within months of beginning our big firm jobs that it was unbearable to be so miserable and we didn’t just want to live in the misery and complain about it until we got used to it.   So we left.

And you can too.

Just imagine where you could be in ten years.  It’s never too late to start something new.

When I was 13 I read my very first book about a powerful business leader and I was hooked.  It was Iaccoca’s original autobiography.

In the past several months, I’ve found myself back in the biography/memoir genre and noticed an odd pattern … they’ve almost all been about powerful men.  I’ve read:

Isadore Sharp’s Four Seasons: The Story of a Business Philosophy

Dennis Felix How to Get Rich: One of the World’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Shares His Secrets

Tom Bergeron’s I’m Hosting As Fast as I Can: Zen and the Art of Staying Sane in Hollywood

Bill O’Reilly’s A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity: A Memoir

Larry King’s My Remarkable Journey

5 men doing big things, each one of whom has inspired me to be more of me and keep on the path by his story.

Isadore Sharp has inspired me to hold true to my outrageous philosophy of creating a nationwide group of lawyers clients love to work with again and again (people said his vision for the Four Seasons was crazy too!)

Dennis Felix has helped me be okay with my desire to be rich and also realize the sacrifice I’ll make in getting there.

Tom Bergeron made me laugh, remember that it’s all perfect, we are all connected and God’s got my back.

Bill O’Reilly helped me understand how to brush off the critics and keep moving ahead.

Larry King guided me to know that if I love doing it, even if I’m not great at it yet, I will be if I just keep doing it … so to keep doing what I love.

Right around the time I realized I was reading book after book by powerful business men, Coach Deb recommended a book by a powerful woman, Seducing the Boys Club: Uncensored Tactics from a Woman at the Top by Nina Disesa, chairman of McCann Erickson.

Oh, it was so good.

So, what else is there?  Where are all the memoirs/bios/autobios about and by powerful women who will inspire me?  Anything written by a mom who has made it happen in business?

I read Penelope Trunk’s blog for regular inspiration from a mom who is really making it happen in business and hopefully she’ll write her memoir one day.  But, is there anything out there now?

Can you recommend any other books that have the real life stories of women who have made it big in their industry that you think I’ll love?

Here’s the story…

But, real quick before it, if you have ever been scammed out of money, let me know.  I know it’s painful and embarrassing, but it’s time to move beyond embarrassment and shame and speak out!

You are not a victim.  When something like this happens, it’s an opportunity for you to learn and grow, but only if you do not hide.

With that awareness, here’s what happened in my life recently:

Several months ago I was contacted on Twitter by a man named Steve Pohlit. He reached out to me through a private direct message to let me know that he had perfected a lead generation process that he had been working on utilizing social media and thought would be ideal for a project I was working on.

I am a big believer in synchronicity and that there are no coincidences and I had just the day before been thinking about how I had perfected a process of converting leads and now just needed a great process for generating leads, so I was quite interested in what he had to say.

Then, when I found out he was the creator of Manifest Mastermind (a spiritually-based membership site that is supported by people I trust like Kendra Thornbury and Randy Gage), I thought for sure THIS WAS MEANT TO BE.  I was pretty excited.

Plus, Steve repeatedly used spiritually-infused language of love, trust, & faith when speaking to me and he seemed totally genuine.  PLUS, he directed me to Facebook groups of thousands of people that he had created for Manifest Mastermind and to his business partner Brian Campbell who appeared to have a solid following on Facebook.  They seemed so legit.

Despite the skepticism of my team members, I engaged Steve and Brian to implement their lead generation strategy for me.

And because I wanted to believe, I dismissed major red flags that came up right away.  After all, Steve signed his emails with platitudes like “Love, Steve” and “Sending energy of peace, happiness, unconditional love, Steve” (Oh God, I feel stupid writing this). Besides that, Steve assured me that this was a new strategy, but that he would work with me to work through any of the kinks.   I trusted him and felt confident we’d make it work together. Boy, do I feel stupid now.

Very quickly it became clear that Steve and Brian were not only not doing what they promised, but they had no intention of working through any kinks with me.  They were going to do the bare minimum that was necessary so they could say they fulfilled their end of the bargain under the terms of our agreement and that was it.  Unfortunately, the bare minimum just meant they had to do SOMETHING.

As soon as I tried to let them know that what they were doing wasn’t working and work out the kinks with them to create a strategy that would work, they began to use what I’ll call spiritual manipulation.

Here’s a sample of what that looked like in an email from Steve to me after I emailed him to let him know what wasn’t working and what I thought needed to happen to make our campaign work:

The Law of Attraction states that what you focus on expands. What has been happening is you are focusing on imagined results that have not yet manifest according to your definition. Your reaction is one of attack and you are creating situations in support of your belief that we are part of a group of less than honorable marketers.

While I will not go “toe to toe” with you on each of your points in your email, I do agree the communication was more positive and energetic at the start. Since then what we have felt is that the energy has turned to one of a weekly “bitching and moaning” session. Or, “it is Friday so it is time to tell Brian and Steve they suck”.

With that downstream energy flowing two things happen: 1. we respond factually with what we are doing and 2.) we feel the disconnect with you and the synergy that is possible is dormant.

So, basically, if I express that things are not working, I am energetically damaging the campaign.  (For the record, there was no bitching or moaning and I never said they suck  - although their campaign was a big loser; I was extremely kind with my requests for improvement- I’m quite sure, in fact, that I was too kind.)

This is the exact sort of manipulation that I’ve seen from other what I’ll call “spiritual scammers.” Let me know if you’ve experienced this sort of turn-around manipulation yourself.

As you can likely imagine, things proceeded downhill from there.

Steve and Brian were never willing to work with me to improve anything.  Anytime I expressed displeasure, Steve turned it around on me in an attempt to show me how I was creating negativity and therefore was responsible for the poor results … forget the fact that my team was running a simultaneous campaign having fantastic results with a different strategy!

I knew nothing would ever come of it and chalked the whole experience up to a big, expensive lesson learned.  Rather than investing the energy in pursuing a refund (which I have no doubt would never have come) or a lawsuit (which I have no doubt would have cost me far more than the $10,000 I lost), I let it go.  And, I let it be.

But now it appears Brian (Steve’s “partner” in this whole debacle) has been taken by Steve too.  A case of karma, if you ask me.  It’s not possible that Brian didn’t see how Steve had manipulated me into spending $10,000 on a campaign that had no chance of success.  Brian’s a smart guy and he was the one carrying out the bogus strategy.  So, what did Brian expect?  Did he not realize that Steve was ripping me off?  I’d love to hear Brian’s thoughts on this.

For the rest of ya, it’s time to speak out!

I told myself I was letting this go because I didn’t want to give it anymore energy and that’s true, but I also realize that I was embarrassed and full of shame.  And because I kept quiet, it’s quite possible that more people were taken.

Well, it’s not going to happen anymore.  I will not stand by and watch good-hearted people be taken by mean-spirited, spiritual-talkers who don’t walk their talk with integrity.

I’ve discovered an important paradox.  What has had me keep this quiet up until now  is the victim part of me that feels shame and embarrassment.  When I speak about what happened with an open heart (not from a place of revenge) I feel empowered and all remnants of the victim energy are gone.

I don’t get riled up about much, but I do get riled up about this.  If you have a story about being taken … share it.  Don’t hide it.  It’s time to speak out!  You are not a victim.  With an open heart allow your experience to help others.  You are empowered.

It’s a great kick off to the year of homeschooling the kids.  Burning Man is the best place to begin the kids education in life.