I quit my draining day job on a sunny December day. I woke up in the morning and told my husband out of the blue that I was going to resign. He smiled at me and said, “Finally!” I knew in that moment that the time was right. I worked full time from the time I was 19 years old, in those 20 years I changed jobs many times. I’m a workaholic by nature and I always give 110% of myself. After moving to Israel and suffering from the New Immigrant Syndrome I knew that I had gained enough experience to take my one-woman show on the road.

When Michelle asked if we wanted to share our story, I jumped at the opportunity to tell my experience through a video (and you’ll hear why in my update…).

This is my 4 months update, thanks for watching.

Francesca is a social media doula helping creative types give birth to their online presence. She loves the lightbulb moment when techno-phobes go “Aha! It’s that simple?”

Originally from Italy, she lives in Israel with her husband and son. When she is not obsessing over HTML and CSS, she knits lace shawls.

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Collaborating with someone amazeballs who’s as excited about what we’re collaborating on as I am, and keeps moving forward along with me.

Knowing it’s up to me to make it work (and never have to work for anyone else ever again!).

Delegating the unfun/unknown stuff to someone I trust to the nth degree.

The intention that whatever it is I’m working on (coaching, writing, speaking, etc) helps other creatives through their career transitions. I love being a part of that.

Breaking down my time in my Google Cal and my project in Basecamp.

What’s the catalyst for *your* productivity?

Here are my Clubhousers with their answers! (Click on their pics to be taken to their blogs/businesses/sites!)

What’s the catalyst for *your* productivity? Can’t wait to read about it in the comments!

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Always Remember by Dazey Chic

On Wednesday of this week, I’ll be going in for my Fresh Boobs (which is what Luke calls my bilateral mastectomy + reconstruction surgery). It was supposed to be on May 30th, but I got a call last week that said, “We’re moving it up!” I didn’t even know that could happen, but I did the rescheduling dance with some calls and clients, cleared my schedule almost completely, and freaked a bit about How Much There Is To Do and All The Loose Ends That Need To Be Tied Up.

But really? After coordinating with my Virtual Wizard, Arwyn – who’s taking over loading blog posts and newsletter content, thankyoubabyJesus – I took a look at What Had To Get Done and, really, it’s writing newsletters and blog posts in advance. And when I look at it from afar, if there are 2 blog posts that go up one week instead of 3, will it really matter? And if I miss a week with the newsletter…will I have to go back to Corporate America? No. No I won’t.

What’s important, then? Taking care. Letting go. Getting better. Feeling good. Trusting my support system. Over the next few weeks, that’s my main job.

I won’t lie about being really scared of this huge surgery I’m having (I’ll be under for something like 4 hours) – enough so that I’ve had to take anti-anxiety meds to fall asleep lately – and all the pain I figure I’m gonna be in (enough that they’re gonna give me an epidural pre-surgery to keep it at a minimum when I wake up. Blech!). As you might imagine, I’m not so great with being the patient, or feeling out of control, or, um, having a high threshold for pain (which is why the tattoo I’ve wanted since I was 16 has yet to grace my body)…so this is Big Time Scary, you guys. And no, I don’t have it in me to write a ukulele song about it (yet).

I’ve scheduled my blog content for when I come back, and it’s all about making the most of a slow time, finding (and enforcing!) your boundaries, asking for (and accepting!) help…do we sense a theme here? These are the things I know I’m gonna (begrudgingly) learn, and I have a feeling there’s gonna be a new perspective here once I feel well enough to tear myself away from 12-hour marathons of Friday Night Lights on my Kindle Fire in bed.

If you’re wondering how I’m doing during/after surgery, my lovely husband will have my phone to Facebook/tweet how I’m holding up. You can follow me on Twitter here and Like my Facebook page here to get the latest.

So, I’ll see ya on the flip side, but make sure you continue to come back regularly since I have a half-dozen amazeballs guest bloggers & my regular features all ready for ya as per usual. See? I’m making sure to take care of you now, so I can take care of me later. I’m already learning, begrudgingly or not.

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It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for..drumroll please…

The winner of The Fire Starter Sessions are:

• from the blog: Erin with the comment “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.”
• from my Facebook page: Tamarisk Saunders-Davis
• from peeps who tweeted the bit.ly link: Janelle Miller
• from my newsletter subscribers: Heidi (I have no idea what your last name is but you’ll get an email from me!)

Mazel Tov you crazy kids! I’ll be emailing ya soon with the deets. THANKS to everyone who entered!

Choose Happiness fine art photograph by Sandra Arduini Photography

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to be discouraged in our jobs, fearful about money or angry when we’re doing something we not only don’t love, but can barely tolerate? It’s easy to put on our poopy pants and complain, ain’t it? And those complaints breed contempt, anger, frustration, and – let’s be honest – total unhappiness.

While I know it’s easier said than done, being happy/positive is a choice. But it’s a choice we often have to fake-’til-we-make, and one that’s usually only learned after years of experience and trial-and-error.

Here’s the Myth: Happiness comes when we reach our desires.

Here’s the Fact: Learning Happiness DELIVERS our desires to us. (Hippy-dippy but true)

It has been proven that becoming happy-just-as-you-are is actually a shortcut to achieving anything you want in your life. Plus happy people live longer, healthier, more fulfilled lives and make more money while they’re at it! Science has proven it, people.

That’s why I‘ve joined over 2 dozen other speakers in the free upcoming video series, The Secrets to Lasting Happiness hosted by Bec Robbins. Here’s who’s included besides Bec and myself:

• Amethyst Wyldfyre
• Amy Ahlers
• Annie Lalla
• Arielle Ford
• Barbara Carrellas
• Carol Allen
• Carol Look
• Collette Baron-Reid
• Crystal Andrus
• Dawn DelVecchio
• Debra Poneman
• Dyana Valentine
• Erin Giles
• Gay Hendricks
• Hillary Rubin
• Hiro Boga
• Jennifer Longmore
• Kate Northrup
• Laura Hollick
• Lissa Rankin
• Marci Shimoff
• Mark Romero
• Molly Mahar
• Nan Akasha
• Sage Lavine
• Shanda Sumpter
• Sonia Ricotti
• Summer McStravick
• Tanya Geisler

Ooh, what goodness! Through our video interviews (mine’s about careers!), you’ll discover the secrets that will show you exactly how to rewire your brain so that you are Happy no matter what! How’s that for an amazeballs result, huh?

Reserve your spot to the free Secrets to Lasting Happiness by clicking this link.

Can’t wait to dig on in with ya. See ya there, and soon!

While New Kids on the Block and Jonathan Brandis posters hung on my walls as teenager (to be replaced by generic hot guys featured in Jane), I was a total Gleek. My room would often fill with the music of Stephen Sondheim (my Mom was once shocked that the majority of her friends didn’t know who he was. Shocked!), the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Miss Saigon (yes, my mother had to overnight me a new copy of the double cassette to summer camp because I worn mine out playing it over and over and over (and over!) again), the belt of Patti LuPone (she’s more than Corky’s Mom from Life Goes On, ya know). I went from dance class to singing lesson to to acting class to rehearsal to audition, until I enrolled in a Fame!-like school for half the day my junior and senior years of high school, getting to drop science and gym (oh, the sweetness!). I applied to 8 universities and cancelled my auditions to 6 of them when I got into NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts  in December of my senior year. “This is it! This is my ticket to Broadway!”, I remember thinking/feeling. I was on a one-way train and I couldn’t have been happier.

16 (!!!!) years later , here’s 10 Things I Wish I Knew (in no particular order)

(Click on the art to be taken to the Etsy listing!):

Letting go of a long-term goal doesn’t make you a failure.

Your family loves you unconditionally, and will be supportive of whatever direction you decide to steer your life in (even if they don’t really understand it, or know that you picked the “hard” thing to pursue).

Your priorities and passions can change, and that’s okay.

As long as you’re honest with yourself and authentic in the choices you make, everything will go exactly as it’s supposed to.

Go towards the feeling of fear + excitement. That’s where the gold is.

Someone else writing your paycheck does not equal “stability.” In that vein, it is feasible to be a grown-up entrepreneur.

Baby steps take you very, very far. Don’t underestimate them.

Sometimes you’ll work so, so hard and do such a good job, and it still won’t get you the results you want. There are things that aren’t fair, but they’ll always lead to strength and Lessons Learned. Do your best to see the silver lining through the storm clouds.

Don’t let go of the idea that “work” doesn’t have to mean “not play.” Keep pursing work that lights you up, that makes you happy, that keeps you fulfilled. Don’t settle for less.

It’s not a matter of “Can I do this?”, but a matter of “How can I do this?”

What would you add? What did you wish you knew? Oh, I can’t wait to hear all this advice we have to give to our teenage selves! Now if only someone can invent a time machine…

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 There’s still time to enter to win 1 of 4 (!!!) copies of The Fire Starter Sessions…oh yeah!

you can do it…by Helen Dardik

This month continues to be all about support for me. My surgery’s been moved up a week to 5/23 (I didn’t even know they could do that!), and if I didn’t have my amazeballs hubby, Mom, and Virtual Wizard to rally around and offer lots of hands and help, my head would certainly explode. For me, I know I could never cross the Finish Line without a cheerleader or three, a real specific goal (“train for a 40 mile, 2 day walk” *not* “exercise tomorrow morning”), and the time carved out in my Google cal to ensure it happens.

What’s your surefire way to reach your goal?

Here are my When I Grow Up Grads sharing *their* surefire ways straight from our private Facebook group! (Click on their pics to be taken to their blogs/businesses/sites!)

What’s *your* surefire way to reach your goal? Share it in the comments & we’ll have an amazeballs arsenal of goal-achieving perfection!

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Yup. 10 more Nuggets o’ Genius from Ms.LaPorte. You can download ‘em here.

Have ya heard me gush and gush about the one and only Mademoiselle LaPorte? She’s been my mentor/loving “cult leader” since I attended a group Fire Starter session in NYC back in Sept ’09, and she even interviewed me for the digital version of The Fire Starter Sessions in 2010. Although schmemo prevented me from joining the NYC book party this April for the release of the published version of The Fire Starter Sessions – and also prevented me from cracking open my advance copy of the book before this past weekend (seriously, schmemo gives you this brain that is unable to read anything longer or more prolific that an Us Weekly-like article) – I’ve already gotten some Nuggets of Genius in the first 39% of the book (I have no idea what page I’m on – it’s so weird reading on a Kindle sometimes!).

I have to admit, I’ve seen Danielle speak so many times and have read pretty much everything she’s ever written that I’m waiting for the well to run dry. There’s this well-I-know-everything-she’s-gonna-say-so-there’s-nothing-left-to-learn-ness about it, and she proves me wrong Every Damn Time.  I mean, if I write down everything I highlighted just from the first 39% of this book, I’d have you scrolling down for days upon days. But instead, I wanna tell you What’s Stuck as it stands for me right now:

“Your Life is Content. Look at everything as material for your art. The inconveniences, the distractions – life – it all influences what you have to express and how you express it.” 

I read this sentence and immediately went to email my client about it. My client who’s been struggling with finding inspiration for her new Etsy shop, where she sells paper goods featuring her gorgeous graphic designs. She was claiming that the well was dry, because she was becoming “obsessed” with training her new dog. But many months ago she turned her then-obsession with baking to super cute recipe cards…so why couldn’t she use her new obsession to fuel her next design(s)? How adorable would a puppy card be? Or a Dog Training Graduate certificate? Or templated business cards for dog walkers? I love how Danielle reminded us that the distractions are sometimes anything but.

“Soul jobs are a full-meal deal: stimulation, inspriration, and cash, all in one. Ho jobs are low on the spiritual fulfillment but can go a long way in financing your art(…) The “Soul + Ho” combo is a double-time gig. And the return can be truly great.”

While I usually refer to “The Ho Job” as a j-o-b thanks to The Renaissance Soul, I love this vernacular and all it stands for. Consider it righly stolen (but will always be credited), Miss LaPorte.

“Being conscious of the true meaning of your work will buoy you in both the seemingly trivial and the seemingly impossible tasks of your work.” and “You won’t know the full value of what you’re offering until you just put it out there.” and “In order to attract that which we feel worthy of, we need to believe in our own merits.”

So it wasn’t one particular passage or quote that got my wheels spinning this way, but I can’t help it – I’m starting to think I’m shortchanging myself and my business. That’s I’m not stepping into my expertise/story/”power” (hippy-dippy but true!). There’s a part of me that is so so so resistant to teaching/consulting based on What I Know or What I’ve Witnessed – both in myself and in the 181 people I’ve personally coached – because it seems so anti-coaching, but yet…I know this is where The Gold is. I’m working now on brainstorming where the intersection/gray space is for me in that regards, so that it sits well with me and still allows people to find their own path and their own answers – not to do what I did because it worked for me.

I know I’ll be sitting down and devouring the other 61% of the book within the next few days (it’s so easy to read like that), and I’d love for you to join me! That’s why I’m giving away 4 copies of The Fire Starter Sessions (each winner will have a choice of an e-book or a hardcover) on Friday. You can enter by:

• commenting below on the Nugget Of Genius your muse/mentor/cult leader has left ya
• likin’ my Facebook page
• tweetin’ “Wanna be a Fire Starter? @WhenIGroUpCoach is helpin’ ya by givin’ away 4 copies of @DanielleLaPorte ‘s bestseller! http://bit.ly/JJTm9V ” (or, really, anything you want that contains my handle & the bit.ly link)
• signing’ up for my newsletter (you’ll get a library of free, downloadable content when ya do!)

I’ll use random.org to pick a book winner from the blog comments, another from my Facebook fans, another from the tweets that’re posted (tweet as often as ya like!), and yet another from all my newsletter subscribers. Woo-whee is that a lotta ways to enter/win! I’ll “close” everything on Fri 5/18 at 11a and will announce the winners right here on my blog shortly thereafter. Comments are now closed. So much fun you guys!
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Nothing to Fear but Fear by Indelible Ink Workshop

As promised, Rachel Luna’s back with 3 ways to work through fear and uncomfortability (is that a word? It is now!). Yay hooray!

Fear, the worst of all the 4-letter words, is usually the root cause of our stunted growth and progress when it comes to life and business.  But, the most successful people know that in order to achieve the lives of our dreams, we need to push past that fear.  Here are 3 tips on you can use to start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and step through fear to be and do exactly what you wanted to do when you grew up.

#1.  Put yourself on display.

The best way to get comfortable with fear is to take a deep breath and tell everyone in your circle about your dreams, hopes, and goals.  This will make you extremely uncomfortable, but change is uncomfortable until you continue to do it, and then it becomes comfortable.  By putting yourself on display, you put yourself in an uncomfortable situation and are then forced to keep moving in your purpose.  The more you do this, the more comfortable you’ll get.

#2. Get knowledgeable.

Knowledge is power.  The more you know, the less fear you have.  Fear is false evidence appearing real.  So you need to learn the truth. And the truth shall set you free.  Let me give you a great real life example:

A friend of mine wanted to start her own line of nail polish.  Her big fear was that she’d be tapping into a huge part of her savings and she’d never be able to recover her investment.  She decided to get educated on the nail polish industry and went on to calculate the financial numbers. Doing this work helped her learn her break even point and made the decision to take a big chunk out of savings less scary.

#3. Go for it, even if you don’t feel like it.

Successful people do things even when they don’t feel like it.  Even if they don’t feel ready.  Even if they are scared serious.  They do it!  They move forward with nausea, sweaty palms, racing hearts, the whole 9 yards.  But they do it.  And that’s why they succeed.

And I want you to succeed.  I want you to know that fear is essential to our survival.  Fear is a great tool.  The more fear you have surrounding a goal or dream, the greater result you can expect.  Because if you’re not scared, then it’s not essential.  It’s not pressing.  IF you’re scared, you are onto something my friend.

Go forth, embrace fear and in the comments below, put yourself on display!

Rachel Luna is the best selling author of Successful People are Full of C.R.A.P, and founder/owner of TheTailorMadeLife.com where she shares motivation and inspiration to help you achieve any and all of your dreams.  Rachel has helped thousands of women stop wishing, stop hoping and start taking action towards the lives they were meant to live.  When she’s not changing lives, Rachel is chasing after her two daughters, Isabella and Valentina.

Stop Faffing And Get On With It by JayHell

Today’s Tough (Question) comes to us from Rachel Luna of The Tailor Made Life. Answer the question today, and then come on back tomorrow to hear her tips to keep on keeping on… 

You have a dream.  You have a burning goal yearning to be achieved.  And yet, you can’t move forward and step into your greatness…

I asked a few of the ladies in my mastermind group this juicy question and the answers, well, I could totally relate!  It was a variation of: “I’m afraid to fail. I don’t have the credentials.  I’m afraid of what people will say/think…” Like I said, totally relatable, right?  We’ve all had thoughts that stop us dead in our tracks when we’re trying to climb the ladder of success.

Let’s stop standing still and start taking action.  Share in the comments:

What’s stopping you?

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 7 May spots are left! Grab one now or forever hold your peace ’til July-ish.