As I’ve confronted this issue within myself over the past several months, I’ve built a framework to go around it that I’ve been working through for myself so that I can stop making decisions based on fear and begin to feel really empowered about my relationship with money.

If you receive my emails or follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ve heard about it already - it’s called the money map and I’m hosting a free call about it on the last day of this year.

Since you are a loyal reader here, I’m giving you a little more information than I’ve given others about this money map framework, how it came to be and what it means for you.

First, let me say this - I believe this may be the most important work I have ever done up until now.

You see, I’ve been teaching business owners for a few years now and what I’ve come to see is I can give you a complete business system (or even in the case of the guy I sold my business to a complete already set up business!), but if you are operating from financial fear, you will find it very, very difficult (maybe impossible) to do what you need to do to be successful.

Financial fear can be the most insidious disease that keeps us from our dreams, if we allow it to be.   When I am operating from financial fear, I make bad decisions.  Do you resonate with that?

I built my law firm to a million bucks without a money map.   The five years I ran the firm were some of the most painful of my life because of my nearly constant overwhelming financial fear.

I was making plenty of money and had plenty of free time, but I was constantly living on the edge of massive amounts of fear.

Yes, I learned how to feel the fear and do it anyway.  But, I was white knuckling it every step of the way.  As a result, I eventually sabotaged the firm because I simply could not handle the intense fear.

That’s what happens when you don’t deal with the fear – you will eventually sabotage yourself in a myriad of ways.

In my case, I sold my million dollar business to a guy who stopped paying the bills (including the money he owed me) within 6 months of taking over.  I’m now carrying $250,000 of debt as a result.  Yes, my financial fear turned millions of dollars into a massive debt.

Now, the good news about this is that the experience totally broke through my financial fear and I have hardly any of it now.  The worst happened.

You’ve heard the saying “what you resist persists”, right?  Well, I resisted myself right to 6-figures worth of debt.

And sure, that’s one path. But that is not the path I want for you.  For you, I offer the gift of my mistakes so you don’t have to experience the worst to break through your fears.

With hindsight, I can look at the decisions I made that led me to sell my firm to someone who would not (and could not) be successful with it and see that I made those decisions because I was scared to be running a 7-figure business and because I didn’t know how to handle my fear, I sabotaged it.

I sabotaged it by saying yes to the first person who said he’d buy despite the fact that he didn’t have the business knowledge or self awareness himself to step into a 7-figure business.

So, what happened?

The minute he stepped in, he became absolutely paralyzed by his own fear and could not make any decisions.  And the decisions he did make were horrendous.

I watched it happen and while the lessons were amazing, I would have preferred not to have had them.

The reason we don’t have 7 or 8-figure businesses dropped into our laps is because we need to ease into the financial expansion necessary to stay out of financial fear enough to take right action on an ongoing basis.

Let me give you a concrete example so you can see what I mean:

To grow your business, you need to invest in your business.  It’s just the nature of the thing.  So, when I turned the business over to the guy who bought the firm, he was going to have to keep making investments.  Payroll and  marketing were the two biggest investments he’d have to make.

Well, each time he was presented with a marketing plan by the awesome marketing director I had hired for him and he was asked for a check to pay for the marketing campaign that needed to be run he hemmed, he hawed, and ultimately wouldn’t authorize the expenditures.

Within months he was asking me why there were no clients coming in. Well, friend, if you don’t do the marketing, the phone doesn’t ring.

Let’s look at this in my own case.

When I started my second business, I was back at the 1mm-1.5mm mark within one year. Once you expand to a certain level, getting back to that level is fairly easy.   But, now it’s been a couple of years and I’ve spent the past several months looking at what is holding me back from moving beyond.   And now I can see, it’s my unresolved financial fears holding me back.

I have expanded my comfort zone to support a 1m-1.5mm business, but not beyond that.  Going to the next level is scary and too big to white knuckle my way through.

And thus was born the money map.  A framework for making decisions about spending money so I wouldn’t be making them based in fear, but instead based in what I really want from life and business.

Here’s what I know …. when you are worried about money, you cannot be focused on your bigger impact on the world.  You are in survival mode.

What I’ve discovered through the process of creating my money map technology is that the most difficult part can be looking at what you really want because if you see it, acknowledge it and don’t get it, you will die.  At least that’s what it feels like to me.

But, I’ve also become aware that being willing to really look (even when it’s hard) is the key to EVERYTHING.  At least for me.  Maybe it will be for you too.

So I created a way to look that makes it less difficult.  I’m not going to tell you that it’s totally easy.  It’s not.  It’s still a little hard.  But, I’ve found that most things are a little hard.  Having a baby is a lot hard.  In both cases, the outcome is amazingly worth it.

What’s super cool about it is that it dovetails very nicely with LIFT (which was totally not planned but is one of those signs from the Universe that says to me - keep going Alexis, you are on the right path!).

So, no matter whether you are at 5-figures trying to get to 6 or 6-figures trying to get to 7 (or just starting out and are scared to death), the money map clears the fog and unparalyzes you so you can feel great about the decisions you are making and move forward.  I cannot wait to share it with you!!

Last month I had to put $20,000 into my company from my own personal money. I’m supposed to be beyond that stage. I have a 7-figure business.

It was only for a few days to cover an early payroll due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but that was a few too many days.

When I look at what’s happening and why I had to put money in when my company is making so much money, I saw that I’m at the stage where I either need to invest money in marketing my business or cut back on my expenses. And this is the place where most entrepreneurs ultimately fail.

To invest in growth requires additional capital. And since I don’t currently have a line of credit for this business, additional capital means my own bank account. (I’ll be talking with you about lines of credit and how to get one set up the right way as part of LIFT. I used lines of credit in my law firm and it was key to our growth, but the lending enviro is much different today than it was back in 2005/6).

That’s scary shizznit.

But, the truth is that my expenses are high. And yet they are what they need to be in order to keep everything going.

From a support perspective, a housekeeper, a personal assistant, and a business manager are the bare minimum I can get along with. I “need” this type of support so that I can have the time and space to run my company(ies), take care of my own self and find the creative time I need to be happy and fulfilled.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m coaching with Tim Kelley about my purpose and it’s some of the most intense and rewarding personal work I’ve ever done at the mind level. To do it well and experience the most transformation and clarity takes an investment of time.

I need to find the creative time for this work and I won’t if I have to do my bookkeeping and clean my house. I’d seriously die. Well, I probably wouldn’t die, but that’s what it feels like when I think about it. Like I would die if I had to do my bookkeeping, clean my house and a hundred other little things that I have amazing support people do for me. Like packing for the move.

I now realize that this is where most business owners people are. I used to be paralyzed by financial fear. I couldn’t invest in my business because I was terrified. Beyond terrified. Frozen.

It kept me completely and totally stuck. I was so frugal. Okay, I was cheap. Massively cheap. Like split the bill to the penny because I didn’t want anyone else to pay a penny less than me cheap.

I had a breakthrough and became willing to invest in my business when I finally saw there was no other way to grow. If I wanted to expand, I’d need help. To get help, I’d need to hire people and pay them. So, I did it. Scared to death every second.

But as soon as I committed, the resources I needed showed up in the form of teachers to help me re-price and package my services and clients who paid my increased fees, neither of which I would have experienced had I held to my prior narrow thinking that I would do it all myself.

That breakthrough coincided with an awakening in my body and suddenly I cared about how I felt on a daily basis. I wanted to feel good. I could no longer live numb.

I began going to yoga. I spent 4 days/week going to yoga and adding up numbers in my head. Worrying that I would run out of money. But, breathing my way through it.

And as a result, my business finally started making money. A lot of money. It was the year I hit my first million. 2006.

I eliminated a lot of financial fear then. But, it wasn’t because I hit a million. It was because I knew I’d be okay no matter what. No. Matter. What. I knew how to make money.

Yes, bringing in clients was part of it. But, the other part of it was that I became willing to take on the support people I needed to grow the business as well as invest in the coaching I needed to make smart decisions.

Fast forward a few years. With the perspective I have now, I can see how financial fear is the thing that holds us back from experiencing the business and life growth we desire. I have so much support today. That support gives me the freedom to do what I do best, to give my greatest gifts and have the time I need to take care of myself and create. All good.

When it becomes not so good is when I freak out because the support costs money and I have to put money into my business from my own pocket. My biggest challenge when that happens (and it will during times of growth) is to not get struck by financial fear and start making bad decisions.

The last time I felt serious financial fear was at one point during the peak of the hysteria regarding whether we were in a recession. There was this one day, I felt so terrified. It was like I was going to die. When I think about my actual financial situation at that time, there was nothing to be terrified about. And yet, I was. The energy of the nationwide financial fear seeped into my body.

It didn’t last long. A few days maybe. But even a short period of financial fear can hurt relationships. Making decisions from financial terror can be catastrophic.

It’s where most of us get stuck. No matter how much money you are making in your business, you are going to butt up against your own financial fear at some point. How you handle it determines if you reach the next level of success or not.

We all want the support we need to do what we do best and the freedom of not having to worry about making our bills. But most of us don’t know how to get from here to there.

Here’s one way. Bring awareness. Take a good hard look at what you’ve not been willing to look at. Really dig in and pay attention to the places where you need to make choices. Like what do you really, really, really, really want? What is truly important and what can you let go? And is the fear real or like mine was for many years merely an illusion brought on by mass financial hysteria?

I was talking with my sister a while back and since we were raised by the same parents and under the same circumstances, she’s got the same financial fear I used to have. She is still caught up in it. As a result, she was doing a job she didn’t really love because of the steady paycheck and kept putting off starting her business. Here’s what’s nutty. My sister has $100,000 saved up from that job. And yet, she’s still operating from financial fear and not reality or awareness. What that said to me is that this is something I need to help people with because it seriously is one of the major “secrets to my success.”

I’ve managed to breakthrough my financial fear almost completely and as a result I have the freedom to make choices that allow me to live my life on purpose.

Once you have money handled, you are freed up to focus on the gifts you are really here to give. We are not here to worry about money. We are here to have a meaningful impact.

How is worrying about money holding you back from making your own meaningful impact? Where are you not getting the support you need because you don’t have the money or are not willing to invest the money you do have in yourself? How are you compromising in your own life because of financial fear? The first step is awareness. Leave a comment and let me know where you now have awareness of how financial fear is stopping you.

So, I said yes to things that were not in my best interest. Like the guys who flat out ripped me off for $10,000.

It (and many other things like that) happened because I was operating my business and life in the dark.  It was easier not to ask the hard questions.

I didn’t want them to think I didn’t trust them. I didn’t want to make them feel bad. I didn’t want to be unreasonable.  So I kept my eyes closed and dove in to the relationship without looking.

When they said they couldn’t give me references because of confidentiality agreements with their clients, I nodded and smiled because I thought we were on the same page spiritually. And we trusted each other.

What I recognize now is that I was afraid they wouldn’t like me or wouldn’t want to work with me.

As I’ve been doing interviews for LIFT, I’ve discovered a lot of business owners are just like me in this regard.

Men tend to come at it from a slightly different perspective. They don’t ask the hard questions because they don’t want to look stupid as opposed to  not being liked.

What I’ve realized as I’ve been working on LIFT is that being willing to ask the hard questions is part of what it means to be a real deal serious eyes wide open business owner.

I got the opportunity to test this recently.

I attended a charity event a few weeks ago at John Assaraf’s house.

I was seated next to quiet man and his girlfriend, both of whom I had met at a SANG party hosted by Vishen Lakhiani several weeks earlier.

I’m a great believer in synchronicity and that there are no accidents, so I wondered why it was that the Universe wanted me to meet this guy.

After talking with him a bit, I discovered that from what he said he had the power to advance my business substantially.

If what he said was true. IF.

Now, in the past, I would have taken the fact that I met him at John Assaraf’s house and at Vishen’s part (two business men I greatly respect) as the only proof I needed that he was good people.

I would have been unwilling to ask the hard questions that would allow me to verify that truth because I’d be afraid if I did he wouldn’t want to work with me.

But, this time, I did it differently. And I have to tell you, it felt amazing.

After having a couple of conversations about what he could do for my business and hearing how much my investment would be to work with him, I thought about what I should do instead of saying yes right away.

I was aware that I felt fear about the engagement and decided to inquire into the fear within myself instead of ignoring it.

When I did, I recognized that:

1. the fee was going to be high, but definitely worth it IF he could do what I hoped and not a higher fee than I’d ever paid for coaching/consulting before and he’d be doing way more than coaching/consulting on this project;

2. I knew that I’d be able to deliver the goods on my end, if he came through with his part.

So, what was the fear?

The fear was a valid fear that said “Hey, Alexis, you don’t really know this guy at all.  He could be exactly who he says he is and be able to do what he says he can do or he could be another person who sees you as trusting and vulnerable. Are you going to blindly trust again?”

And that was right.  I didn’t really know anything about this guy other than I had met him at the parties of two people I greatly respected.  But, I hadn’t even asked these two people if they knew him or knew anything about him.

What’s that all about?

It’s something we do as business owners when we want so badly to believe and we are looking for magic bullets and don’t want to face reality.  You’ve heard it referred to before as self-sabotage, but maybe you didn’t really know what it looked like or couldn’t see it clearly in yourself.  Sometimes an example helps.

And since this is really what my LIFT program is all about (because we all teach what we most need to learn ourselves), it was time to put my money where my mouth is and stop the self-sabotage.  The only way I was going to do that is to stop being blind to what was right in front of me.

So instead of doing what I would normally do, I asked the hard questions.

I wrote him back and said:

“I’d like to talk to a couple people who can vouch that you guys are who you say you are and have the affiliate network.  I like you personally and believe you totally know what you are talking about, but I’ve made too many mistakes in the past where I have not been willing to verify people were who they said they were and then only after I committed to work with them found out it wasn’t all as it had seemed.  I 100% don’t believe that will happen in this case, but I’m all about doing business with your eyes open and not avoiding stuff because asking is hard (this is what my LIFT system teaches).  So, to honor that, I’d really appreciate the names/numbers of a couple peeps I could call.”

I’ve gotta tell ya, it was really hard for me to send that email.

Inside, as I was writing it I felt so stupid and full of shame.  Because it was hard for me to write it.  Because I thought of all the times that I made investment decisions without asking for something so simple.  Just because I did.

And yet this time, despite the feelings of shame and stupidity, I asked the hard questions anyway.

Within a few minutes, he had responded with a simple email giving me the names of two people to call.  No drama. No hurt feelings.

As I thought about it afterward, I realized of course there was no drama.  If there had been, I would have known that working with him was a big mistake right off the bat.

One of his references is a guy named Ian David Chapman, who I’ve seen here and there for some time. He’s a social media strategist and was kind enough to give me some of his time.  And he didn’t just tell me about his experience, but he helped me make a good decision as to whether this was the right person for my needs at this time based on where I am in my business.  He helped me to see a few things I wasn’t seeing.

Had I not been willing to ask the hard questions to begin with, I would have proceeded with this investment in the dark, like I have so many times in the past.  Then, I would have not had the results I expected and gotten all victim-y and blame-y about it.

For now on, I’m going to do more asking of hard questions and I hope thanks to my example that you’ll be inspired to do the same next time.

I’d love to hear about the last time you asked the hard questions and it was helpful and/or the last time you didn’t and wished you had.

Within recent months, it has all started to become more clear than ever before.

I recently began working with Tim Kelley, author of the book “True Purpose”. What’s interesting is I thought I had already found my life purpose and was doing it.

And yet, I felt drawn to Tim’s work.  What I now see is that his work is taking me to another, much deeper level of my purpose.

I can now see that every single thing that has ever happened in my life, both those things I deemed to be “good” and those things I deemed to be “bad”, all happened to prepare me to fulfill my purpose as I now understand it in this moment.

Suddenly, it all makes sense.

There was a part of me that always knew this day was coming and I would occasionally catch enough of a glimpse of the future to know it was possible that one day I would really and truly get how everything fit together.

I’m grateful that it’s finally here.

Years of frustration, wonder, worry, uncertainty and fear have evaporated.  There are still threads left, but 90% of the concern has disappeared from my awareness.

Ok, so now I’m going to tell you what I now understand to be my purpose, even though I feel slightly embarrassed when I write it out like this.

I am here to shine the light into the dark corners of your business and your life with absolute and total love, acceptance and support.

I make the hard things easier.

Specifically, at this moment in time, I am focusing this purpose around business by helping people take a look at the things we all avoid because they are hard - the difficult conversations, the business of your business, the financials, the legal stuff, the employee stuff, the partnership stuff, the pending business break-up.

You know, the hard parts of being a business owner.  The stuff I can’t stand either.  Office politics, drama, conflict.  Ick.

I take the ick out and help you to discover how whatever is happening in your business is your greatest opportunity for growth.

You really want to be a conscious business owner?  For real?

Then, you’ve got to open your eyes, wake up to the truth.  Shine the light into the darkness.  The part you’ve been avoiding because it’s too hard, painful, difficult, embarrassing, shameful, guilt-ful, to look at.

When you are willing to open your eyes and shine the light into the dark corners, you will naturally run your business from a more expanded and enlightened perspective.

It’s hard to be enlightened and aware with your eyes closed and the lights off, right?

Decisions become much easier. You no longer worry about getting taken advantage of or what’s real and what’s not.  When you can see, you know.

Boundaries are easily established and conflicts are handled with an open heart.

Wow, it feels great to finally get all this.  These, of course, are my personal greatest life lessons so far.

6 years ago, I was attending a workshop held by one of my early coaches.  Scott had brought in a purpose expert named Kevin M McCarthy, author of the On Purpose Person.  And he walked us through a process to help us discover our own purpose.

What came through to me back then made no sense in the context of my life at the time.  I had just started my own law firm.  I was committed to being a lawyer.  Helping my clients.  Making a difference in their lives.

But, when I did Ken’s process, I discovered my purpose was to “Shine the Light?!?”  Huh?

WTF?

I was a lawyer.  I didn’t know how to shine no stinkin’ light.  What was I supposed to do with that?  Shine the light?!? Um, ok.

But, there was a part of me that knew that was it and one day I’d figure out what it meant.

For the past 6 years, I’ve continued to put one foot in front of the other, learning how to move with my energy and get out of my own way.  It’s been a learning process for sure.  But, each step fo the way I trusted that if I just kept asking the right questions and moving forward, I’d one day get it.

And now I do.

Are you ready to know it too?  I know you are.  And you know you want it.

To begin, start to ask yourself what you’ve been avoiding.  What are the conversations you’ve had in your head, but you have held back from having with the person they really need to be with?  What are the things you know you need to do in your business, but haven’t done because they seem too hard?

Make a list of those things.  Bring them to awareness.  That’s all you have to do now.  It’s the first step and in some ways the most difficult.

We are a lot like that with ourselves.  It’s hard to tell from one day or month or year to the next how much progress we are making.  And most of us are so focused on how far we have to go that we completely lose sight of how far we’ve come.

One of the best parts about blogging is being able to look back and become aware of the evolution.

Tonight, as I write this blog post on the eve of Thanksgiving, I’ve done just that.  I vaguely recalled being in a different emotional space last Thanksgiving, but couldn’t remember exactly what that space was.  Looking back to my blog post from last Thanksgiving, the emotions of where I was then have come flooding back in.

And along with them the awareness that a major shift has happened in my own consciousness regarding gratitude.  A shift that you can make here and now without waiting another year.

Last year, I didn’t know how to be grateful for EVERYthing.  My gratitude was conditional on the “good” things.  I even shared a gratitude exercise that helped me connect with all the good things happening in my life.

Here’s the big, exciting shift … you can be in extreme, deep gratitude even (especially) for the experiences you are having in your life that no one would call good.  And that’s something huge to realize as we move through a global shift that is impacting the economy, our weather patterns, and our old traditions.

With this shift is coming a lot of experiences that no one would call good - economic collapse of families, increase in bankruptcies, foreclosures, divorces, and a loss of jobs across the board.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s possible to find gratitude, even in these things.  And that’s where the real power is in your business and your life.

When you can find the gratitude even in the tragedy,  the heartache, and the pain, you have freedom.

So many of us claim freedom as one of our highest values and yet we are seeking it through on the exact things that will keep us in bondage.  More money, more time, more, more, more …

More is not where freedom comes from at all.  Freedom has nothing to do with the external circumstances of time, money or our work.

Freedom comes when you can be truly, deeply grateful for whatever is happening in your life right now.  Whatever is happening.  All. of. it.

To show you how serious I am about this.  Here are a few things I’m grateful for this year that I might not have been before I understand that gratitude for EVERYthing is the secret to true freedom.

The summer before last, my ex-husband got a DUI.  With our kids in the car.  You would think I’d be pissed, right?  Actually, I was grateful. GRATEFUL?!?  What?  You might be thinking (or even saying right now).

But, really I was.

For the 6 months before the DUI happened, I had been wondering fairly consistently “should I try to take full custody of the kids?” I really, really, really didn’t want to have to go there.  I knew it could mean a protracted court battle and I wasn’t willing to subject my kids to that. Plus, I wanted them to have a relationship with their dad.  And, frankly, I was working a lot and having them with him half the time worked for me from a business perspective. (It’s hard to admit that last part, but it is true).

I had been in Orlando teaching Personal Family Lawyers for a few days and flew to Virginia to speak to another group of lawyers about building a law business on a new model.  When I landed that morning, there was a message from my sister-in-law telling me everything was okay, but to call her as soon as possible.

That’s never a good sign.

When I called, she let me know that she had my kids.  My ex-husband (her brother) had been arrested for DUI with the kids in the car.

After I got over the initial shock, I felt an odd sense of calm.  My question had been answered.  I would have full custody of the kids and there would be no custody fight.  I didn’t know what else would happen.  But, I did know that.  And I was grateful.

As a result of my gratitude, I was able to respond to the situation in a way that resulted in the near complete healing of my relationship with my ex-husband.

Had I not been able to see the blessing in the situation, I would have been outraged, enraged, and in rage.  The ramifications of that would have been enormous for my family.  Perhaps my children would have been alienated from their dad.  Maybe he would have made it difficult for me to obtain custody of the kids.  Whatever it would have been, it would have been painful.

But, it wasn’t painful. Well, it’s been painful for my ex-husband.  He lost his license and his house and has been staying in a room above my garage while he gets back on his feet.  Even in that though, there’s freedom.

He’s finally found his passion and begun pursuing it.  He no longer feels as if he can’t be truthful or hide what he really wants.  We can have the hard conversations without too much drama.  And, of course, the kids absolutely love having him around.

So, that’s one thing.

Another thing like that is the circumstances that led to me closing my law firm.  My firm generated more than a million bucks in 2006 and 2007.  In 2008, I sold the firm to another lawyer so I could focus my attention on helping more people.

I sold it with the belief that he would take great care of my clients at the standards I had created and continue to build upon the foundation I had laid.

That’s not what happened though.

Within a few months, I began to see signs that he wasn’t handling things the way I did or would have.  I tried to ignore them and pretend it would get better.  It didn’t.  Within 6 months, he had stopped paying the bills.

It had been nearly a year since I’d seen new private clients, the firm had brought in nearly $700,000 for the year anyway, and I had to decide whether to come back in and take the reins at the firm again or close it down.

I decided to close it down and arrange for the Los Angeles area Personal Family Lawyers to service the ongoing needs of my clients.   An extremely painful, difficult decision to make.

That firm was my baby.  I had painstakingly designed the office.  Invested my heart and soul into it.  And it was still making great money.

But, I couldn’t trust that it would be run to the standards I set and so I had to let it go.  It cost me nearly three hundred thousand dollars to do it, not even counting the lost income I would have made if I would have kept the firm in the first place or kept it going.

What’s to be grateful for in that?

So much, it turns out.

As a result of my own experiences with building my law firm, selling it, and then closing it down, I learned a tremendous amount about the right way to set up a business and the wrong way, I got to see what it is that actually puts businesses out of business, and I gained confidence by seeing how hard it actually is to get to the point where a business cannot continue.

I also learned firsthand how important it is for entrepreneurs (especially those of us who identify as creative entrepreneurs) to understand legal, insurance, financial and tax issues.

It’s more than a little embarrassing that I had so many problems in these areas considering I’m a lawyer and I felt as if these were things I “should” have known about.

But I didn’t.  And my lack of knowledge cost me dearly.

And yet, I’m tremendously grateful for it because as a result I decided to learn everything I possibly could about legal, insurance, financial and tax and put all of that knowledge into a system for other entrepreneurs who, like me, are not good at those sorts of things.

This January, after nearly 9 months of intense effort, we will finally launch my LIFT Foundation System for business owners who are tired of wondering whether they have a solid foundation under their business, want to be able to count on their business surviving for the long haul no matter what happens, and are ready to cut through all the legal mumbo jumbo, hard pressure insurance and financial sales and want the straight truth on what is really needed to build a business the right way.

I never would have put this together had I not experienced a lawsuit myself without the proper insurance in place to cover it or made the mistakes I did when I sold my business.  Sure, I could beat myself up for those errors.   That would be normal, right?

But, I choose to be abnormal.  Instead, I’m grateful for these hard knocks.  Yes, they cost me a lot of money, but they taught me far more.  And now I get to teach it to you.

And to me, that’s what life’s all about folks.

This Thanksgiving season, do everything you can to find the blessing in each and everyone of the hardships you’ve experienced this year, this decade or this lifetime.

Write em’ down, thank God for them, and ask yourself how you can share the gift you’ve received from that challenging time in your life to make the world a better place.

Namaste.

Anne was talking about building a worldwide brand.  Her message reminded me of what I once wanted to do.  And woke me up to the reality that I’ve let the dream slip away.

It’s funny how I didn’t realize it until that moment.  There was no point at which I said “that’s it, I can’t do it anymore.  I’m giving up on this dream.”  But, now looking back over the past year,  I notice this is the first real attention I’ve given it in several  months; it’s not something that will move itself forward on it’s own; and I want to spend more time with my kids now so I don’t see myself pushing it forward.  In fact, I’ve let go of a lot of things that require push.

I think I first started to let go of the dream when I was on the phone with one of my business/blogging/mommy role models, Penelope Trunk.  She must have been right in the middle of raising money for her company and unable to pay herself.   We had a brief conversation about two things I was working on: a reality show and writing the business plan to make this dream a reality.  She said I was crazy for wanting to raise money and develop a software program (a major component of the dream).  That I should do the reality show instead.

I wonder if she’d still say the same thing now that her company is at least partially funded.

Regardless, she was only reflecting back to me what I was already feeling.  I had spent two years on this big dream and I was tired. Exhausted really.  Feeling defeated.

I had just invested $15,000 and several months in a business plan that was not clearly capturing my vision and then I lost $10,000 to a couple of scam artists.  At the same time, the economic news was building to a frenzy and I realized I had an amazing business that was making a big difference for a lot of lawyers as it was and I needed to invest my energy in building the business I had rather than continuing to focus on the bigger vision.

I dreamed of making affordable access to a lifetime relationship with a lawyer™ readily available in every neighborhood of the US and Canada.  Think H&R Block or State Farm Insurance or Remax or TLC Laser Eye Care Centers.  But, for lawyers.

Every other profession - from accounting to insurance to medical to dental - has a centralized system the professional can plug into that is automated from soup to nuts so the professional can do what she does best and the managers can run everything from marketing to service fulfillment to membership management.

There is nothing like it for lawyers.  And, I was gonna be the one to build it.

The Personal Family Lawyer business I have built is a beautiful precursor.  Lawyers implementing my business model for attracting, engaging, servicing and retaining clients lawyers are transforming their practices.  They are moving beyond the failing, broken model and becoming trusted advisors to their clients. They are busier than ever, even in this shifting economy and making a real difference in their clients lives.

Just yesterday, I heard from a lawyer who joined our program to transition from a litigation practice that was turning him into someone he didn’t like into an estate planning lawyer who is making a positive impact in the world.  In his first month of seeing clients as a Personal Family Lawyer he has already engaged one client and has another 5 appointments on the books.  Unless you are a lawyer, you probably have no idea how amazing this is.

My systems work.  Sure, they’re not built on a centralized model like H&R Block, State Farm or Remax, and I’ve come to realize they may never be, but they are changing the world for the individual lawyers who are embracing a new way of being with their clients and grateful to have a proven business model for doing it.

I’ve gained new awareness about myself.  I’m an amazing coach, visionary, and communicator.  It turns out, I’m not so good at managing teams, hiring, negotiating, financials,  and all the other little detail things necessary to build a really big business.  I can do those things.  But, they drain my energy.  And they make me less good at what I’m really good at.   Plus, bottom line, they take time away from my kids and my writing and the self care that I need to be happy.

So, I’m grieving the dream.

At the same time, for perhaps the first time in my life as a business woman, I’m celebrating what I’ve built and discovering what it’s like to appreciate what I have without this intense, burning desire for more, more, more.

My business is built.  It brings in more than a million dollars a year and supports my family plus 6 of the most supportive, fantastic team members a girl could have.  I get to work from home, homeschool my kids and have started a secondary business coaching business owners who want what I’ve built with my honey.  We are making a huge impact in the lives of these lawyers and their clients as well as the business owners we coach.

I get to coach, write, and innovate.  It’s what I’ve dreamed about for so long and it’s all happening. My main job now is to continue to support the forward-thinking lawyers who have stepped out of their own comfort zones to adopt a new model of practice, keep innovating new campaigns to get the message out about what they are doing in the world and attract more lawyers who are ready for something better in their lives and their businesses and don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel to have it.

Really, what more could a girl ask for?

Sure, I’d love a ten (hundred) million dollar business.  And I’d love to be known as the woman who radically transformed the legal industry on a massive scale. And I believe I have the specialized knowledge to really do it right, but I simply will not do it at the expense of my family and my well-being.

My ego is pissed off that I’ve let go of the dream.  It wants to be seen as more than just a girl with a great business and a blog and a couple of kids.  But, that’s just further confirmation for me that letting go is the right thing for me to do.  I refuse to let some idea of what I should do an what I should be run my life anymore.

And even with all that, I’m still grieving the dream.

At SHINE and afterwards so many women approached me to ask if it was worth it.  Am I glad I did it?

Since I’ve been teasing you for a few days with the answer, I’ll give you the short answer right away.  Yes, I am grateful to have made a $100k investment in Ali Brown’s diamond program.

That doesn’t mean investing $100k in a coaching program is right for you though.

If that’s what you’re wondering, let’s explore why I’m grateful I did it and how that might relate to you and your experience.

1.  I needed a major challenge.

I had hit 7-figures in my second business, written a book, appeared on TV and was ready for the next level.  I thought I knew what the next level was and that the diamond program would bring me closer to it.  It turns out the next level was totally different than I thought it would be.  And I’m so grateful to have discovered it.

2.   I was ready to take full responsibility for my results.

I hired my first coach ten years ago when I still worked at a law firm.  I was so resistant to it.  Thought I was too smart for coaching. Thank God I got over that!  Had I not, I’d probably still be at that law firm wondering why I never made partner and blaming everyone else for it.

Since then, I’ve had many coaches and become a coach myself.  What I’ve noticed is that those new to coaching (including myself back in the day) have a tendency to be stuck in a victim/blame mentality.  What that means is that when things don’t go well or you don’t appear to be making progress, you’ll be tempted to blame your coach.  It’s a natural thought pattern if you haven’t done some serious work around personal responsibility.  And it’s the exact thing that will keep you stuck exactly where you are.

About half way through the year this year, I began to ask myself if I’d received my money’s worth from the diamond program.  It was a great awareness point for me.  I noticed how my mind wanted to find all the ways the program wasn’t worth it.  Victim/blame mentality was on the field.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to practice personal responsibility.  I got to consciously say to myself “Alexis, it’s half way through the year.  What do you need to do to ensure you don’t f*%! this up and waste the $100k you invested in this program.”

You see, when you make the investment in a $100k program, the coaching is a very small part of it.  You can hire an amazing coach for much, much, much less than $100k.  You make the investment in a $100k program because 1) you need to kick yourself in the ass and shake things up and that’s what it’s going to take for that to happen for you; 2) you want to play with other high level business people who are also taking full responsibility for themselves; and 3) you will make sure it’s worth it for you, no matter what.

So, at the end of the day, what was it that made it worth it for me?

Well, besides everything I wrote about here there are a few other benefits I received from my investment:

3.  I’m a natural voyeur and I learn best from watching others (not to mention, I simply love to watch).

Some of my biggest learnings came from watching behind the scenes as Ali made a major shift in her business and her life (those lessons will have to be a whole nother blog post).  In addition to getting to watch Ali’s big shift:

I got to watch Lisa Sasevich go from $130,000 per year to more than $2,000,000 this year without making a single change to her website. (Made me realize how much time/effort most of us waste on stuff that simply doesn’t matter in the grand scheme).

I got to watch JJ Virgin build an entire brand from scratch.

I got to watch Kendall Summerhawk double her business and launch a brand new certification program.  Plus, seeing how her and hubby Richard work together has been sweet.

I got to watch Sheri McConnell focus, say no, let go and step into her power and become a knock-out, red hot mama along the way. (Interestingly, several of us got HOT thanks to JJ’s coaching - I’m down below 125 lbs for the first time in 10 years, Lisa S. is smokin’ and even Mike Reese is looking pretty svelte).

And I got to watch each of Karen Knowler, the PRTakeOff girls, Mike Reese, Ciara Daykin and Michele DeKinder-Smith make HUGE leaps in their businesses.

Over the next several months, I’ll share with you the specifics of what I learned from watching.

4.  I discovered I no longer have something to prove.  The ego has been mostly annihilated.

This is a huge discovery.  Huge, huge, huge, huge.

It hit home for me when I was listening to Barbara Corcoran speak at #Shine.  She was my absolute favorite part of the whole event bar none.  A new hero for me.

Barbara talked about that she was driven to create her $5 billion company by fear and insult.  Her drive came from a deep desire to show her 3rd grade teacher she wasn’t stupid and her ex-boyfriend that she could be successful without him.

As she spoke I realized how much of my drive and ambition came from a very similar desire.  I graduated first in my class from Georgetown because I wanted to prove to the boys from 7th grade that I was smart.  And that this year in diamond has been a lot about letting go of this need to prove something.

I walked into our first diamond meeting armed with a Powerpoint presentation showing off everything I was working on and all I was going to accomplish over the year.  At meeting 2, I sat on a stool at the front of the room and cried for my entire presentation time.  And by meeting 3, I realized I’m no longer competitive.  I don’t care if I make the most money or become the most famous.  I just want to be with my kids and love my life.

Had you told me this would have happened when I signed up for diamond last year, I would have wanted to punch you in the face.  I was so attached to the idea of what I wanted and how it had to look.  And what I had to prove.  But it did and I’m so grateful.

Sure, I’d love to build a $5 billion company like Barbara Corcoran.  But, not with the same drive and push Barbara has.  If that’s what is required, I’m okay with not doing it.

5.  I’m a juicy, sexy woman and I want to stay that way and bring it into my business.

Barbara talked about her husband a little bit from the stage and mentioned that they rarely have sex and she doesn’t feel sexy.  I get it.  I’ve been there.  When I’m immersed in ambition and drive, I don’t feel sexy or want to have sex either.  All of my juice goes into my business.

Anne McKevitt, Ali’s mentor, told us from the stage that her doctors told her last year that she needed a pace maker.  She felt so hard to me from the stage. So masculine.

I’ve been there and done that.  Push, push, push.  I don’t want to build my business that way anymore.  I want to relax, let go, be a woman.

If I become a famous, multi-millionaire …  great.  If not, that’ll be okay too.  But, what’s not okay is for me to feel hard inside and cold and tough. I want to be soft, yielding, sexy and yummy.

6.  I trust.

Today, I trust deeply that everything that is meant to happen will and I can relax into it, allowing instead of forcing it.

My job is to get crystal clear about what I want, set my intention for that, take the next right indicated step, trust that I finally know exactly what I need to know (I’ve spent 10 years accumulating huge, expensive knowledge) or that I will receive the knowledge I need when I need it and finally, trust, trust, trust that when I need to act, I will.

Big revelations for me.  All things I’d heard and read about in the past and knew on the intellectual level.  Today, I embody them in a way I have not before.  I’ve let go of a major, long-held dream.  Something I’ve held tight to for the past several years.  And I’m in mourning for it.  But, also trusting that if it’s meant to be, it will be. It’s in God’s hands and I can let go.

The reality is that when everything in a mother’s life becomes about her children, her own needs, wants and desires get lost in the shuffle.  In addition, children can see this lack of self-care as an unconscious example to follow.  Ask yourself this question: Do you want your children to follow their dreams or live a life that consists of fulfilling their obligations?  The majority of moms want their children to be happy which means the answer to this question is that you want your children to spend their lives pursuing their dreams!

So, just as the flight attendants demonstrate on airplanes, we must remember we cannot truly encourage and support our children in their efforts unless we put our own oxygen masks on first!  This act of self-care is not selfish, it is necessary for own survival and happiness.  As our own interests may sometimes fall second or third in line to the duties that are required to raise our families, we cannot forget to take the time we need to focus on what makes us happy.  The truth is that we need to feel good about and show love to ourselves regularly so that we can show our children how to love, value and respect themselves.  We must remind ourselves that everything we do as moms reflects on our children and plays a large role on their future.

What You Can Do Now:

If you are ready to follow your dreams (or if you are feeling out of touch with your inner passions) here are some things you can do to get back on track and reconnect with yourself.

First, take a deep breath and release all of your feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt.  You deserve to have a passion, purpose and personal goals. Everyone does!  Letting go of the idea that you can’t have your own interests because you are a mom is a self-limiting belief that will not serve you or your children well.  Leave these false beliefs behind and move forward with the understanding that by giving yourself your dreams back, you will be happier, more fulfilled and a better mom!

Second, start writing down a list of all of the dreams that you have had throughout your life, even things from childhood that you never thought could be achieved.  No dream is out of reach.  Some may take more creativity to achieve than others, so if you catch yourself saying that something is impossible remind yourself that there was a day when no one could fly!  Now, it’s your turn to spread your wings and soar!

Third, choose your top three dreams and write down 3 to 5 action steps you can take this week to achieve them.  Yes, this week!  Then, commit to and continue with those action steps until you have reached your goals.  Baby steps add up into massive growth very quickly!

Most importantly, enjoy every moment of this process and surround yourself with people who support your dreams.  You really can do whatever you set your mind to.  And when you do, your children will have proof that by taking decisive action dreams really can come true!

Bio: Britt Michaelian, M.A. is a mompreneur with multiple businesses and a new 12 week coaching program for moms who are ready to take the leap and start a lifestyle business.  To receive 12 Business Building Bonus Gifts and access to her FREE Business Building Basics for Moms Teleseries, go to http://CoachBritt.com