Do you Squidoo?

I am having so much fun with learning all about social networking. I love how user friendly some of these sites are. Squidoo is a hoot. Everyone seems warm and friendly on Squidoo. So I created my first lens. Check it out: CoachIyabo’s lens

Authentic Internet Marketing

It has been an exciting journey for me becoming a coach that depends almost exclusively on my internet based presence to find clients and create a wonderful income. I have learned so much as it has been a huge perspective shift for me. As an attorney, I did not even have a website. My business relied solely on word of mouth. However, as a coach, the most important tool I have is my internet presence. It is all very exciting.

I have been trying to listen to my own personal authentic gauge meter to see what fits for me. Sometimes, I find myself struggling between what everyone suggests I should do and what feels authentic to me. I do not like pushing products on people even though making money is very important to me. It is important to me that my web presence delivers value independent of the money that may be involved.  It is important to me that my web presence is about my potential clients and the value that I can offer them.

So, as I observe what others are doing, I gauge how it feels to me. After all, my feelings are of paramount importance to me! And nothing is more important than that I feel good. Lately I have been seeing a lot of hard sells and a lot of newsletters that sell only product or the person behind the newsletter. I actually see very little value being delivered. Let me clarify on the issue of value here. Of course the product that the person is selling is valuable. I have no problems with that. But usually, they are not giving away any of their core information.

A coach may sell you a product but in the newsletter selling you the product, they have not told you anything that you can use to improve your life. No nuggets, no take aways, nothing that lets you know that this person knows their stuff. Nothing that builds trust and displays genuine competence
So, I have said this is not how I want to be. That is not authentic to me. My product has value whether I put a dollar amount on it or not. Value is a lot more than money to me.

So, I started getting emails from Angela at www.Harmonyharbor.com. I do not know anything about this company. I do not even know how I found her. I stumbled upon her and asked to get her emails as she talks about weight loss and as I started getting her emails, I discovered I love the tone and love that comes across in her emails. She was absolutely lovely. I feel that I know her. She delivers value and I will continue to follow her. It is a weight loss website with no hard sell – Imagine that. Now, I am ranting and raving about this person after only reading about 4 or 5 of her emails! I have had no personal communication with her outside of this!

Please check her out.

Now, my coach and mentor Jeanette Maw also does the same thing. I must have learned this concept from her. She is the most generous, clear-energied, (is that a word?), loving person that I know. Check out her blog at www.goodvibeblog.com and you will see what I mean. She is very successful as a coach. She walks her talk and she is truly the law of attraction guru. I have coached with her for years and I know this for a fact.

She has a whole lotta good vibes flowing. We are at the present having a ball with her post about love. It has caused such a controversy. On every piece of writing she does, she teaches what she knows about the law of attraction. You know what, I just realized something writing this. I said “she teaches.” Teaching resonates with me. Maybe that is the difference. I enjoy teaching and sharing and showing. Other coaches, other people, have skills that may not include teaching and they are selling a product so their newsletters do not teach. Maybe that is the difference.

What do you think?

So today’s Dolphin awards to to Jeanette Maw and Angela at Harmony Harbor.

Check out my previous post on Dolphin awards to see what that is.

Tropic Thunder

My husband and I went to see this movie recently and it was hilarious. Robert Downey, Jr. is a phenomenal actor. I enjoy watching actors play the role of someone from another country. He took it to a whole different level. In the United States, African Americans tend to get very offended when a white person imitates a black person. There is a lot of complicated history that justifies that position.

Robert Downey, Jr. plays an Australian that plays an African American. If I was not told that it was Robert Downey, Jr. I would have assumed it was the actor Jim Brown. Robert Downey, Jr. did not act as a black man: he channeled being a black man

His role in this movie actually made me respect his acting abilities. That cannot be easy.

Tom Cruise is another one that shocked me playing a Jewish movie mogul with an undercover thug rapper vibe going. It was just hilarious. I do not like slapstick comedy but it was funniest thing I have seen in ages.

Enjoy it and check it out.

What is your favorite movie and why?

Thank you letter to Tide

I recently joined Ryze.com. Check it out. It is great. I found this joke on one of the forums. It cannot figure out how to track back so I put it here in its entirety. This is creativity at its best. When you experience humor, it relaxes you and stimulates your own creativity and it also brings joy.

Dear Tide:
I am writing to say what an excellent product you have! I’ve used it all of my married life, as my Mom always told me it was the best. Now that I am in my fifties I find it even better! In fact, about a month ago, I spilled some red wine on my new white blouse. My inconsiderate and uncaring husband started to belittle me about how clumsy I was, and generally started becoming a pain in the neck. One thing led to another and somehow I ended up with his blood on my new white blouse! I grabbed my bottle of Tide with bleach alternative and, to my surprise and satisfaction, all of the stains came out! In fact, the stains came out so well the detectives who came by yesterday told me that the DNA tests on my blouse were negative and then my attorney called and said that I was no longer considered a suspect in the disappearance of my husband.

What a relief! Going through menopause is bad enough without being a murder suspect! I thank you, once again, for having a great product.
Well, gotta go, have to write to the Hefty bag people…

Happiness: What would make me happy today? .#20

One of the joys of my life has been focusing on my own happiness and letting that feeling of happiness direct my thoughts, beliefs and activities. Just sitting in front of my fish tank makes me happy! Enjoying the company of friends and loved ones makes me very happy.

Since I started working as a full time personal development coach, I am happy when I wake up in the morning. I truly look forward to my interaction with clients, my social networking and reading and researching. I smile when I even think of these things.

Affirmation: I follow my bliss!

Relief: What does relief look like today? .#19

Today, relief would look like me finishing my next online product, get the information out about my class and figure out my email opt in system. All work related stuff. I have been making great progress on all my work projects but I am feeling impatient and want to have a lot of conclusions under my belt.

However, one of the things I have failed to do is to enjoy the feeling of relief when I do finish up a project. Instead, I usually just rush on to the next project. Not a good idea. One of my goals is to look for relief in all the small places and enjoy and relish in the feeling of relief when I experience it.

Relief is the turnaround emotion. When you experience relief, it means you are going in the right direction. Relishing in it creates more of it in your life.

Affirmation: I love the feeling of relief.

Feeling good: How do I feel good about this situation? .#18

I have a womens church conference coming up this weekend and I am really not very interested in attending but I feel pressure by my friends at church that I should attend all three days of this conference. I am just not in the state of mind to be in a three day conference that I am not sold out on. It does not feel like good use of my time and I am feeling pressure by my friends and co-church ladies to attend.

So to feel good about this, I think of last year’s conference where I had a good time. I ask myself about the pressure I am feeling. No one has really put pressure on me about it. I am just feeling the pressure that I am expected to attend and I am avoiding talking to my church lady friends. Hmmm….. So I am the source of the pressure in my mind. Not the church ladies. OK. That was easy. Turn off the pressure, Iyabo.

Now, what do these negative feelings tell me? I am spending my time investing in activities I think others expect me to participate in. OK. So I get in touch with what I want to do for me only and it is this: I want to go to one session to check it out because I really had a good time there last year. OK. That is it. I will go to the Friday session. How about I arrive late so I don’t get sucked in? Cool.

Boy, now I feel better. It is on my own terms.

Affirmation: I do what feels good to me.

Appreciation: Who do I appreciate? .#17

Yesterday, I wrote about the difference between appreciation and gratitude.

I appreciate my husband the most. He really is a great guy. He is committed to his own personal growth and he tells me stuff that he genuinely believes is for my own good even when he knows I do not want to hear it. That is courageous. Especially with me! He finds all sorts of little ways to be my hero. I have not taken the trash out in eight years and I do not clean up after cooking dinner. A friend visited my home recently and my husband was helping me lay out stuff and clean up and she was shocked that I did not have to ask my husband to do anything. I really do appreciate that about him.

I do not like male bashing. I like men and I have always had good relationships with the men in my life including my father and my brother. I find that we women spend a lot of time male-bashing and expecting less than extraordinary from the men in our lives. Sometimes it is justified and sometimes it is not. However, I enjoy putting my focus on the positives in my relationship with men. Do I find my husband maddening sometimes? Absolutely. Does he have shortcomings in certain areas? Yes, just like I do.

However, I find myself happier and our relationship so much better when I consciously focus on the multitude of things that he does right all day long. So many times, I forget about those things.

With my recent computer issues, he did all that he knew to do to get the situation resolved and when he did not know what to do, he went and asked for help.

It feels good to know that I am supported by him. I enjoy his support.

I also enjoy my sister. She recently adopted two cats and calls me everyday to tell me about the antics of the cats. I enjoy her camaraderie. I enjoy and appreciate my relationships with friends and loved ones.

I appreciate my coaching clients. I believe I have the best clients in the world. They are wonderful people that are sincere about their own growth and development. I am awed as to their courage to look at themselves and to proactively make changes. They are awesome people and it is my honor to work with them.

I appreciate the fact that relationships that were not serving me have dissolved and dissipated. I am relieved to know that when a relationship does not serve me, it looses energy through no action on my part. I love that. I love that I am finally in a place in my life where I can say, “You know what, that relationship with that new friend, neighbor, co-worker, client, whomever, is not healthy. It is not reciprocal. It is not honoring. It does not serve me positively. It does not serve the other person positively. I will not feed it any energy. It is not what I want.” And the relationship just goes away. The person stops calling. I never get to see the neighbor. It just vanishes.

I think that is very powerful.

Who do you appreciate in your life? If you focus your appreciation on those good healthy relationships, those that do not serve you will begin to fall away.
Affirmation: I easily show appreciation to those I love and care for.

Gratitude: What am I grateful for? .#16

I think of gratitude as being different from appreciation.

Gratitude comes up when I avert a situation or things could have gone down differently but they did not. Appreciation comes up when I did not even ask for it and it is just there. There is a sense of relief with gratitude and with appreciation, a sense of the natural order of things. I try to express both each and every day.

I am grateful for so much. I am grateful for my home that I have lived in for 12 years and it is comfortable and lovely. I am grateful for surviving professionally. I am grateful about how I feel being a coach. I am grateful that my computer woes are behind me I think. I am grateful for my body that is still going strong. I am grateful for food on the table. I am grateful for my finances. I am grateful for the fact that the crazy neighbor stays far away from me.

I really do have so much to be grateful for. When so called “bad things” happen to me, it turns out that it was not so bad after all and it worked itself out. I am grateful for that.

Affirmation. I am grateful and I have so much to be grateful for.

Your wants: What is something I have always wanted to do that I have not done? .#15

Hmmm…. I would say travel to Bora, Bora and Hawaii and write a book.

I love to read and I have fantasies of publishing, but I have no clue what to write that would fill up a whole book. However, ever since I started my Authentic Life program a few years ago so many things have fallen in place that pursuing my dream of being a published author really does not feel far away. OK, I give myself permission to keep writing and keep fresh ideas coming in.

The other thing that I want to do that I have done but not in a long time is to fly a kite. I love seeing those lovely colors and patterns up in the air.

This post makes me realize that I have room to create more things that I want to do because the truth is that I have done most of what I always wanted to do. Very memorable things like snorkeling, getting a tropical fish tank, growing roses, marrying the man of my dreams. I do have this desire to live on the beach and scuba diving. I also have a really strong desire to be a mom. I can add that to the list.

What would you like to do that you have never done?

Affirmation: I give myself permission to do all the things that I have always wanted to do.

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