Are you feeding your left brain?

This is the newsletter that went out to my readers on the week of August 4th, 2009.

Hi there,

How are you?

Can you believe that in Georgia school starts next week? Why do I think it is too hot for kids to start school next week?

Anyway, I am just thrilled that  the two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling have been  reunited with family and friends upon returning to the United States with former President Bill Clinton, whose diplomatic trip to North Korea secured their release nearly five months after their arrests.

This is particularly thrilling to me because, since I grew up half way across the planet, family means the world to me.

This week, I am going to tell you about Monica and the struggle she overcame with her business and her kids.

My client Monica has a podiatrist practice in Florida.  To put it kindly, when she contacted me, she was overwhelmed. She hates to do her medical charts. She loves working with her elderly clients and really pays attention to giving them a lot of personalized attention.

However, the fact that she is not running her business at a profit has come to a head.
She needs to make a decision as to what her next step is. She contacted me depressed and lethargic. I noted her energy level because I was picking up that she was not enthused about her practice.

She charted out what she felt were her two options based on feelers that she had been putting out there and wanted some coaching around how to make the right decision for herself.  She felt her only options were going into partnership with someone else or
leasing a cheaper space, letting one employee go and keeping a more streamlined practice. However, neither option seemed viable to her.

I told her she had jumped a step.

This surprised her.

I asked her what she did before she became a podiatrist and it turns out that she had worked for seven years as a nurse. She also disclosed that she had been practicing podiatry for seven years and her two kids were seven and fourteen.

I asked her what she made of all the sevens and multiples thereof showing up in her life.

She said she had never noticed it.

When I asked her to reconnect with the vision she had for her life as a podiatrist seven years earlier, her slow, lethargic tone changed to one of animation and excitement as she talked about how she loved caring for her clients and loved seeing patients improve.

When she discussed what else was exciting in her life, she started crying. She said she felt pulled into too many directions.

She felt that she was not spending enough time with her kids. She constantly felt guilty about working so many hours. As it turns out, she felt angry with her business because it took so much of her energy. She had also spent a significant amount of time in the last couple of years seeking complementary healthcare options for her menopausal symptoms and hot flashes.

After a few sessions, Monica became acutely aware that the alternative medicine research she had done excited her immensely because she was using her left brain and “sharpening her professional saw” as per Steven Covey.

As I taught her the language of her emotions, she discovered that following her “feel good” always pointed her in the right direction of what she needed.

Over the next three months, she followed the things that made her feel good and learned to listen to that. She realized that she needed a major change professionally every seven years.

She got stuck there for a while as she did not feel she could let go of  her medical training that she spent many years procuring. Once she realized that this all or nothing thinking was not serving her, she realized that she could practice medicine without the HMO’s breathing down her back.

What does her life look like six months later?

• She does not work weekends so she feels tremendously reconnected with her children.
• She works on her Wellness practice two days a week. Her background as a nurse and podiatrist gives her a tremendous amount of street creds.
• She found a gig in a Caribbean Island where she goes for five days every six weeks and makes a chunk of money treating podiatrist patients there.
• She works one day a week for a traditional podiatrist where she transferred all her clients to.

I will admit that she had a hard time letting go of her clients. But after several guided meditations and more brainstorming, she was able to come up with this final solution to keep her hands on the pulse of her existing clients.

So, count it up:

• She eliminated her overhead.
• She worked to place her two employees with other doctors.
• The opportunity in the Caribbean fell on her lap out of the clear blue sky.
• She has actually seen her kids play soccer, basketball, baseball and she takes them to swimming classes at least once a week when she is home.
• As she pursued her alternative medical practice focusing on menopausal women, she was fed that part of her soul that needed to learn something new every seven years.
• She and her husband have date night at least once a week.
• She has connected with several old friends and is more sociable and outgoing.

All this from coaching for six months?

Truthfully, no.

It was all in her all along.

She merely needed someone to remind her of who she really was.

What thrilled me is when she cancelled an appointment with me and the voicemail said, “I have to reschedule with you because today I am spending the entire day with my kids, sitting on the floor, eating organic popcorn and watching movie after movie and I do not feel like doing anything else.”

I was thrilled to reschedule that appointment!

So here are my questions for you this week:

Are you so settled in your professional skills that you have not learned anything new lately?

How can you stretch your learning, professional or otherwise, this week and feed your left brain that has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge?
Do you realize that your feelings of overwhelm are an indication that you want to slow down and pay attention to what is important in your life?