All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

—Buddha

Not All Car Crashes Are Bad

In the early stages of my business career, I studied homeopathy with the goal of opening up my own private practice. After my experience running myself over with my car (as described in Chapter 1), homeopathy had a profound impact on my healing. The more I learned about it, the more passionate I became about this gentle, yet powerful form of medicine.

At the time, I was a single mom living month to month and had a deep commitment to create a passionate and successful life for my daughter and myself. I was also doing my best to surround myself with positive people who believed in making their impossible dreams reality.

As I neared the end of my homeopathic education, I found myself $6,000 short of paying the balance of my tuition. I went to my mom to ask her for support. She answered, “No, you need to get a job.”

My mom’s harsh answer was coming from a place of fear. She was concerned that I had gone off the deep end by walking away from a successful ad agency, which was killing me and ending my marriage. She even asked me if homeopathy was a religious cult!

I had always viewed my mom as my biggest fan. However, like many naysayers, she was projecting her own fears onto me. Her worry translated to negativity. My craving for a passionate life, along with my ingrained stubbornness, kept me hopeful and positive in my bleakest moments. I refused to forget that it could be much worse. I could still be lonely in my marriage. I could still be burned out and miserable, the way I was in my early business. I learned to put my head down, move intently forward in my beliefs, and refuse to listen to anyone who was negative or unsupportive. The more they said, “You can’t,” the more determined I became.

The same day I spoke to my mother, I drove up the beach in Del Mar where I often went to think through my challenges. While I was parked, I closed my eyes and meditated on a solution. Suddenly, the rear of my car was jolted from behind by another car.

Normally one would consider this a bad thing. But I was relatively uninjured and ended up receiving a check from the insurance company for – drum roll, please – $6,000! Talk about miraculous coincidences!

I had refused to back down on my dreams and, since then, my wealth has multiplied into many millions. My mom now always says to me, “Thank goodness you didn’t listen!”

I learned from this experience that, if you are 100% clear in your mind about what you truly desire, and if you fully believe you will attain it, ultimately you will attract what you want. It may not happen in exactly the way you imagined it, but that is the beauty of life. Things may not happen precisely according to plan but, if you are open to miracles while on your journey, your vision will fall into place and can be even better than you hoped it would.

You, too, can scale your dream business. Conjure it, flesh it out, nurture it, get ongoing mentoring and direction – and then have faith that everything will eventually come together at the right time and place.

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When I think of the phrase “the human race,” I visualize millions of people bursting from the starting gate and running through life with only one purpose: “Get to the finish line!” A race is defined as a contest between two or more people seeking to do or reach the same thing first. What’s missing from this definition is that it does not embody the idea of getting in touch with the process of all the “in-between stuff” – the single moments that make up each day on Earth.

When you are in the process of scaling your business, you need to stop thinking about being in any kind of a race. Yes, you are moving toward your desired destination. You are attracting your Big Picture Vision with every decision that you make.

I challenge you to stop throughout the day, take big deep breaths, and open your eyes fully. Stopping to smell the roses may seem trite. However, I practice this daily and it has given so many more moments of pure bliss and joy. Exercise living in the moment and being happy in the “now” as you are heading toward your Big Picture Vision. As a driven, type A CEO, you are most likely focused solely on your goals, which is important. However, if you are so singularly focused that you miss out on the star-studded landscape around you and the little miracles falling at your feet on a daily basis, you will arrive at your destination with years of missed opportunities for happiness.

As the leader of your organization, you need to be mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy in order to achieve your Big Picture Vision. This chapter will help you become well rounded and happier through all the ups and downs as your business expands, instead of being constantly stressed out while chasing your tail. You deserve all the success and happiness you create – so enjoy it!

From the Rat Race to the Human Journey

As you continue to expand your business, the stakes will seem to rise and the complications and complexities will multiply. Nothing will get easier for you on the outside, however, you have the opportunity to work on yourself to become more resilient so that whatever is collapsing around you rolls off your back. It’s easy to get caught up in the mania of the rat race in which work leads you, instead of you leading it. The energy of our lives moves forward at an alarming rate. Just look in the rearview mirror while you’re driving on the freeway. Everyone is heading forward in high gear to get somewhere else. Most of the drivers are more focused on what’s happening next, rather than being present in the journey. This is the “Living-Outside-of-the-Body Syndrome” – a state of complete disconnection with the present moment.

The fact is, business will be stressful for you – if that is how you perceive it. The unexpected happens every day. Things go wrong all the time: equipment breaks down, customers get lost, employees (and you) make mistakes, proposals get rejected. You can’t control many of these things, but you can control how you react (or overreact) to them. How you handle your stress levels will determine your scaling success and overall happiness.

Mark my words: The more you attempt to live life to the fullest, the more you will expose yourself to diversified tones of energy and experiences. Well, thank goodness for those surprises! ‘Cause let’s be honest. You would be bored to tears if life were controlled and predictable. You may crave complete calmness but, if you had it all the time, you would be looking for another opportunity with more excitement. You are a maverick business owner, after all. And this is the pace of our times.

So, how can we manage the “racy ride” in a calmer and more fulfilling way? Is it even possible to live a full life while taking the stressful times in stride? Can you prevent burnout? Can you get everything done without losing your soul and spirit in the process?

Yes, you can!

There are many ways to slow down the pace without sacrificing your intent. Remember, productivity could be a waste of your precious time if your intention is to just get things done and off your list. I’ve had many people tell me that they cannot sit and relax until “everything is done.”

Think about this. When is “everything at work” (or anywhere) ever completely “done”? Never. If that were the case you would be retired or under the ground. So business owners spend their lives trying to accomplish their endless task list, hoping that someday they can stop and enjoy their lives. They are so driven and so focused on “the goal” that, even when they reach it, they’re already off to the next one. They’re not taking it in, celebrating their accomplishment, and experiencing what they have drawn into their lives.

Sure, we all want to make more money. But hitting that money jackpot while being miserable in the process is definitely not worth its weight in gold. I am not saying that working hard is always going to be rainbows and bunny rabbits, but even the tough days can be beautiful if you are fueled by your underlying why and a deeper sense of purpose.

If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.

—John D. Rockefeller, business magnate, industrialist, and philanthropist

The crux of it is this: If you are stuck in the rat race and are only going after the biggest piece of cheese, you might become a millionaire or even a billionaire. Yet you will never become a happy millionaire or billionaire because you were focused only on the end goal – not the thrilling human journey along the way. Most highly successful business owners are driven by a deeper purpose well beyond money. Believe me, I feel that money is a great thing! The more I earn, the more people I can help elevate and the more causes I can get behind. However, if money were my only goal, I would have quit long ago, never staying the course through the tough days.

Your Personal Energy Bank

One way to reclaim your true self in business and in life is to find out where the energy leaks reside, so that you can begin to repair them. Then you can focus your energy in a direction that is feeding you – not draining you.

Everything is made of energy. This is the law of quantum physics. If you look at a table or a couch under an electron microscope, you’ll see that they are actually made up of atoms in constant motion – just like your body. All of these things are constantly changing and never standing still.

Similarly, you have the ability to create and change your reality in every moment. How powerful is that? Your thoughts and actions also operate from this precious field of energy. Your thoughts are powerful. Even simple actions start with a basic but mighty thought. You think to take a step – and then you take a step. When you think to raise your arm, your arm elevates. Since thoughts are energy, it makes sense to choose positive thoughts and actions that benefit you by replenishing and expanding your supply of energy – not draining it.

Instead of stressing about all of the things that you can’t control and will deplete your energy bank, why not rechannel that energy into your Big Picture Vision? Visualize unplugging from negativity around you or a circumstance that is getting you down and then plugging into something that makes you happy. Focus on potential solutions or the lessons learned for a better next outcome. Or, better yet, why not go to bed at night with some reserve energy for the next day?

Letting Go of Some of Your To Do’s

Success is about figuring out what you want your business life to look like. How do you want to spend your time at work? If you’re doing everything yourself and micromanaging your team, you are depleting your energy bank and you probably won’t achieve your scaling goals or your Big Picture Vision.

In Chapter 6, I emphasized the importance of taking time for Play Days in your weekly schedule. In Chapter 5, I covered various ways to becoming a great leader: decision-making, delegating, staying focused, listening, treating your team as equals, and so on.

Here, in this chapter, let’s consider the toll that wearing too many hats in your company is taking on your health. When was the last time you had a physical checkup? Are you eating right? Do you exercise? And here’s the biggie: Are you stressed out all the time?

Many entrepreneurs are horrible at self-care because they are so focused on taking care of everyone and everything besides themselves. They rush through lunch, eating junk that is not bolstering their bodies or minds. They might think about exercising, but instead they choose to deal with the pile of papers on the desk or prioritize putting out a fire over heading to the gym. It’s always about “getting one more thing done.” Before they know it, the day is over and they have no time or energy to work out. Can you relate?

I don’t mean to get on your case, but here’s the thing: You can’t afford not to exercise. Your stress levels will get out of control, your muscles will tense up and atrophy, and your heart will become congested mush. What good are you to your team, your family, and your business if you end up in a hospital bed?

On the other hand, an hour of exercise a day loosens those muscles, gets the blood pumping, releases endorphins throughout your body … and guess what? You feel like you have accomplished something, your mood has improved, and you have a positive outlook on life. After a good workout you feel as though you can accomplish anything. Exercise is a must on your daily To Do list.

As you scale your business, be aware that you’re the one who is trying to replace yourself. You need to practice honing your courage to let go and find people who can handle some of your To Do’s. This will enable you to make a priority of exercising, eating right, and getting enough sleep, so you can experience the ultimate freedom: good health. The goal is to free yourself from the day-to-day, be able to step away for a month or two instead of a day or two, and have your business continue to grow with the team and systems you now have in place. If you’re overworked and stressed out, it’s because you’re working in the business and not on the business – and that must change.

Just Say “No”

I have become much better at saying “no.” This has taken much practice over the years by peeling away the people-pleasing tendencies that I’ve had since childhood. The bigger you company grows, the more “no’s” you will need to express. Setting boundaries for yourself must become a regular part of your daily practice. This could mean saying “no” to the big things – a business deal or opportunity that may seem exciting, but won’t move you toward your Big Picture Vision – or the smaller things, such as choosing the color of a sales page or signing off on an outgoing email. It really is okay to say “no.” And, as hard as it might feel to say “no” or hand it off, the immediate relief afterwards and instant boost in self-confidence is worth every moment of standing up for yourself.

In fact, I would go as far as stating that “no is the new yes.” The more you say “no” and set boundaries for yourself and your organization, the more time you’ll have to devote to the things that really matter. If you are living your life based on other people’s terms by saying “yes” to everything, you end up becoming dependent on those terms. All of those individuals, in turn, become reliant on you. That sounds wonderful on the surface, doesn’t it? It feels good to be needed and that people celebrate you when you say “yes.”

Life Is an Energy Mirror

Your surroundings are merely a mirror of your inner beliefs.

Your reality is a mirror of your internal thoughts and feelings. For example, a person who is convinced that most new businesses fail shouldn’t start one. Why? Because this thought becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and it probably will fail.

Internal energy can be extremely powerful. I know that some of you are thinking, “I don’t express those negative thoughts; I just think them.” I have news for you: Even if you’re not voicing your fears or beliefs, you are emitting a negative frequency into the atmosphere with your negative thought.

Now this doesn’t mean that every single negative thought will create more negativity or lost opportunities in your life. However, if you continue to focus on your limiting beliefs, your life will begin to reflect that same internal energy. As bestselling author and motivational speaker Wayne Dyer said, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

The good news is that this is reversible. Once internal negative thoughts are replaced with winning beliefs, your external world will begin to change in a dramatic way.

As you’ve gathered by now, homeopathy has been a big part of my life. I ran my homeopathic practice for almost 20 years and worked with thousands of patients, families, and children. From my experiences I discovered that what tends to make people sick and out of balance is when they are not living congruently. In layperson’s terms, the concept of homeopathy is that the body cannot hold two like diseases – one cancels out the other. So it is all about matching the energy of the substance to the energy of the body.

If you tend to focus on being afraid of things going wrong, guess what? They will go wrong. Your mirror is projecting your fears back at you and causing the result you convinced yourself would happen.

However, if you stay connected to your Big Picture Vision – even when you feel some fear – you can refocus your mindset and flip around the mirror. Feeling a certain amount of fear is normal, but when it turns into the “fight or flight” primitive response – such as reacting as if you are being chased by a dangerous animal and your instincts compel you to run, but in truth it is a harmless little dog – it’s going way too far. You will make emotional and unwise choices that keep you small, and your health will be impacted from the flood of stress-inducing adrenaline. As one of my mentors once said to me, “When you face a challenge that you have confronted in the past, try reacting differently.” It seems simple, but in reality it takes focused effort to work against old habits. New actions create new results. Get support, be willing to fail, do what you need to do to face the fear, and move through it. All the magic is waiting for you on the other side of your fear.

Get Out of the Fight and into the Flow

Dismissing negative thoughts is easier said than done, right? The more you try to tune them out and heal yourself, the more they seem to fill your head. So, what are you supposed to do?

Earlier in this chapter I mentioned the importance of going to the gym and exercising. But sometimes that’s not enough – and there are times late at night when exercise is not realistic, but the problems are festering and keeping you awake.

Part of being healthy and healing yourself is being able to do things that do not involve financial gain. I know – that’s a really hard thing for a business owner like you to do. However, if you don’t disconnect from business, eventually negative thoughts will catch up with you and suffocate you. In the pages that follow are some techniques to help you relax, clear your head, and get back in the flow.