My friend Maddie might be the youngest Life Entrepreneur I have written about.  She's 3 1/2 years old, and quite busily carving out the life she wants to live.  Almost every Sunday she goes swimming with my friend Lida, her grandmother, who is very committed to making sure she swims well enough to stay safe in the pool. After they swim each week, Grandma gives Maddie a quarter to buy a Popsicle treat, but a couple of weeks ago, Grandma looked in her bag and realized she had no money, no quarter, nothing. She explained to Maddie that this week, there would be no Popsicle. Maddie looked at the concession stand, and fervently exclaimed that THEY had quarters, and THEY had Popsicles over THERE!  And they just needed to go over there and g...

Deciding moments come along many times in our lives, and each one gives us an opportunity to turn one way or another--which then informs and shapes our lives from that moment on. It fascinates me to see people on TV in what are called Reality Shows. I think part of the public's addiction to those is it gives us a window to observe how people deal with those moments--and the consequences they bring. Last night I watched a woman who had come across as a fighter, a resilient contender just give up and walk away when she could have turned around and shown us another part of herself. Maybe she had more going on in her life than we could see--and maybe she really is a "Quitter" as she was called on the show. I know there have been times in ...

Note:  I originally wrote this in May, 2010, and hadn't posted it on Copperstrings.  Since I wrote another post on a similar subject, I went back and decided to add this one to my Journals. Today I learned that Hollis Burns, a guy I knew in high school who was sixty-three years old died yesterday.  He had apparently played golf Sunday afternoon and gone home, and was found sitting in a chair holding a newspaper.  This guy looked healthy the last time I saw him.  He was only a year older than I.  It made me think about how little control we actually have over our lives.  We think we control things, we think we make things happen.  But do we really? How much of what we experience is beyond our influence?  Did Hollis have a fear of d...

I've been thinking about dying lately.  People in Japan are facing death as I write this.  One woman talked about her father being employed at a nuclear power plant, and he was staying to try to minimize the damage because he already knew he wasn't going to get out of there alive. Ten years ago, people in the towers in New York faced death with no recourse, and from all accounts, they bravely did everything they could. And I have clients come to me so depressed, so distraught with how things are going in their lives that they wish they could just die. I've felt that way myself.  A couple of years ago, facing my worst financial disaster, part of me just wanted to die so I wouldn't have to feel so much shame and pain. And we watch ...

Late last night I was winding down about to go to bed when I got a call from a friend who was channel surfing and had run across the Tucson Festival of Books on CSPAN and discovered a panel of three people from the 1960s era talking about their experiences.  The man on the panel was Mark Rudd, there to talk about My Life with SDS and the Weathermen.  SDS stands for Students for a Democratic Society and Mark was famous for having led the sit-ins at Columbia University in 1968, fanning the fire of the growing student movement (which we all called The Movement). It is so interesting to see someone you haven't see in 40 years and both recognize him and remember so much about him.  I was a member of SDS back in the late 60s.  For those o...

Join Vincent as he presents a special guest, Brenda Crawford-Bee, for this special episode of Life Open Miracles. Discover how gratitude can be the trigger for an incredible transformation in your life Blessings, Brenda http://www.beeblesseddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/show_1255964.mp3

It has almost been two weeks since I left Dallas on a journey of self-love.  I packed up my car and drove to New Mexico to see friends in Santa Fe and followed up that delightful visit by heading to Colorado and seeing different sets of friends--staying at their homes and mixing in their lives for a few days at a time.  I call it a journey of self-love because I keep clearing away the clutter in my mind and when I look out I see these wonderful people reflecting love back to me.  I spent time in Eagle with some amazing and delightful children, and now am on my way to see my grandson.  Children are so inspiring because they are always in the present.  And that is pretty much what this journey has been about for me.  Loving simply being...

A client recently leaned over and almost whispered to me what she was concerned would be a shocking admission.  She doesn't get nearly the "juice" from spending time with her family as she does from working! I wasn't surprised in the least and told her so.  But, she cried--what about all this balancing life and work stuff?  Doesn't that mean that I'm out of balance? I realized later that this is the dilemma of highly productive, very involved women.  You rarely hear a man talk about this.  It is a given, especially for those over 45 or so, that men work.  They focus on work.  They are rewarded and praised for working. Women may be more likely to be criticized for the same thing.  "What about your other responsibilities?" they are a...

"Those who are victorious plan effectively, and change decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its course, but adjusts its flow. They have form, but are formless. They are skilled in both planning and adapting, and need not fear the result of a thousand battles: For they win in advance, defeating those who have already lost." — Sun Tzu I am well aware that there is nothing new under the sun, and that most of what I perceive to be 'original' ideas are actually my musings and reinterpretations of what I have read, been taught, talked about with others. This quote, which so powerfully expresses why it is vital to have a vision for one's life, is from The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which I read over twenty-five years ago. It mad...

What do you do when you discover one morning that you’re in a huge unknown? The reality dawns that at fifty four you own nothing, have no family of your own, your past business projects never succeeded, you’re bankrupt and the work you had recently embarked upon is not where your heart wants to be and has dropped you in to this ‘unknown’ unceremoniously? And to round it off there are no savings or financial resources of any kind… On top of that, you’ve just completed an eight month transformational training where you’ve learned that focusing on money and how to survive is keeping you entrenched in your identity/ego and not the way to live in your greatness…… I had two choices when I woke up to that on 9th January this year – I could ...