Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Your
Brilliance
Claudette Rowley
Transgressor
personal development
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ISBN: 978-0-9807303-0-2
CHAPTER 2 16
The Gift of Obstacles 16
External Obstacles Versus Internal Obstacles 18
The Catch 19
Obstacle Shifters 31
CHAPTER 3 35
Tell the Truth 35
Searching for Answers 36
Choices 40
Deep Respect 47
CHAPTER 4 50
The Art of Wanting 50
Give Yourself Permission 51
Define Yourself 60
CHAPTER 5 65
The Power of Perspective 65
The Perspective of Luck 69
The Perspective of Presence 71
CHAPTER 6 82
Purpose: What Calls You? 82
Follow Your Heart 84
CHAPTER 7 94
Flawed Brilliance 94
Accept Your Flawed Brilliance 95
Acknowledgements 104
Introduction
When clients first seek out my help as a professional coach, they’ll
often start by describing an overall feeling of dissatisfaction with
their current life circumstances.
Don’t worry, you’re far from alone. Since 2000, I’ve coached
hundreds of clients who’ve expressed sentiments such as these.
Talented, successful people, just like you, who’ve spent years trying
to convince themselves that they like their work and that their lives
are “good enough.” People who, in short, have disconnected from
their very brilliance.
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to ignore them in the hopes they’ll go away – much like those who
are quoted above. My goal, then, when I begin working with new
clients is to help them get to the root of their yearning and then
encourage them to seek out the signposts that will point them in
the direction of their natural brilliance.
I’ve long held the belief that if each person understood his or her
unique brilliance – the intersection between one’s natural talents,
abilities and passions – our world would be a very different place
indeed. We each have a unique contribution to make, be it as a
loving parent to five children, a medical researcher striving for a
cure or a fundraiser heightening awareness about an environmental
cause. We must each seek our own path. What is a fulfilling choice
for one, however, can be a prison for another, no matter how noble
it may seem on the surface.
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CHAPTER 4
Here’s what I know to be true: You get to want what you want.
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I remember speaking with a client about this exact topic. Patrick
related to me that at some point in his life, he just stopped dreaming.
Caught up in the routine of daily life, he stopped thinking about his
experience of the present and his vision for the future. At the end
of that coaching session, I gave Patrick an exercise to take away
and ponder. His task was to look at seven areas of his life: health,
career, money, friends and family, fun and recreation, physical
environment, and personal growth, and then create a vision that
he’d love to be living for each one. When we next spoke, he shared
these visions with me. Together we discovered that Patrick had
equated what he wanted to what he was willing to live with. He had
stopped giving himself permission to even contemplate what he
wanted for his life. I encouraged him to go after what he envisioned
in very tangible ways – to manifest that which he really loved.
we want to do.
How many times have you decided you wanted something, and
then denied yourself permission to have it – or even ask for it?
Here are the top 10 reasons I hear people using to deny themselves
permission to want what they want:
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5. What if I get it and then decide I don’t like it?
6. I might fail.
7. I might succeed.
8. I can’t have that (it’s too big, too small, too expensive, too
whatever).
Here’s the antidote to these limiting beliefs: it’s okay to want what
you want. It’s that simple. You get to want what you want without
judging it or measuring its merit or any justification at all.
Following these steps may feel uncomfortable; you might feel fear.
That’s okay. These are simply signs that you are moving beyond
your comfort zone. It’s a sign you are growing!
Each time you acknowledge what you want, don’t judge it, act
on it. It’s part of the flow of life. Life wants to give you what
you want. Our socialization (see the previous list of 10 limiting
beliefs) tends to complicate matters and have us believe otherwise.
Recognizing what you want and giving it to yourself is a skill and,
like most new skills, it requires building “muscle.” The more you
work this particular muscle, the stronger it becomes.
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Tune in: How can you give yourself permission to want what you
want?
Once you know what you want, you must cross The Threshold by
taking action. For many people, this is an onerous stumbling block.
A new host of fears rush in, making getting started about as easy as
taking the first step onto a rickety swing bridge strung precariously
across your mental canyon. It’s common to experience:
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The Mechanics of Moving Forward
How do you take action in the face of fear and resistance? Here are
some concrete steps to take you through the mechanics of moving
forward.
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Read books and magazines in your areas of interest. Gathering
concrete information is the name of the game.
Standing at the edge of going after what you want can be the most
challenging phase of any transition. Remember, you’re walking
that unsteady swing bridge between where you’ve been and where
you want to go. The next time you find yourself on The Threshold
between your idea and bringing it to fruition, take a deep breath
and focus on this question, “What is my purpose right now?” The
answer will take you where you need to go.
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As you’re making your list, notice the following:
Pick your top 10 desires. Review your newly formed short list and,
again, take note of how you feel. What voices do you hear in your
head? What beliefs pop into your mind? Where do you notice your
social conditioning showing up? How does your body feel? Do
your top 10 desires have a common theme? Have you uncovered
something of which you had previously been unaware?
Tune in: What did you learn about what you want? Can you
categorize your desires? Did any themes emerge from your list?
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enjoy, relationships that don’t enrich us and financial or living
situations that do not sustain us. Our energy is drained by the “little
things” as well. When your car needs a tune up, thinking about it
zaps your energy every time you drive by the garage. Each time
you glance at that wall that needs repainting, your energy dips.
As you eliminate these energy drains, you are freer to focus on those
aspects of your life that fuel you. You’ll feel lighter – physically,
mentally, emotionally and spiritually. You’ll have more energy,
sleep better and simply enjoy yourself more fully.
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Food for Thought:
Draw up on a piece of paper a list of the major areas in your life and
what is currently draining you of energy and what is fueling you.
Below is an example, but feel free to add additional categories, no
matter how big or how small they may seem.
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Energy drain to What will fuel
eliminate you
Relationships
Work
Environment
Money
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Define Yourself
Acknowledging what you want takes courage because once you
know what you want, you have choices to make. Do you go after
what you want? And if you do, will it require you to give something
else up? To take something else on? When you acknowledge your
desires, you are engaging in an act of self-definition, recognizing
both what you need and don’t need in your life.
You don’t have to be Freud to deduce that I’d been feeling a bit
trapped in my life at that time. But unlike actual imprisonment,
feeling trapped in life is often instructional – simply because it’s
an illusion. It’s like the elephant with its leg tied to a wooden stake.
The elephant is strong enough to break free, but doesn’t realize it.
It stays tied to the stake only because it’s been conditioned to do
so.
• What do I want?
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• How do I allow fear to hold me back?
Finally, you decide to make different choices. Once you step onto
that path, you begin to define yourself rather than allowing other
people, beliefs and circumstances to determine your identity, life
path and course of action for you.
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Focus on what you want, then trust that it’s right for you. Trust is
the key here – trust in yourself, trust in the universe and trust that
the right things will happen at exactly the right time. Do that, and
you will not be trapped, your leg will not tied to a stake. And that,
my friends, is freedom.
Write it down clearly and succinctly. Make sure it’s a goal you can
easily keep in your head, such as a dollar amount that you want to
earn, a distance you want to run or the kind of friendship you want
to develop.
By this I mean – run the goal through your mind and simply reflect
on it for a second or two. “Oh, that’s right. I want to earn $100,000
this year.” Then let it go by moving on to the next thought. Refrain
from getting “attached” to the goal. Being attached to the goal
sounds like “I’m afraid I won’t meet the goal” or “How will I ever
meet this goal?” or “If I don’t meet it, I’m a failure.” Negative
attachments will quickly thrust you down a mental rabbit hole that
has no exit.
With the “float the goal” strategy, “how” isn’t a requirement. Isn’t
that nice? That’s one of the perks of this strategy that I love. In
fact, figuring out “how” to achieve the goal is counterproductive.
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You want to set the goal, float it in your mind and then move
forward intuitively, whether that’s through networking, marketing,
researching or some other method. The point is to keep taking
action and putting your energy out there by – as the author Julia
Cameron so vividly tells us – “shaking the trees.”
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Step 7: Go out and have fun
Tune in: What is a goal that you’d love to float? Put these seven
steps to use and watch for the results.
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ADDITIONAL PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TITLES
(from Transgressor in association with Inkstone Digital)
Intimacy,
The Essence of True Love
by Daniel Linder
PDF format 192 pages
Daring to be Yourself
by Peter Shepherd
PDF format, 264 pages