You have 100% influence over the circumstances of your life!
Do things always seem to happen to you in life? Is that a perspective that you have, that as you go through life when unwanted events occur, that, these things are happening to you? I wanna share a different perspective with you. This got a great deal of discussion recently when it came up. Several years ago, I learned a very, powerful piece of wisdom. You could call it a nugget, but this isn't a nugget. It's more like a 10 ton boulder. My mentor, Jim Forton, was coaching me and he said you are in 100% influence of the circumstances of your life. And for most people who aren't in the personal development world, they jump right into the, oh my God, that's victim shaming. Nobody asked for cancer. Nobody asked to be mugged or, you know, whatever else. That's not the point of the statement. The point of the statement is that no one can make us think, feel, or believe anything about any situation in our life, unless we first choose to entertain that idea. People can make comments, but unless we choose to entertain that idea, then we're not going to adopt that idea. What this means is that we get to choose the meaning that we put on any situation. [00:02:46] Now, when we're going through life and we are dealing with other people, they have free will and choice just as much as we do. And some of those people may do things that we find unpleasant, disgusting, unfair, downright heinous even. But, the only meaning that's on that is what we do. The only meaning that is on that is the meaning that we choose to give it So take, for example, let's just say there is a business contract, a client contract, and something happens and the person can't fulfill the contract, or it was almost done. But then at the last minute, the contract doesn't get signed. The client pulls out and it's like, ‘Oh my God. Why does this always happen to me?’ Well, number one, I don't do that, but for some people they do now, it's one thing to sit back and take an honest assessment of situation. And say, okay, what happened here? Is there something systems sales call, communicating the offer, the expectations, like, is there something here that needs to be improved? That's totally appropriate, but it's something else to say that, oh my God, this always happens to me. I'm attracting clients who… do this. Like why do they always find me? Well, maybe somebody just had bad situation happen. Maybe their finances changed. Maybe their needs changed. . We can either choose to allow ourselves to be at the mercy of other people's choices, or we can choose to be in command of the next steps. Right. So you could look at that situation and be in a pity party, and ‘why is this always happening? People are always cheating me’ or, I don't know. I could think of a lot of different examples. I don't wanna go down that rabbit. I don't like that negative energy in here, but to step back and say, okay, well, let's assess what happened here. Let's email this person. Let's find out if there are any gaps that we need to address and get a deeper understanding, that is being in a place of empowerment rather than living by circumstance. [00:05:18] So whether it's something with my family, with my husband, with my business, with people that I do business with personally, when something comes up, I will ask myself: “Okay. What did I do to co-create this?” Maybe I didn't communicate clearly what my needs were. Maybe I didn't communicate clearly what my expectations were because if I communicated my expectations, clearly, maybe this person I chose to do business with would say, oh, we're not a fit. Maybe I didn't ask a question. I should have asked. That one has actually happened to me. I was in a situation where I did not know what I did not know. I was making an investment. I felt like it was the best investment for me. And in hindsight, I look back and I thought to myself, it would've really been nice if they had a process in place to do this gap assessment, because they thought I was at a place that I was not. I was not a fit for this investment I made, but once I made the investment, in integrity, I'm committed. I follow through on my investment and I made the most of what was provided to me that I could. But then I still had to seek out someone who could help me identify the gap. And when I found that person, I knew immediately, oh, this is what I needed. Like, this was the secret ingredient to the recipe, except it's no secret ingredient to anybody who's been in business for a very long time. But for me being a new entrepreneur and I say new, because I’ve only been in business four years, that's still relatively new. It was a gap that I had and I did not know. So I could have sat here and I could have blamed the people that I signed on to work with and said, oh my God, they should have done this. They should have done that. But you know what, it's also my responsibility to ask questions. It's my responsibility to educate myself the best that I can. To know what I don't know, or to at least ask the question in order for me to be successful with you moving forward in this work. From your perspective, what must I have in place to achieve success in your program? I didn't ask that question, So I could either choose to be a victim. Or feel taken advantage of, or I can choose to take responsibility for the fact that I could have asked better questions. I could have taken responsibility for, maybe looking for another person at that same time to say, Hey, come in here , and show me what I'm missing, because I've made this investment over here. Things aren't going the way I would like them to go. And I don't know what I am missing here. [00:08:35] Because everything that we do, it's a two way street. Rarely anything is unilateral. And when it is unilateral, really what we have to do is we have to look at ourselves and say, okay, how did I co-create this? What boundaries that are important to me id I not hold? Which of my values did I ignore here that threw me so far out of alignment? When we're brave enough to go down the rabbit hole of every single situation in our life to ask ourselves, where did I not trust myself? Where did I let fear overtake me? How did I contribute to this? And maybe we didn’t contribute. Maybe we put our blinders on. Where did I put my blinders on here? Right? What was I avoiding? When we can go down that rabbit hole, we can really get some amazing transformation in our life. And I'm gonna tell you sometimes, depending on where you are in your journey of transformation, taking a look in that mirror is not always easy. Sometimes it's pretty darn messy. [00:09:50] In taking ownership of your life, people talk about mental, emotional health. They talk about being self actualized, having a fulfilling life. The very first thing, well it's one of, many of the very first things, it's taking ownership. We take ownership through awareness. We take ownership through asking great questions. It's one of the things that's really allowed me to shift in, move out of this place where I was years ago of being someone who happened to be a hypnotist, who charged for my services, to being a business owner, to stepping into a role. I call it CEO. I know that people really overuse that, but that's the way I think of myself as being outside of my business. And my business works for me and my business provides a service. I just happen to go into the business. To deliver that service. And that's been a huge shift for me, and it's forced me to take ownership of the decisions that I make, the decisions that I avoid, the things that I do, the things that I don't do, and even my own physical, mental, and emotional health. Because without that, for me being the service in the business, helping people transform. That's very important. And when I don't hold those boundaries, when I don't take that level of responsibility for myself, it impacts my ability to serve others. [00:11:31] So I challenge you to reflect, and in situations in the past where you may have feelings of frustration or anger or resentment from the past, reflect back and ask yourself what was my role in this? And when I say, what was my role in this? I'm not saying, “Did you ask for it” or anything like that, but where could you have taken a different level of responsibility and maybe the outcome, or more importantly, your interpretation of the situation change? Because when we interpret situations, our interpretations influence our future decisions. So it may not necessarily mean that you could have changed the situation, but you change your interpretation around it, which shifts your emotional state around it, which directly impacts your ability to make decisions going forward. [00:12:32] I have a whole lot more to say on this. I think it's gonna be for a part two episode maybe, or a few weeks down the line, but all of these things, these interpretations, the meanings that we put on things, whether or not we choose to empower ourselves to take responsibility for our interpretations of the things that happen in our life. Those things all come back to your inner voice. Master your inner voice if you want to be fulfilled. If you want that self actualized life. If you want to be more in touch with your intuition. If you want internal peace and know that's not a holy grail, it is actually available to you. If that is what you want, you must master your inner voice. If that interests you, join me in the Facebook group. The link is going to be in the show notes. I am starting to do weekly live shows. I love to dig into this stuff. It's my gam. It's my passion. I really could go on and on and on and on. And when you are there with me to ask questions, everybody can get more out of it. So hope see you in the Facebook group. If you are looking to work with me, there are now two ways you can do that. You can apply to work with me One on One, or you can apply to join me in a hybrid mastermind, where you get the benefit of group conversations, group perspective, but you also get the benefit of one on one work with me as we help you to tame that inner voice, releasing the fear and the doubt so you have the clarity and the focus you need to create the impact, the legacy and the lifestyle that you have worked so hard to have because none of it matters if you're not fulfilled doing it. And that is what I'm here to help you do see you next week. Want to work One on One with Penny, go here and apply so we can see if we are a fit. Sign up for the email list to learn more about the new hybrid program launching soon. The Facebook Group is here.