As powerful as positive thinking can be, all the positive thoughts in the world aren’t going to be effective if the moment something doesn’t go quite as planned we’re complaining. Those negative words will very quickly cancel out the positive thoughts that came before.

The words we speak carry even greater power and energy than the thoughts we think. Words are simply thoughts expressed and giving expression to our thoughts increases their energy.

To really create positive change in our lives requires more than positive thinking. Positive words and positive action must follow. Much of the time our thoughts are on auto-pilot. We’re not really aware of them. The same is often true of the words we speak.

If you’re thinking this doesn’t really apply to you, that you don’t complain much, try really becoming aware of the words you speak for just one day. You may be surprised when you pay closer attention to discover that you complain and criticize more than you’d realized.

On the flip side, also observe how often you think something positive but don’t speak it. Again, you may be surprised at what you discover. With greater awareness you can make a point of speaking the positive and holding your tongue when the negative words start to slip out. You’ll feel better, more uplifted and energized, and so will everyone with whom you’re speaking and interacting each day.

I’m all for postive thinking, visualizing, setting intentions for positive outcomes. I’m a fan of the core message of The Secret, that we create our reality and have the power to bring that reality into closer alignment with what we most desire it to be if only we can become more conscious of our thoughts, the choices we’re making and the actions we’re taking.

At the same time, I believe it’s critical to be aware of, to plan for, the possibility of seemingly negative occurences or challenges arising in the process. This may seem contradictory, but bear with me for a moment.

There’s a world of difference between telling yourself you can’t do something, are incapable of achieving something (negative thinking), and setting an intention to achieve a positive outcome and then assessing, identifying, and planning for, the possibility of challenges arising along the way.

The fact is, you can think positively, visualize your dream life incessantly but if you don’t take action you’re not going to get very far, and let’s face it, taking action means trial and error. Not every action you take is going to turn out exactly as you envisioned it would. If you’re relying solely on postive thinking, when the action you’ve taken doesn’t pan out as expected you’re likely to become frustrated, disheartened, and convinced that “postive thinking” doesn’t work. And you’d be right. Positive thinking alone doesn’t cut it.

If, on the other hand, you’ve acknowledged that the action you’re about to take might not go quite as planned, you can look at ways to avert disaster, identify steps you can take to make it more likely you will achieve that positive outcome and, alternatively, you can put a back-up plan in place. Then if things don’t go as expected, rather than feeling frustrated or deciding to throw in the towel, you simply implement Plan B and keep moving forward.

For example, when I take on any new project I set an intention for a positive outcome and I identify, in advance, the obstacles I think might get in the way of my achieving it. Once I’ve done that I can then look at ways to either lessen the possibility of those obstacles arising in the first place, or I can decide how I’ll approach handling them if they do arise.

This isn’t negative thinking, it’s proactive planning, and it makes the chances of achieving whatever you’ve set out to achieve much more likely.

If you observe your thoughts when you think about that particular task you will likely recognize that they’re negative. In fact, they’re frequently focused on the reasons why you don’t want to do that particular task, or on all of the excuses for why you can’t get it done. Far from inspiring you to take action, staying focused on these things will increase your stress level and drain your energy, not to mention your confidence and belief in your ability to get that task done, making it less and less likely over time that you will get it done.

If you find yourself groaning at the mere thought of doing what you’ve been putting off, and you find yourself getting caught in the litany of reasons why you don’t or can’t get it done, take a moment to stop and shift your focus.

Focus instead, 

on the benefits of finally getting that task that you’ve been dreading off your to-do list. What are you trying to achieve? What goal will you be closer to reaching once that task is done? What other tasks are dependent on this one getting done?  What are the benefits to being able to move forward on those other tasks?

If nothing else, the most immediate benefit of finally completing a task you’ve been procrastinating on is the surge of energy, sense of accomplishment, and the immediate reduction in your stress level. It feels good to be productive.

And, if you genuinely can’t come up with any benefits to getting into action and completing that long overdue task, then maybe it shouldn’t have been on your to-do list in the first place. In that case, remove it and replace it with a task that will have benefits, which will move you closer to what you want to achieve.

When you focus on what you’re working to achieve and on the benefits of getting the task done it energizes you, inspires you, and makes it much more likely that you’ll follow-through and get it done, and you just might find yourself enjoying it.

There are subtle, inconspicuous things that many of us do that may not look like diet behavior, but they are. What I call “diets in disguise” are out there, waiting for you to take the bait. Just the intention to “eat healthy” can be considered a diet because there will inevitably be restrictions on certain foods that you don’t consider healthy. Here are some other diets in disguise to consider:

• Eating or not eating at specific times each day. Do you eat lunch because it’s “lunch time”, instead of because you are hungry? Do you stop eating after 7pm because you have heard it leads to weight gain? If you’re physically hungry at bed time, it’s okay to eat, your body needs the food!

• Eating every 3 hours whether you are hungry or not (as some diets suggest you do). If you aren’t hungry, don’t eat, your body doesn’t need it and it will just go to your fat stores.

• Not eating because of being “bad” earlier that day or the day before. This can also take the form of overexercising. Judging how you ate in terms of good or bad is part of the diet mentality and can often lead to guilt and shame, and self-punishment. This leads to negative feelings about exercise and anxiety about food.

• “Cutting back” on food at anytime, but especially for a special event or when you feel “fat”. Eating less calories than you need is always going to be a form of dieting, regardless of the reason. This can get you right back into the diet mentality and the yo-yo dieting cycle.

• Using coffee or diet soda to replace food when hungry. If you’re physically hungry, your body wants food. Coffee or diet soda may temporarily fill you up, but eventually you will feel hunger again, and by this time you may be ravenous. This is a dangerous place to be – it is very easy to overeat when you get overly hungry.

• Eating fat-free or low-calorie foods to avoid eating more calories. If you have a lower-calorie or lower-fat alternative to a particular food that you enjoy just as much as the regular version, then feel free to eat it. But if you are sacrificing taste for less calories, you are dieting and not allowing yourself to get full satisfaction from what you eat. Sounds like a diet to me!

Any of these behaviors take you away from listening to your body about when and what to eat, and back to external forces. It is a small step back to deprivation, backlash, and the endless destructive diet cycle so watch out for those diets in disguise!

Communication today is based on the spoken and written word. Afterall, blogs are pure communication and a post is almost always delivered to the reader in some form of text. When we receive a flyer in the mail about a particular service the text is communicating to us. The spoken word comes to us from that infamous square box or from the words exchanged between our colleagues, family members or local merchants. Let’s face it, communication is the driving force in everything that we do (when we dream our neurotransmitters are in heavy communication too).

According to ‘Imagini,’ the company that came up with (and branded) the visual DNA concept, our visual awareness is now playing a huge role in how we communicate. A blog may contain a picture to help illustrate a particular thought, the flyer will have an image to evoke a certain feeling, the t.v. screen will flash an emotional moving image across the screen and people now capture special moments through the art of scrapbook.

By going to Imagini’s Website, you will be part of a huge database that is being built which will connect individuals based upon their own unique V.D.N.A. (I just came up with that acronym). They have put together many images that will evoke certain feelings and motivation from within. When prompted, you will be asked to click on the image that works for you. Upon completion, a visual biography will be available for you to read. The ironic thing is that the biography is in text!

It’s a clever idea and fun to do. Once you’ve gone through the entire process, you can create a login and make friends with others that have created their very own V.D.N.A. You can also create a widget which can be posted on your own blog or elsewhere. Here’s mine:

It appears that Imagini is still in beta testing so be one of the first to experience and if you like it, share it with others in your life. As a nutrition and health coach it’s going to be a fabulous tool for my clients to learn more about themselves and help manifest their deepest desires through pictures.

Looking at my resume recently a friend wondered, “What are you?” His confusion stems from the diversity of positions on my career path. After playing with I am a Life Coach, I am a Personal Growth Facilitator and several other titles that while accurate don’t give the complete picture, it came to me. I am a Change Agent.

When looking at those things I am most proud of and passionate about, they are about creating positive change in the GLBT community. They are a huge part of how I manifest my version of a thriving gay life. My work with the GLBT community in New Mexico includes co-publishing the oldest gay newspaper (http://www.nhcv.org) in the state, sitting on the board of the non-profit organization that owns the paper, serving on the committee creating a statewide system of community centers for the GLBT community, serving on the committee organizing one of the largest HIV/AIDS fundraisers in New Mexico and just generally volunteering. My work with RainbowVision (www.rainbowvisionprops.com) helps the GLBT community create lifestyle change for the second act of life and my coaching practice is about all gay men thriving in the world. It’s all about positive change in the GLBT community. 

The foundation of all my work including this Blog is a belief that all gay men will thrive in the world. We will all do it in our own way but we can create thriving gay lives. I have ten key elements to a thriving life of any kind which I use as the stepping stones when assisting clients to create their version of a thriving life, which in most cases is a thriving gay life.

Ten Keys To A Thriving Gay Life
 We all want to do more than just survive as gay men and lesbians. Like every human being we desire to thrive. How we thrive will be different for each of us. These ten items are a guide to creating your own thriving gay life.

1. Clear Values.
   

Values are the guideposts of life. They are those things most important to us. We are not our true selves unless we are living our values. Values are the basis of all our choices.

1. Vision for your life.
   

Vision is the big picture, the inspiration for your life. Your vision is the image of your best life based on your values. It is what you live into, create with goals and choices.

1. Your Mission.

Mission is your purpose, your reason for being. Mission is closely tied to your values and vision. It is a statement of how you will conduct your life. A clear mission helps you honor your values and create the life in your vision.

1. Success defined.
   

Defining success gives you a benchmark for achievement. Success is an individual thing; it’s not the same for everyone. How you define success is key to your happiness. If you don’t know what success is to you it will always be out of reach and with it happiness.

1. Relationship peace.
   

You don’t need a partner to be complete. You need to be at peace with your relationship status to be happy.

1. Community.
   

Human beings do not thrive in isolation. We are generally social creatures who crave connection. Community is the environment we create to foster connection. You are a member of multiple communities based on your values, interests and other common elements.

1. Balance.
   

Thriving means all areas of life are working toward our vision. It means all the parts of our lives are creating fulfillment and happiness. Balance is essential for this since it keeps life’s elements in harmony. When we have balance no one area of life dominates the others.

1. Career joy.
   

If work is a chore we can not thrive. Careers based on passion are the most fulfilling and rewarding. To find career joy, find your passion and create a career around it.

1. Health.
   

Creating a thriving life takes energy. A healthy lifestyle is the source of this energy.

1. Financial independence.
   

You don’t have to be Donald Trump to be financially independent. Financial independence is not about how much money you have but how you use it. If you have enough to live comfortably and cover any emergency you are financial independent.

To recap:
There was this farmer and his goose laid Golden Eggs. Things were going pretty well for him. Each day he would take the golden egg to the market and get a very fair exchange for his egg.

But one day, the farmer thought, “why wait for the goose to lay the golden egg one day at a time?”

He pulled out a knife and cut open the goose looking for all the golden eggs that he knew were inside the poor goose.

Of course, he found nothing and there he was — no golden egg and no goose (anymore).

I am sure it wasn’t a pleasant dinner…

The morale of the story? Look after your Golden Goose.

Are you?

Let me ask you this:
Are you saving more than you  need for your retirement?

Are you building up a ‘rainy day’ fund?

What’s your debt look like?

A recent headline in Canada stated that Canadians are spending 122% of what they make and saving levels are the same level (very low) that they were in the Great Depression over 60 years ago. That was when no one HAD any money to save…

One Golden Goose is the savings we have and how well they are working for us.

Another one is your health. How’s that goose doing?

There is a rumor making the rounds that we are facing an obesity epidemic. Most of us will not enjoy much of a retirement if we go into it 30 pounds overweight. PricewaterhouseCoopers study says there are more people in the world who are overweight than hungry. Yikes!

About 65 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, according to the Center for Disease Control, which reports that rates of overweight young people have tripled since 1980. The CDC links excess weight to many health problems, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke and some cancers.

I recommend taking the time to nuture that Golden Goose before it is too late. It’s is one thing to say and quite another to do. So before I go let me give you some suggestions.

First, what do you like to do? Most people watch hours of TV every day. Substitute 30 minutes of TV for 30 minutes of walking.

Second, how do you spend your weekends? Catching up on all the work you had no time to do all week? How about walking to a coffee shop to do it, instead of driving to one or staying at home?

Finally, can you spare 15 minutes before you climb into bed? I thought so. Okay, touch your toes, do 10 pushups and stretch your body. Trust me you will sleep better.

Take a moment today and make notes of your Golden Geese. How are you looking after them and what can you do to keep them healthy and laying Golden Eggs for years to come?

Why is this so important to creating a thriving gay life? It is what gives power to our goals and plans. The power of intention is that it drives our thoughts and actions toward what we have committed to creating. Intention draws on the strength of our deep commitment to what it is we have said we intend to manifest. Think of the power of intention as the power of Lance Armstrong to overcome cancer and win seven Tours de France. The commitment that produces the power of intention is so deep that it is almost religious.

How do you create the power of intention? It starts with creating goals based on your values so that you are honoring who you are in pursuing the goals. A values based goal is easier to become deeply committed to than a goal based on being something you “should” do. Once you have a goal you are deeply committed to making real, you declare it to yourself and to the universe. An excellent way to do this is to write it down and post it where you will see it often. You also want to share your intention with those people around you who can support you in attaining the goal. This creates accountability since it’s harder to let down other people than to let down ourselves.

You have now set up conditions that will attract whatever you need to create your desired outcome. Your mindset, the mindset of your friends, family and co-workers and your actions are now aligned with the intention. Let me give you a personal example of the power of intention. One of the goals I set for 2007 was to have all of my income come from GLBT sources. I will replace any revenue from working outside our community with income derived from working within our community, which is my passion. Since it is my passion, my commitment to this goal is deep and strong giving it the power of intention. Already, in less than 30 days, I have had several opportunities present themselves, any one of which would create the desired result.

“Old wine into new bottles.” I said. “Even though I know I’m teaching good and worthy material, I just feel like I’m basically hashing the same old stuff again. Why shouldn’t I just tell them to go to X Get Tons O’ Clients Seminar or Y Private Practice Marketing School or ABC Seminar on Small Business Technology that we’ve all taken. I mean look at it. We’re going to be going over all the map to bring the participants the contents of any five of those seminars. And we’re adding a handful of cool expert interviews and a heavy hit of cheap-to-free technology they can leverage. But is that enough? I feel somewhere, somehow like I’m being a total fraud…”

Ace said (in bold block print verbals) “YOU’RE GIVING THEM WAY TOO MUCH AS IT IS! And of course you feel like a fraud, we ALL feel like frauds when we put our stuff out there! Look at the rest of us, you know we all rant on the same as you’re doing right now. That’s how you know you’re on the right path and not being a snot about it. It’s like Andrea says, you are teaching the people who can only hear this message coming from YOU, with the cred you’ve got in your industry.”

I had to admit, he had a point. And I recalled that I’d been in some classes with…

facilitators who’d only learned the thing they were teaching a month or two ago and did just fine at it. Because at that time, they knew more than I did as a beginning learner. In the Land of the Blind, the One Eyed Man Is King…or so you’d think.
I have to keep bringing it back to the point, thanks to my dear level-headed colleagues, that I know so much that all I can see is what I don’t know…and though my deficit looks like SO MUCH to me, it isn’t to others who don’t have the same knowledge as I do.

I had a world class NLP teacher once beg my pardon for leaving a step out of a process we were doing together. I had a great experience with the process, and didn’t notice. Wouldn’t have known a thing if he hadn’t specifically mentioned it. Afterwards I remember thinking, “Wow, even people at his level sometimes feel this way. Jeepers!”
Is it the same with you? You know a lot about your topic, but deliver a speech or seminar and have your knees knock with trepidation before you go on. After, as you’re accepting the pats on the back and general kudos, you feel like you’ve done great, but still there’s a gnawing little core inside you that says “I could have said more on…. They really should have been told…… I hope no one figures out I left out the middle paragraph about….”

This comes about as a result of our general self esteem. And I’m right in the crowd with this one. We somehow feel as if alone, by ourselves, we are not enough, not correct, not adequate. But we are. Stark naked and alone in a room full of strangers, we are enough, by ourselves.

Each and every one of us.

We are all unique and have our own way of putting things so that those meant to hear our unique voices will recognize the message and shout for joy. They have been waiting so very patiently and so very long for your voice to come calling out of the wilderness of similar-sounding seminars, workshops and speeches. And it’s only your voice that they can hear.
Perhaps your message is the same as the ABC Life Coach Marketing Program / Speaker / Book / Seminar. But you won’t put it the same way, you’ll teach different parables, the words will be yours and yours alone. The personality you put behind your message and the subtle seasoning of your life experiences lend the special savor that those attracted to your services want and need to hear.

It’s as if your perfect clients have locks on their ears that only your voice as a key code, can open and penetrate with your unique message. Unique, because it comes from you. Kind of cool, isn’t it?

So if you’re feeling like a fraud, looking at what you thought was your original work and find that others have gotten there before you, Despair Not! Reflect that they haven’t your style, your flair, your life experiences nor your savvy in the particular way that you have it.

Now in a reversal of that famous acting-school exercise, strip naked and go out to your ideal audience, full of confidence in the Supreme Value that you have to offer them. You don’t need fancy graphics, specialist degrees or one iota more knowledge than you have right this second. Savor the juiciness of Being your very own Living Brand.

When you’re ready, the words will come. When you’re ready, your mouth will open, your pen or keyboard will come alive, and you will write, speak and Be The Message.

And this is True Value - Value that is beyond price.

I can’t say that from studying Sandler, I became great at selling, because I didn’t. But I got better at it and, more importantly although it didn’t immediately help my bank balance, I got better at maintaining my self-esteem in the process.

A collateral benefit of all the Sandler training and practice was that I learnt to apply some of the rules in other, non-selling interactions (ok, for the benefit of sales trainers who like to tell us that all our interactions with others are about selling, my not-so-sales-oriented interactions).

One Sandler rule which I have found particularly helpful is “if you feel it, say it”. My take on that, in the sales situation, is that instead of just sticking to a scripted “performance”, if you are really listening to and observing the prospect you will pick up on, for instance, body language that doesn’t match their words. And as you notice your feeling response, instead of ignoring it you raise it with the prospect, that helps get the conversation back to a reality plane, as distinct from the usual sales “dance”.

And in the other-than-predominantly-sales situations, “if you feel it, say it” can be, in my experience, a terrifically helpful rule. Not always a comfortable process. Indeed if you are not usually given to expressing how you feel and like many  (most? all?) ofus have been socialised to be so polite as not to do so, it can be a stretch. But not sharing how we feel, as distinct from what we think, can mean we are in for a lot more conversations that go essentially nowhere, and even setting up businesses and personal relationships for boredom or even collapse.

Let’s face it, compared to the way kids tell you exactly how they feel, we as adults can get terribly “good” at concealing how we feel. Up to a point that’s helpful for civilised living, but it can very easily become deleterious.

And by the way, email can be a trap in this department, in that apart from smiley faces, how I feel is not always clear in terms of what I say. Sometimes it’s good to pick up the phone and say, “You know, what I’m feeling is ….”.

There are a couple of other tricks of the trade so that this process does not become just another way to lash out or otherwise indulge our egos, but that’s for another post, if need be.

And in the coaching context, “If you feel it, say it” is for me not so different from what I recall observing Thomas Leonard demonstrate about coaching, in “sharing what was there”, which in my paraphrase is about picking up on all the signals, listening to and feeling your own reactions and sharing those in an appropriate way. But with due respect to Thomas’ memory, I must say that in coaching, as in life, I prefer the Sandler formulation - “if you feel it, say it”.

Works for me.