Category: Blog

I want to be clear I’ve got nothing against living longer. I’m all for it.

I’m just more interested in living better. 

While the general focus of longevity hacks, practices, and products is to help us live better longer, this obsession with the longevity part often undermines the better part. 

In 2010, I did an experiment to live as if I only had a year to live. I was inspired by a few friends who’d dealt with an unexpected terminal illness. Staring death in the face brought them great clarity. It led to bolder choices, deeper discussions, as well as unbridled honesty and vulnerability. 

Though I don’t hope to ever receive a terminal diagnosis, I saw the potential gift in it, and I was intrigued to see if I could experiment to reap some of those benefits before it’s too late.

I publicly invited people to join me in this quest. I was surprised by some of the hateful responses I got from strangers – wishing me ill and even death – for suggesting such a reckless experiment. 

However, I was delighted by my own experience and the reports from others who joined me.

One woman got out of debt and another ran her first marathon. One person got sober. A man who thought he’d spend the year exploring the world decided he’d stay close to home and explore his relationships more deeply. I found the courage to spend a month alone in a cabin to be quiet and meditate. It was a profound experience that I may have continued to delay if I thought I had all the time in the world. The experiences for all of us were varied and deep.

All of this happened simply because we imagined our time here was short. 

It wasn’t even real. But, the truth is we never know. 

A woman who joined my “year to live” experiment tried to convince her husband to join. He thought it was a ridiculous thing to do at such a young age. Within that year, he was diagnosed and died of pancreatic cancer.

So, what’s my point?

Don’t forget the “better” in your desire to live better longer.

For some, pursuing longevity has become an obsession. Compulsively learning new hacks and checking biofeedback tools is feeding perfectionism and adding to anxiety. It’s even leading to competition among friends. And, perhaps most importantly, concentrating on our future lives can keep us from being present to our current lives.

Deadlines focus our energy. They help us make decisions and get clear on what matters most. Those decisions can cut out the less important stuff that gets in the way of what’s most important. All of our lives have a deadline, but none of us know when it is. 

If you knew your deadline was coming soon, what decisions might you make? What I learned from my experiment of a year to live, and the reports from others, is that when we decided to live as if there was a short deadline, decisions got easier. What we decided to do was always about who we wanted to be.

People got present to their current lives in a way they hadn’t before. They became present to their desires and strengths, their fears and addictions, and the people who mattered most. 

Becoming present was the key to change. 

The wild thing about becoming present is that is actually how you create more time. When you’re truly present, you alter your perception of time, and how you perceive time is one of the greatest factors in how you will perceive your entire life. 

So, perhaps your longevity won’t improve by obsessing about the future and how to extend it, but instead by getting present today and living as the person you want to be right now.

The first day of summer is just around the corner. What if this was your last one?

How would you want to live it?

I hope you live a long life. I hope even more that you live a good life.

If I were a betting woman, I’d bet you’re seeing this advice come at you from all directions:

• “Become more resilient to handle the stresses of life.”
• “Raise resilient kids who can bounce back from hardships.”
• “Improve your company’s resilience or be left in the dust.”
• “Build resilient communities to recover from crises.”

Wondering how in the heck you’re supposed to do all of that?

Here’s a simple way to start:

Resilience is defined as “the ability to withstand or bounce back from hardship; toughness.” Phew, that sounds rough. I propose a different way to think about it that doesn’t have you bracing for the worst.

Here’s my definition: Resilience is being rested and ready.

There’s an important difference in this definition. The focus isn’t on disaster, stress, and hardship.

With this definition, being resilient means you’re ready for all of life, including the joys and thrills and even the luxurious moments of peace.

Without a balance of both “rested and ready”, we can end up chronically tense and anxious, or lethargic and blue. I’ve seen these states in many people, no matter what degree of success they’ve achieved.

One client noticed he never just stands at a corner waiting for the light to change. He feels wound up like a spring, his body thrusting forward like a racehorse waiting to bolt the second the light turns green. You may notice some version of that yourself. You feel jacked up, always behind, tense for “no reason”, anxious you’ve missed something, or worried about the future. Even if there’s nothing big to stress about, you can’t fully relax.

A friend told me she’s been letting work and laundry and workouts pile up. She’s having trouble making decisions, getting motivated and getting into motion. You might find you lack the energy to do the things you want to do. You’re procrastinating on things that you should do. You’re just feeling kind of flat though nothing’s really going wrong.

Though revved up and shut down seem to be extreme opposites, they’re both symptoms of an overloaded nervous system.

And, if you think of building resilience as building more toughness you may actually be doing your nervous system more harm than good.

One of the first things I work on with high-achieving, stressed-out clients is rest. Those who are athletes experience increased strength and speed by improving their rest time. For some this is a drastic change from overtraining, getting injured, and having setbacks.

Others find that by prioritizing rest they’re able to focus and get more done in less time, and their work performance improves.

I come up against a lot of resistance when I ask my clients to focus on rest first. It’s the norm to believe that we have to work hard first to earn our rest.

But if you’re a parent, would you treat your kids that way?

Did your newborn or toddler have to earn their nap? No, you knew that sleep and naps were essential for their development and mood. So, why is it any different for you?

What if you prioritized rest to be able to work at your best?

Don’t stress about getting the perfect night’s sleep – that won’t improve your rest.  And, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to nap during the day – but if you’ll give yourself moments of rest throughout the day, you’ll be amazed at how it improves your readiness.

Give me 30 seconds right now and I’ll teach you how to rest. Here’s what you’ll do:

1. Stop reading this for a moment.
2. Feel the support of the chair you’re sitting in. Don’t think about the chair, really feel your body being supported. Notice how that feels. Once you’ve felt what it’s like to be supported…
3. Let your eyes look around. Let your head follow wherever your eyes want to go. Without any goal, allow your eyes to look at anything pleasing.
4. Notice how you feel.

Give yourself 30 seconds to do that right now.

If you kept on reading without that taking 30-second rest, your nervous system is likely stuck in “ready”, rushing to the next thing. When you’re chronically stuck in ready, you’re actually less capable of handling challenges when they come.

It’s like strength training. When you work out, your muscles undergo the trauma of microscopic tears. When you rest your body heals the tears and makes that muscle stronger, enabling you to do that same exercise with more ease next time. It’s the rest that makes you ready for more.

You can do this practice anywhere, any time, and I recommend you do it often.

When you feel the chair supporting you, your body feels safe and sends messages to your brain that you can relax. When you let your eyes wander your eye muscles relax. Since your eyes are an extension of your brain, that sends a message of calm to your body. It’s when you feel safe in your body that your nervous system relaxes and you get a rest from that fight or flight survival state.

These regular interruptions into your chronic state of “readiness” can build new neural pathways that increase your resilience. You’ll be better able to handle challenges, make decisions, pivot quickly, and experience excitement, pleasure and peace.

If you’re bogged down by procrastination, use the same rest practice above and after letting your eyes look around at things that feel pleasing, ask yourself – What’s one simple thing I can do right now? Then just do that one thing. Little movements and accomplishments can regulate your nervous system and help you get stronger bit by bit.

Here’s to your rested, ready resilience!

A few weeks ago I was in a live coaching session with the 2024 cohort of The Success Solution. We’ve got participants from across North America and Australia. That means some of us are heading into spring and some are heading into fall.

From my house here on the West Coast, the first day of spring was sunny skies, green grass, cherry blossoms, and daffodils. People on the East Coast were in snow, or preparing for it.

Even on the same continent, the seasons were so different – never mind a continent on the other side of the world. If we’d believed this time of year should be the same for us all and compared our results, some of us would have felt like our season was wrong or not as good as what others were experiencing.

That would be crazy right? But we do that sort of thing all the time. You might be comparing yourself, your business and your relationships without being fully aware that you’re doing it.

I teach my clients how to achieve more success with less stress by doing things in different ways – ways that feel good and bring out the best in them.  

One of the changes I invite them to make is to stop comparing themselves to others.

Though you’ve probably been told this many times, it’s surprising how challenging this can be, because you’ve been doing it since you were young.

• You learned how to walk and talk and eat by watching others and mimicking their moves.
• You were evaluated all through school based on how you performed in comparison to others.
• You’re constantly being bombarded by ads about how you should look and feel.
• Social media posts show you how great everyone’s life is.

Here are 4 steps to stop comparing and start thriving:

1. Notice that you’re doing it.
You first might notice that you feel like you’re behind, less than others, ashamed or in a general funk. You discover you’re comparing your business growth, your personal growth or your kids’ growth to people who are different from you. Maybe people you don’t even know.

2. Be curious about why you’re doing it.
Ask yourself if there’s some fear that’s motivating your comparison. Fear will activate your survival mode, and make you feel defensive, even if there’s nothing to protect yourself from. If you stop and notice that underneath your comparison is a niggling fear, get curious about it. What do you believe will happen if you don’t “keep up”? Question if that belief is really true.

Ask yourself if there’s something you see that you truly want.
You think you should workout as much the people you follow on IG but what you really want is to feel more energized. You think your kids should be on as many teams and have as many lessons as your neighbours but what you really want is for them to be happy. You think you should have a house like your in-laws but what you really want is to feel secure.

3. Accept where you are at right now. You might not be where to want, but acceptance is key to change.
Accepting isn’t the same as being apathetic or giving up. Accepting just means you stop resisting. When you accept that what you’re experiencing right now is a season, and seasons change, and even people who seem to be in the same season can have very different experiences, then you experience a whole lot more peace.

4. Take action toward what you want. You want something because of the way you think it will make you feel. Emotions are motivators. Once you get clear on what you want (Step 2), decide how you’ll do it in a way that suits you right now.

With your current life situation, your unique talents and skills and likes and dislikes. How can you take action in a way that brings out the best in you now?

You might realize that to feel energized you need to sleep more – not workout more. You discover that your kids are happier with less structured time to just play and create. More time with your close friends would give you a sense of security that a bigger house could never provide.

When you stop comparing and instead do things in a way that’s right for you, you’ll be far more successful and satisfied in all areas of life. And if I can’t convince you, one of the greatest basketball coaches might…

John Wooden won 10 NCAA championships as the coach of UCLA Bruins.  He never ever compared himself or his team to others.

He didn’t focus on what other coaches were doing. He never coached his teams to be better then their opponent. Instead, he taught his teams to focus on their strengths and do the best they could in every game and the result would take care of itself.  And he has the best results on record.

To improve your success with less stress in all areas of life, focus on yourself, without comparing to anyone else, because you are incomparable!

Love, Debra

In my last post I said that knowing why you want to achieve the goal you’ve set for this year can help keep you motivated to keep going when things get tough. And at some point, things will get tough.

Knowing why will help because you pursue goals to feel different from how you feel now.

The root of the word emotion is emovere. The root of the word motivation is movere. 

The word movere means “move”

Both emotion and motivation are rooted in movement. 

If you’ve ever worked in sales, you’ve heard that “emotions sell”. Even if someone wants all the facts before making a decision, it’s the feeling they get from knowing those facts that moves them to act.

Volvo doesn’t sell the features that make their cars solid – Volvo sells safety. It’s that desire to feel safe that moves people to buy.

You’re going after your goal because of how you want to feel when you achieve it, no matter how altruistic your goal may be.

And here’s how so many of us get it wrong. 

You get inspired by an idea, a book, a speaker, or a problem you want to solve. It sparks something inside of you. That spark is the emotion that is your call to action. 

And you act, and act and act. You’re determined. You’re motivated. You’re focused.

But as you focus on the goal you’re going to achieve one day, you find yourself living in the GAP – that uncomfortable place between where you are now and where you want to be.

I’ve got no problem with being uncomfortable. Without discomfort, there’s no growth. The problem comes when you’re so focused on accomplishing that goal, that you’ve lost sight of how you want to feel. 

I’ve had clients so focused on how great they’ll feel when they reach their ideal weight that they don’t enjoy their body even as they’re dropping sizes. Some are so focused on the great life they’ll create for their family once they’ve “made it” that they’re missing the joy of their kids day to day.

Focusing on the result you want to achieve will keep you in the GAP and you’ll miss much of the good in your life right now.  So what can you do instead?

Get back in touch with how achieving that goal will make you feel. Review my last post and keep asking yourself why until you feel the answer that feels like home. 

Remember those feelings. Work on your goal in a way that makes you feel them now. Even put your goal aside from time to time when you’ve lost touch with these feelings and do things now that make you feel the way you want to feel.

In my last example I used the goal of doubling revenue to lead to a sense of calm – but if you’re hustling, stressing, losing sleep and sometimes losing it altogether to double your revenue – you’re making the Gap bigger, the goal feels further away, and actually becomes harder to achieve.

Go for your goal in a way that matches how you want to feel when you get there and you’ll close the GAP.

As a growth-minded individual, you’ve probably set some goals to make this year even better than last year. 

The truth is that 92% of people who set a goal for this year will fail to achieve it. No matter how committed they are at the beginning, something gets in the way. That’s sad because when goals and dreams die, a part of us dies too.  

There are many reasons we fail to achieve our goals. There are unconscious blocks we need to move through, and life circumstances that divert our best intentions. 

But if you ask yourself this one question you can greatly increase your chances of success. And that question is: 

Why do I want it? 

At first, it will seem obvious. And your first answer will make rational sense, but I promise it won’t be your deepest truth. So, once you’ve asked and answered that question, ask it again…and again…and again… Until you have reached what feels like home. 

It might look something like this: 

I’m going to double my revenue this year. 

Why do I want that? 

I want to purchase a cottage. 

Why do I want that? 

I want a place outside the city that I can escape to. 

Why do I want that? 

When I get time in nature, my busy mind quiets, and I feel connected to something bigger than me. I feel more expansive, rested, calm. 

Why do I want that? 

When I feel calm, and connected, I don’t push myself so hard.

Why do I want that? 

When I’m not pushing hard. I’m more generous with myself and others. Giving comes naturally. 

Why do I want that? 

I feel like my true self. 

Your truth will feel like a resting place inside you. Expansive, peaceful, uplifted, bubbly – like home – whatever home feels like to you – even if you’ve never felt it before. 

Whatever your goal is, you’re willing to pursue it because you want to feel different in some way from how you feel now. 

Tapping into how you want to feel, gives you intrinsic motivation – your motivation comes from within.

Most people are focused on extrinsic motivation – the result they’ll achieve – whether it’s money, fame, a better body… 

When you get to the core of how you want to feel it will be your call-to-action. It will be the motivation to keep going when things get hard, and at some point, things will get hard. When you know why you want something, figuring out how gets a whole lot easier. 

Find why you want your goal and in my next post, I’ll share how even knowing this, people still get it wrong.

I can teach you how to get it right.  In a way that’s right for you.

Most people will fail to achieve their goals this year no matter how excited they were when the year began. They’ll get distracted, discouraged, or overwhelmed at some point, and give up.

Everyone gets sidetracked on the path to their goal at some point. The journey is never as straightforward as we imagined it would be. When we realize we’re not as far along as we like, or it’s not as easy as we imagined, we can lose motivation.

Few people will be willing to start again when they’ve gone off track. It can seem easier to give up on your goal, and tell yourself it didn’t matter that much. But if you keep giving up on goals you can “suffer from creative constipation which breeds toxicity”, as author Charlie Gilkey says.

• Have you been working on a big goal for a while and at this moment you’re doubting yourself?

• Did the summer, or a new series on Netflix, or a million other things get in the way and you’re not sure how to get motivated again?

• Or did you start the New Year full of excitement about your goal and now you can’t even remember what it was? 

You can be the one who’s in the 8% of people who succeed. Simply decide to start again. Remember your goal and why you wanted it. Now, rather than focusing on the goal, which is off in the future, decide on the action you will take each day to move you closer to it. Then commit to doing it for the rest of the year.

In movies, the hero faces a great challenge in the third act. It’s overcoming that challenge that makes the hero our hero.

You’re in the third act of this year. Finish strong! Starting strong is easy. Finishing strong makes you a hero

Be a hero this year,

Debra

If that idea makes you smile, I’d like you to think about one area where success really matters to you.

Just One.

It can be your business, health, relationships, finances… whatever is most important to you right now.

Once you’ve got that, determine what success would be for you:

• Running in a 5k this summer?
• Investing a certain amount of money each month?
• Seeing friends at least once a week?

Decide what you’d need to do differently to achieve that success:

• Run each week to increase your distance?
• Invest your money immediately before you spend it?
• Clear your schedule to make time for friends weekly?

You need to take action to be successful.

Now, are you ready to hear the ONE THING that will increase your likelihood of success by 95% …

Here it is…

Accountability

Maybe it’s because we’re social creatures by nature who can’t survive on our own, but we’re more likely to show up for others in ways we wouldn’t for ourselves.

You could probably piece together a great workout through a selection of Youtube videos – but you’re more likely to show up for a trainer waiting at the gym or a running mate waiting for you at the park.

You could easily find reasons you can’t afford to invest this month – unless you’ve got an investment partner or club willing to challenge your decisions and hold you accountable.

Just one drink seems innocent enough – until you remember you’ll have to be accountable to your sponsor, and that makes you change your mind.

Being accountable to someone else is really being accountable to yourself. While an outside person will make you more likely to do what you said you’d do, you’re not doing it for them.

You’re doing it to achieve what you really want. This is just a sneaky way of accomplishing it since you’re more likely to let yourself down.

Top athletes hire private trainers, mindset coaches, and nutritionists to win championships.

Executives & Entrepreneurs report experiencing a 500% – 700% ROI when they invest in a coach.

When you’re accountable to someone else, you’re the one who wins.

Share this with someone you care about and respect. If they’re willing to be an accountability partner with you, you’ll both increase your chances of success exponentially.

There’s a question I ask myself and others, that might be helpful when you’re feeling stuck and want to see more possibilities.

When clients are feeling constricted by their situation, I ask them to forget about the limitations for a moment, and instead, I ask a question that begins, “If you could have it any way you want…”

Once I know what their heart really desires I ask, “Why?”  That answer tells me who they want to be, what they want to give, and how they want to experience life and themselves.

So even if they can’t get everything exactly how they want it, the possibilities open up for them to be more fully expressed and fulfilled by making choices that match those deeper desires.

The power of this question first struck me a few years ago when my assistant and I were working out her role and I started by asking her, “If you could have it any way you want, what would your job be?”

She paused. For a while. Then said, “I’ve never thought that way. I’ve always looked at what’s probable and tried to want that”.

Her answer was eye-opening to me. I thought it was brilliant that she could catch that lifelong pattern in that moment. By pausing and giving herself more time, she was able to discover what she really wanted from this job. By sharing it with me, I was able to provide more of what made her happy and brought out the best in her. She was involved in and contributed more than I would have thought wanted. We both benefitted.

Don’t think that she loves every moment of what she does. There are tasks that aren’t her favorite thing to do, but by starting with the question, “If you could have it any way you want…” she got clearer on what she wants from her work and I look for ways to make the work match that as best I can.  Let me say it again, we both benefit.

So when you’re facing a challenge or just making plans, try asking yourself, “If I could have it anyway I want…”

By the way, this works great with business partners, life partners, and families. Each person answers it for themselves. Then they share why they answered that way. 

Asking “Why?” is a critical part of this process.

You’ll develop a deeper understanding of each other’s hopes and dreams. Even if everyone can’t get it exactly the way they want it, you’ll know ways to bring out the best in each other.

If you’re about to set big goals and make big plans for 2023 My Free Masterclass can help you get clear on what you really want in about 40 minutes.

Spiritual teacher, Ram Dass said, “If you think you’re enlightened go spend a week with your family.”

In case your family gatherings aren’t always a scene from a Hallmark Holiday Movie ~Here are 7 tips to thrive this holiday season.

1. Accept what you can’t control. The weather, lost luggage, delays, Aunt Maureen’s conspiracy theories, or Cousin Dean’s lactose intolerance. Accept that most things are out of your control and focus on what you can control.

2. Have a Plan.
What are the things you do each day that set you up to feel good – getting good sleep, some time alone, a long walk, working out? So often, we drop all our good habits when we’re on holiday and then wonder why we aren’t our best selves. Plan times to do the things that make you feel good about yourself. This will help regulate your nervous system so you’re less reactive to what you can’t control.

If you remember that certain things or people trigger you, have a plan for what you’ll do if that happens – call a friend, go to the bathroom and do breathing exercises, get outside. Make your well-being a priority.

3. Make a daily commitment to yourself.
The simpler you make your commitments, the more likely you are to keep them. What is the ONE THING you can commit to doing EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.  Some simple practice that doesn’t take too long, but helps you feel good. Commit to doing that every single day. Prioritize it. Congratulate yourself each night for doing it. 

4. Remember how you want to be, and set an intention every day to be that way.
Each morning take 60 – 90 seconds to state how you want to be today and then picture going through your day in this state. Set the intention to be that way. And remember, you won’t be that way consistently. Like meditation – you don’t stay focused – you keep returning to focus. So you won’t stay in that ideal state every minute, you’ll keep returning to it.

5. Journal this each night:

• How you fulfilled your intention, or what you’ll do differently tomorrow. Look for one time you fulfilled your intention today. Your mind will automatically look for all the ways you failed. That is not helpful. Search for the time or times you did fulfill it. Write about it. Notice how that feels to relive it.  And only after doing that, make note of any lessons from today that will help you be even more successful tomorrow.
• Three good things that happened today. Write each one down and after writing, take a moment to remember it, feel it again. Then write the next one. It can be the smallest things – a tasty cup of coffee, a laugh, or even a good poop 🙂  Your mind will naturally replay anything that went wrong, and that can put you into a funk that makes it harder to remember all the things that went right.  Don’t make a long list. Keep it to just three. But as you write each one, be sure to feel it again. 

6. Consider everything others are doing to be either “Love or a Cry for Love”.
A friend of mine taught me this practice years ago, and it’s so helpful in challenging situations. Any time someone is not at their best, consider their behavior to be a cry for love. It doesn’t mean you have to rush in and provide the love. Just seeing their actions that way, can make the whole experience easier for you.

And if you find yourself “behaving badly”, give yourself that same compassion – your less than perfect words or actions were a cry for love, and maybe they just came out wrong.

7. Find ways to feel safe. 
This is most important and often overlooked. When I say there’s little you can control, I’m including your own behavior. Your neural circuits are always sensing whether your environment, or the people in it, are safe or dangerous. This is called Neuroception and the problem is – you’re not aware this is happening. It could be a distant sound, a color, someone’s tone of voice, facial expression, or just their presence – any of these can be picked by your nervous system as dangerous, depending on your childhood experiences and past conditioning. Even though you’re not aware it’s happening, when your nervous system senses a threat it readies you to act. You’re no longer in a creative, compassionate, or engaging state. Little things can suddenly set you off and you erupt or shut down. That can explain why you seem to “regress” when you go home.

When your environment feels safe, your nervous system relaxes and you can engage and enjoy. Find the places, sounds, and people that make you feel safe. And access them often. (See #2 – Have a plan)

Helping you live a life you love,
Debra

Please share this with people you know and love, so we can all bring out the best in ourselves and each other over the holidays.

We’re officially in “The Holiday Season”.

Whether you celebrate something, everything, or nothing at all, the holiday season is almost impossible to ignore.

Most people find themselves getting busy with big parties, travel, and small get-togethers. Even if it’s all good and fun and you love doing it, being busy can be a source of stress.

Others feel left out and lonely at this time, and that can be a real downer.

So rather than thinking of everything you want or have to do this season and trying to minimize the stress, or imagining all that you might miss out on and managing your disappointment, I have an idea for you.

Do this simple practice right now and set yourself up for less stress and more joy this holiday.

1. Make yourself comfortable.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Remember a time you felt really great. It doesn’t matter when it was, or what you were doing. 
4. Sense how that feels in your body.
5. Say a few words to describe how that feels.
6. Notice how you feel about yourself.
7. Imagine every cell in your body filling up with the vibration of these thoughts and feelings. 
8. Open your eyes.
9. Write down how you felt physically and how you felt about yourself.
10. From now until the end of the year, start each day remembering how it felt to be this version of you. Let yourself feel it again.

Say Yes more often to the things that help you feel this way. 
Say No more often to the things that make it harder to feel this way.

Fill yourself with the best of you this season, and let that guide your way.

Changing the way you do things is hard. I recommend you share this with a friend who wants more joy this season and support each other to make choices that fulfill you.