Entrepreneur Archives

We Learn from our Story – BLOG

February 21, 2017

Our story is a personal invitation to learn. It’s not our curse nor our blessing. It’s not our label or paradigm or racket or reason to blame or run or justify. It’s not our grandeur or accomplishment or title or goals. Story just is, and it never ends, while we have breath in our body, blood in our veins and synapses firing between our ears, it is our story that invites us to keep on learning. Why? Because an experience of living doesn’t happen in what we know, it’s in the minute after minute of discovery, and it’s vital to our happiness.

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, comparison did. You know what happens when we stop learning? We start believing that we know stuff and God help us when that happens because that’s how comparison creeps in. You’ll notice when you start using position statements like: I’m right, they’re wrong. She’s good enough, I’m not. They can do it, I can’t. Why me? Why her? We begin to use words like always and never, as in…I always have to… or I never get to… as if there’s another option out there that we’re not allowed to have.

Comparison killed the cat.

The remedy? Operate in the learning and living zone. Let your story unfold. Be curious. Can we have knowledge? Yes of course it’s just that we mustn’t stop there. We must develop skills and gain wisdom, be guided by our experiences, but the very second we stop learning it’s as if we’re saying I’ve had enough of my story thanks. That’s enough learning for me.

Really?

How about this: what makes an unbelievable book? Some fictional character or person’s real life experience takes us on a roller-coaster ride of happenings that move, inspire or transform us. Most importantly, it’s a journey that we can see ourselves in. Memorable books reflect our human experience and that’s why a killer book compels us to turn the page. We are addicted to learning. We have an insatiable desire to answer the question: What next? Think about your morning routine. When your feet hit the floor and you raise your first cuppa, doesn’t the little voice in your head ask you that very question? Isn’t that why you move forward? What’s next?

That is the juju of our story. That’s what learning is.

We say: Teach me. What else is there? I want to know. I’m ready. More please. I want to be better at this. I want to try something new. I want to expand, to stretch, to lift, to enjoy, to be thrilled, to be moved. I am a life-long learner.

Life IS learning.

In today’s seemingly chaotic world governed by technology, at-capacity-thresholds and relentless change, those of us who embrace life by continuing to sit in the learning seat, (dare I say it?) will be HAPPIER than those who don’t (there I said it) because it takes more energy to hang on than it does to let go and learn.

It takes more energy to hang on than it does to let go and learn.

If you’re in business, and you don’t get story, you’re in trouble because today’s marketing is steeped in it. If you’re still selling pain instead of freedom your days are numbered because today’s consumers are done with adrenaline based marketing. Fear hurts more now because it’s difficult to get away from. If you have a website (and come on now, you must if you’re in business) and you don’t have a book: you are totally missing it. Today we are story based. That is how we learn. That is what we respect and that is what we are yearning for.

Enough with telling me what you know.

Teach me what I want to know instead.

I’m a program director with The Leap Learning Lab and along with Meribeth Deen, the two of us lead a program called PUBLISH supporting the stories of Canadian women from concept to publish ready. And while I can tell you about the tangible benefits of writing your book with us, it’s not the ‘how to’ stuff like this that you’ll take with you once you’re done.

HOW TO:

craft a title that connects to your core.
conduct a research based interview.
link one chapter to the next so your reader is compelled to turn the page.
bring the vibrancy of your inner story up and out to live on the page.
magnify your voice to cut through the noise of other books in your genre.
etc… etc… etc…

Those are just some of the writing take-aways of PUBLISH, but what about the intangibles? Because this is where life as a committed learner enters the picture. This is where we follow, and yes possibly even run along our path to happiness.

TAKE AWAYS:

Honouring the roots of where you’ve been so that your wisdom is a gift.
Connecting to the core of your why to make sense of why any of it matters.
Trusting the story that wants to tell you instead of feeling the pressure of having to drive it all the time.
Allowing a relationship with your creative side to lighten your load a bit more.
Developing a greater sense of confidence in who you are, where you come from and your place in the world.
Finding deeper meaning in all of it.

How do you put that into a curriculum? You can’t because it’s a bi-product of showing up and doing the work whatever that may be. In PUBLISH it’s about getting your book written. In Live Your Best Story (a retreat I lead), it’s about listening so as to lead your life. Whatever it is, take it on as the life-long learner that you are designed to be.

Happiness is connected to our sense of belonging, to understanding what brings us peace, and to doing life within the design of who we truly are. None of us get there by standing on a mountain of what we know. All of us will get there when we’re committed to living by learning.

Our story is an invitation to learn and as we do, we invite more happiness in to our life.

xxT

If you are a Canadian woman entrepreneur, leader, innovator, millennial or your business offers services to women in Canada we invite you to find out more about LEAP Learning Lab.

We are a team of 10 fabulous Canadian women creating opportunities for other Canadian women to accelerate their success and their results across multiple disciplines. We also offer corporate learning solutions for businesses committed to the development of their women leaders.

We are looking for fabulous Canadian women to learn, live and lead with us. Collectively, through learning, we will make each other better humans.

Want you FREE COPY of TinaO’s Core Story Playbook? Click here.

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Here’s where you can find out more about Tina’s upcoming retreat: Live Your Best Story. Here’s where you can find out more about PUBLISH and become a VIP in the Leap Learning Lab.

The Magic of Slowing Down

May 5, 2016

About a year ago, I was heading into what I would call kick-in-the-ass time when it came to my business. After some hiccups and personal issues, I was ready to take it on in a new way and realize some serious success.

And so I did what I always do: made some lists, set up some meetings, strategized like a nut (complete with giant flip charts on the walls) and got my Poop in a Group, so to speak. I also asked for recommendations of business coaches and started the process of interviewing them and looking for a good fit.

The first one I spoke with was a skilled pit bull. She gave me a pile of homework on our initial call – by doing it all I was meant to both prove myself as a client and decide if I really wanted to work with her. I flew into a familiar flurry of homework and producing and all that.

In that time, I also had a call with another coach (the one I ended up hiring) and it was Magical. I think we both fell in coach love in the first five minutes of the call, and as I learned to embrace a slower, softer, tenderer way of being in my business, I was hooked and I am still working with her now.

My biggest learning from my coach was to slow down before gearing up. To stop and allow silence to show me what was next. As a result, I took loads of time off, and stopped working so hard. I took silent retreats where I wrote and napped and gazed out the window at pretty mountains. And huge ideas came. Insights came. Every possible thing came.

My business has grown exponentially; in the first few months of this year, I have already surpassed ALL that I did last year in the whole year.

In this process, I committed to listening to my intuition, and to treating myself, my clients and my business as tenderly and compassionately as I could. I focused on holding all of the balls I juggle loosely and with love. I slowed down. My mantra became “What got me here won’t get me there.” All of the ways of being had only gotten me so far, and I was being called to operate in a whole new way in order to move ahead. I started to sweetly surrender to all that would come my way without me having to work my ass off to get it.

“What got me here won’t get me there.”

Why am I telling you all this? I hope you know by now that I relate nearly everything to relationships. This slowing-down-to-go-further approach actually applies to everything.

When we don’t slow it down, we deplete. Our cup runs out. If we don’t put the proverbial oxygen mask on ourselves first, we have nothing to give anyone else.

Slowing down allows life to catch up. It gives us space to more easily suck the marrow out of all that we do and care about.

And I know that it sounds counter-productive, to stop and rest in order to get ahead. I will point to the marathon runners who rest even for a minute periodically as they run, and find they get a better time at the end of the race. And I will point out that when you are on the highway and want to pass a giant, slow-moving vehicle, you must gear down (becoming more powerful) before you can clear what’s in your way.

In relationships, this shows up as “busy”: over-scheduled kids, and stressed adults who go from thing to thing to thing without stopping. In the doing of it all, we forget the being of it. We lose sight of how incredible the flawed and beautiful person is that we wake up with each day and have chosen to spend our life with. We forget what’s really important: our connections and relationships.

Slowing down and holding our partners, children and our own well-being with exquisite care, compassion and gentleness allows our relationships to flourish. We get to bask in the affection of our mate, fill our energy banks up, connect with our why, and carry on renewed and inspired.

Please try it. Because what got you here might not get you there. Because maybe there’s some sweetness in slowing down, and maybe you’ll see a new way of being together that you like. Cancel some plans and declare a “family day” of movies and ice cream and pyjamas.

Or, if you really want to slow down and truly reconnect with your partner, try this: sign up for my Relationship Rendezvous – a weekend intimacy challenge that may involve some nakkidness. It’s my mission to slow this world down and make it just a little more delicious as we do.

Get Real, Sexy Real

Tara

Tara Caffelle is a Relationship and Communication coach. She is passionate about creating connected, almost-uncomfortable-to-watch relationships that are based in Sexy Communication and Big Lives worth rolling around in.

Tara is based in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and offers custom-designed coaching programs. To claim your free 90+ minutes and see what might be possible for your own super coupledom (or persondom), find a time here.

Have a question for Tara? Have an idea for a Hump Day conversation? How about just some thoughts about this thing called life? Let us know here. We’ll answer back. We promise.

Walking the Long Road of Red Tape

January 21, 2016

musac playing…

I have a problem with red tape.

I think I’m above it.

I’m on the phone. Waiting. wa wa wa w a i t i n g. A small wave of impatience is building. Tone Loc’s Funky Cold Medina is playing in my ear. What the hell is that doing being played on the ‘hold’ button of the hospital’s billing department. Is that song even old enough to be musac? Maybe it is.

“So, I gave some to my dog when he began to beg
Then he licked his bowl and he looked at me
And did the wild thing on my leg

I’m a little entitled. White chick, artist, living by the water, mom to three boys, hockey boys at that – the gear stinks, like S T I N K S, wife to a tall drink of water – surely being and STAYING MARRIED is like enough right? I make cookies, but only the ones my kids will eat. Nobody eats peanut butter cookies so guess what? Now I don’t either. I mop the floor, make the beds, write, try to be innovative, raw, authentic blah blah blah… just frickin care, sometimes just FRICKIN CARING feels like that’s gotta be enough too you know? I wash my face, stave off aging, use my eye cream, read ingredients, cut down on sugar, fucking survive, thrive find a voice through the insanity of cancer, BARF, rinse repeat. I sign up to do a triathlon, make friends with old friends and gal pals I said dumb things to, read up on leadership – so many bloody books on leadership, when do I ever get to say with a CLEAR HEART that I AM A LEADER? I stay current on the news – be mindful of my crush on Peter Mansbridge, collect the dust bunnies, get gas, sign permission slips, REMEMBER to sign permission slips, feel GUILTY because I fucking forgot the god damn stupid pink, no green, no blue, no BAHHHHHH what the hell colour was the permission slip this time? Oh right… it didn’t have a colour, it was online… oh… I didn’t check my email. I check my email, grocery shop with just the right list so I don’t spend too much, plan organic, buy bulk to save, think… think… think… let go of anxiety, get my ass to yoga, well, I say I’m going to do that, okay, so I say I’m going to get my ass to yoga, go to choir but not when I have a cold (like last night), feed my business, work my business, nurture by business… drink kombucha….

surely I don’t have to deal with the stupidity of RED TAPE too? Surely I don’t have to SIT ON HOLD to deal with this STUPID BILLING THING!

S U R E L Y ? ? ? ?

I’m entitled. I have a problem.

I’m on the phone with MSP (Medical Services Plan) to find out why my son who was born in 2009 did not have coverage in 2014 for a procedure done at the hospital just a year or so back, yet he received his shots in 2010 (no charge), went to emerg. for something dumb in 2011 (again, no charge), saw the doctor in 2014 (no charge), but only two months later he HAD NO COVERAGE? And now I have a $2200 bill that is going to collections? Are you kidding me? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED????

Hello Mary speaking…

Hi Mary so this is what happened…

yahta yahta detail detail story story boring boring what are you going to do about it? – Don’t say that you’ll start a war and you’ll never get what you want – be prepared she is going to stonewall you – just say with it smile – and be nice – she can’t see you but if you smile then your voice sounds friendly.

What do I do Mary?

Hold on she says.

K.

There you are it’s all done.

What?

I just backdated him to his date of birth. It’ll take 24 hours but…

That was it. Done. All I had to do was call. No redtape. No waiting. No fighting. No nothing. I just had to call.

I’m entitled.

I have a problem. Clearly.

TinaO, chill man, we’re all on this planet together. We get free stuff. We pay for stuff. We get crap mixed up this side of Wednesday. We fix it. You ain’t special, you’re human.

Oh yeah. I forgot.

Ya know what I’m sayin’

That Medina’s a monster, y’all

xxT