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WE ALL HAVE ACCESS TO THIS SUPERPOWER

9/23/2019

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What if people wanted to help you out at every turn? 

What if you were miraculously offered the best seat, the last parking space, a big raise…   extra consideration everywhere you went? 

What if everyone around you smiled when you entered a room?  What if they stood in line to hug you?  

What if people wanted to follow your lead, even before they knew exactly where you were headed? 

Sound good?  

Sound impossible?

What one adjustment can cause all these positive outcomes?  

Psychologist Robert Emmons, among others, conducted studies that show this one shift in orientation increases our energy, our emotional intelligence and our inclination to forgive while reducing depression, anxiety and loneliness.* 

No, you can’t get it in pill form!   What is it?

Gratitude!  The magic ingredient is plain old, simple gratitude expressed consistently and with feeling. 

In his book Everything Counts, Gary Ryan Blair echoes the powerful alchemy of gratitude, “There is a special kind of magic in the practice of showing gratitude.  It raises our consciousness, recharges our energy, enhances our self-worth, and strengthens our spirit.” He goes on to write that he believes that “the one constant in a truly successful life is gratitude.”   Not wealth, not recognition, not special skills or aptitudes, not higher education -- gratitude.

The practice of gratitude is two-fold:  

  1. It’s looking for what’s good in my life each day rather than tallying up what’s not so good.  This habit alone boosts both my peace of mind and my sense that I’m headed in a positive direction, despite the occasional pothole or “bridge-out-ahead” life events.
  2. It’s expressing gratitude for the people who go beyond expectations when I really need someone’s help.  Best results come when I thank everyone, right down to the stranger who does no more than pass the salt, and all of those who perform every act of service in between, from common courtesies to selfless acts of great courage.

Behavioral scientists conclude that it takes a ratio of 4 messages of appreciation to 1 critical message for someone to believe that they get an equal amount of positive and negative reinforcement.*  Doesn’t this mean that lifting someone up requires actually telling them about all the things they do and all the ways they are that enhance your life in ways both great and small? People who feel criticized and undervalued grow reticent to take on life with passion and abandon.  People who feel celebrated and highly valued show courage and an eagerness to do more and be more. 

Am I saying that we should never tell someone when we believe they’ve made a wrong turn or a bad decision?  

No, but consider frontloading at least four times the praise and appreciation first.  People hear your words much better when their emotional bank account is flush.  The fun part is that we don’t have to wait for a strategic time to fill up that account.  We can praise and celebrate all the time, and when good conscience demands that we propose someone change a behavior or reconsider an action, it’s perceived as assistance rather than attack.  When someone thanks me frequently and specifically for what I contribute, their advice and their requests for a change just make me feel more valued and worthy.  I matter enough for them to care if I stay on course. 

Gratitude is my remedy when I’m stuck in lower emotions, like frustration over dysfunctional phone trees and website protections that block all access to completing a simple task, or I find myself trapped for what seems like hours in a traffic jam, or I receive news that someone I care about is seriously ill, or sleep wouldn’t come last night.  Whatever is not right about the moment or the day, I can trust that when I’m ready to chronicle what’s right in my life, negative feelings gradually subside, and as Gary Ryan Blair puts it, simple gratitude “deflates the barriers to love” while “dissolving negative feelings -- anger and jealousy melt in its embrace, fear and defensiveness shrink.”   

With regular cultivation of gratitude, I can confirm that both Lee and I have developed what Blair calls an ability to withstand life events like heart transplants, losing all our possessions in a catastrophic accident, the death of loved ones.  We are growing our immunity to depression and resentment by the simple practice of pivoting to celebrate what’s good and right in people and in the world.

As Lee just said, “You know what I’m grateful for today? I’m grateful for all I’ve learned, for all the time I’ve spent reading and listening and re-associating in the service of becoming a more appreciative man, a better man.”



*reference:  The 9 Dimensions of Conscious Success by David E. Nielsen
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Business Team / Life Team

9/5/2019

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Business Team / Life Team

Yesterday, Lee got a call from a young woman, a single mom with a young daughter.  She said, “I can’t talk to my mom and dad anymore, but I know ‘Mr. Lee’ can help me sort out what happened today. I couldn’t believe it when the manager pushed me with both hands…”  And the story went on from there.

Later that day, another member of our team called to talk about exhaustion and the overwhelm of daily life.  Yet another called with an “Aha!” moment about determining when a candidate is willing to change to create change  -- and when this is someone just looking for commiseration or a handout. The “Aha” was that he didn’t want to spend much time anymore with those with victim mentalities who endlessly list and recommit to their limitations.

We are building a business team, right? 

No, it’s clear we’re building a Life Team -- a rare surrogate family with members pulling together, willing to learn from each other, and celebrating each other without judgement or exception. Our three calls yesterday were questions about responding rather than reacting, about finding the joy in the madness, about limiting association with self-limiting people, about consciously becoming more.   

Lee and I often remark on the parallel between parenting and how we run our company. Good parenting, that is -- modeling what we teach, listening with the intention to understand, admitting mistakes, applauding victories, holding the vision of a purposeful, wide screen life.  

Some people have experienced parents who lay down the law and punish infractions, or assume the role of a “superior officer” who commands by dominating and denigrating.  Both in biological families and in business families, these strategies crush self esteem and suppress potential for a full, purposeful and joyful life.  

Leadership by edict can only cause conflict and ultimately defection.   What we aspire to is leadership where we routinely ask ourselves, “What is the principle here?” and “What will move this person closer to a life they will love?”

A recurrent thought I had when I was raising my kids was that it was an immense responsibility.  I had a nightmare once that I was carrying my infant son across a tightrope spanning the Grand Canyon.  I woke up with a start, short of breath and fully cognizant of how much my next steps as a parent might affect my son’s well being.  

Later, I came to the realization that serious mistakes would cascade down the generations -- and so would excellent parenting decisions and course corrections.  This can be seen as a tremendous burden, or as a reason to work on me -- grow me -- so that I am capable of giving guidance to those who will give guidance to the next generation, and the next.  

Lee and I feel this same chance to create generational change with our business/life team.  And we feel the same responsibility to keep growing in integrity, humility and wisdom, so that other lives, as well as ours, can more surely reach their full bloom of humanity. We cannot be too resourced; we cannot reach out to our mentor too much or read too many books or listen to the teachings of too many thought leaders.   

More each day, we see the need to be willing to BE “parented.” Seeking people out who are further down the road illuminates the path ahead-- whether the journey is financial invincibility, or self-awareness, or peace of mind.  Maybe we can’t see the way clearly yet, but someone else can.

Sometimes, I feel the same terror that I did as a mom -- of consistently setting the wrong example, of setting in motion duplication of my shortcomings rather than my strengths.  But then, I remember, I can become a better woman, a better leader, a better mom, and that mistakes are not permanent unless I make them permanent by repeating them. I have -- we all have -- total freedom to continue to correct our course, to continue to evolve -- which, in the end, is the very best example to set.
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PROVING GROUNDS

12/3/2018

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PROVING GROUNDS

The years accumulate.  Experiences show up.  Some we love to recall.  
Some we’d prefer to erase. And some are intensely painful, whether physically or emotionally or both.  
 
All experiences shape us.  We choose how they shape us.   
 
We’ve all heard the axiom that it’s not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us that matters.  When something happens to us that brings all familiar patterns to a screeching halt, do we contract and attempt to leverage sympathy -- or do we make a decision to expand and leverage gratitude and compassion?  The other immobilizes and diminishes us. One empowers and activates us.
 
Lee and I believe our lives together are one big adventure story with lots of romance and sweeping vistas, some planned chapters, and some plot twists that test our courage, heighten our awareness and extend our vision.  The heart transplant adventure two years ago, the rolling-the-truck-and-RV adventure three months ago, and assisting in Mom’s current journey with Hospice are events that have grabbed the steering wheel of our shared life and driven us to a totally unfamiliar terrain of choices and possibilities.  They have fundamentally changed how we look at ourselves and how we look at our reason for waking up each morning.
 
You might call these experiences course correctors.  Once the fog of disorientation dissipates, priorities get shaken into crystalline clarity and light a new path through the trees.  
 
I think of these experiences as part of a refining process. This is a much different, much more dramatic refining process than the daily choices we make to improve and grow. Reading and listening to the thinking of those calling me to expand rather than contract activates a relatively steady personal growth curve --  nice and easy, with an occasional “Aha!” moment or bruised ego. This kind of growth is a matter of choice. It’s a garden that, best case, I plant and I weed. It requires both a willingness and a determination to discover the next, improved version of myself.

Then there are the spikes disrupting this gentle growth curve. This is a very distinct and often abrupt refining process I call “going through the fire”. Scientists coined the term, “adversarial growth,”* AKA “post-traumatic growth”* to identify the revelation some people have when they endure cancer, war, the death of a loved one -- any experience that suddenly aborts routine, assumptions and standard excuses.  Multiple scientific studies show that some people manage to climb out of crisis and discover heightened joy, gratitude and sense of purpose in the midst of extreme upheaval.
 
It’s akin to the smelting process in which extreme heat is applied to extract metal from ore. These are refining experiences that we do not choose, the kind of experiences that I’ve long doubted that I would have the courage or the resilience to endure intact -- intact in my body, intact in my spirit, intact in my relationships.
 
These experiences of overcoming against stiff odds construct a complete person—one who can empathize, one who can be trusted, one with a heightened appreciation for relationships. These are the processes that extract our metal.

These are also the experiences we all pray to avoid, not only for ourselves but for everyone we know and care about.

These are the proving grounds.  

I believe these through-the-fire experiences give me leverage. They force me up the learning curve. They compel me to make heavy-duty pivotal decisions even though it feels as if my emotions have been hijacked.  
 
I believe these crucible moments are the only real chance I have of coming face-to-face with where I currently stand in life, of internalizing my true priorities, of feeling the urgency to do something that takes the load off somebody somewhere, to do something that bends the course of another life in a slightly more positive direction.  

Accompanying Lee on his journey through near death, walking away miraculously unharmed from the massive roll-over accident, watching my mother gradually decline in Hospice care -- experiences like these compel me to do something harder than posting on Facebook or streaming the latest series on Netflix or numbing out innumerable other ways. I believe we resort to these numbing strategies in the effort to postpone the thought that we might be wasting our inexpressibly precious time.  
 
Often I have willingly suspended my life in purposeless activity, perhaps to delay the realization that the moments of my life are finite, and there is so much more for me to create and contribute in whatever time remains.

What pulls me out when I succumb to anesthetized life?

The lifeline is two-fold and includes both the associations I invite into my life — who and what I listen to and read everyday —AND, remarkably, those moments of overwhelming fear followed by the climb back to wonder.   The first -- the resolve to grow in ethics and impact every day -- is the the parachute that slows my fall and modifies the impact when life surprises me with crisis-adventures.

The wonder, the euphoria shows up once the soul-stretching, sometimes excruciating or terrifying experience yields to an undeniable miracle.  This is how I am expanded and elevated so that I can see the terrain of my life and make a new plan for the new life I’ve been handed.

Do I often wish for a nice long respite from the fire?  Yes. At the same time, though, I know I can’t be proven unless I’m tested.  I can’t “show my metal” without going through the fire sometimes.
 
What I’ve learned is that ALL adventures must be embraced with both arms, with my whole heart, with all of me.  There will be sunshine, there will be wildfires on the journey from birth to death.  Sometimes I will be encouraged to grow, educated to grow and sometimes forced to grow.   But first comes the willingness to reach, to fall, to get back up, to reflect and then reach again -- even if though there are more proving grounds up ahead.
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November 28th, 2018

11/28/2018

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PROVING GROUNDS

The years accumulate.  Experiences show up.  Some we love to recall.  Some we’d prefer to erase. And some are intensely painful, whether physically or emotionally or both.  
 
All experiences shape us.  We choose how they shape us.   
 
We’ve all heard the axiom that it’s not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us that matters.  When something happens to us that brings all familiar patterns to a screeching halt, do we contract and attempt to leverage sympathy -- or do we make a decision to expand and leverage gratitude and compassion?  One immobilizes and diminishes us. One empowers and activates us.
 
Lee and I believe our lives together are one big adventure story with some planned chapters and some surprise plot twists that test our courage, heighten our awareness and extend our vision.  The heart transplant adventure two years ago, the rolling-the-truck-and-RV adventure three months ago, and assisting in Mom’s current journey with Hospice have changed how we look at ourselves and how we look at our reason for waking up each morning.
 
You might call these experiences course correctors.  Once the fog of disorientation dissipates, priorities get shaken into crystalline clarity and light a new path through the trees.  
 
I think of these experiences as part of a refining process. This is a much different, much more dramatic refining process than the daily choices we make to improve and grow. Reading and listening to the thinking of those calling me to expand rather than contract activates a relatively steady personal growth curve --  nice and easy, with an occasional “Aha!” moment or bruised ego. This kind of growth is a matter of choice. It’s a garden that, best case, I plant and I weed. It requires both a willingness and a determination to discover the next, improved version of myself.

Then there are the spikes disrupting this gentle growth curve. This is a very distinct and often abrupt refining process I call “going through the fire”. Scientists coined the term, “adversarial growth,”* AKA “post-traumatic growth”* to identify the revelation some people have when they endure cancer, war, the death of a loved one -- any experience that suddenly aborts routine, assumptions and standard excuses.  Multiple scientific studies show that some people manage to climb out of crisis and discover heightened joy, gratitude and sense of purpose in the midst of extreme upheaval.
 
It’s akin to the smelting process in which extreme heat is applied to extract metal from ore. These are refining experiences that we do not choose, the kind of experiences that I’ve long doubted that I would have the courage or the resilience to endure intact -- intact in my body, intact in my spirit, intact in my relationships.
 
These are the experiences that construct a solid person—one who can empathize, one who can be trusted, one with a heightened appreciation for relationships. These are the processes that extract our metal.

These are also the experiences we all pray to avoid, not only for ourselves but for everyone we know and care about.

These are the proving grounds.  

I believe these through-the-fire experiences give me leverage. They force me up the learning curve. They compel me to make heavy-duty pivotal decisions even though it feels as if my emotions have been hijacked.  
 
I believe these crucible moments are the only real chance I have of coming face-to-face with where I currently stand in life, of internalizing my true priorities, of feeling the urgency to do something that takes the load off somebody somewhere, to do something that bends the course of another life in a slightly more positive direction.  

Accompanying Lee on his journey through near death, walking away miraculously unharmed from the massive roll-over accident, watching my mother gradually decline in Hospice care -- experiences like these compel me to do something harder than posting on Facebook or streaming the latest series on Netflix or numbing out innumerable other ways. I believe we resort to these numbing strategies in the effort to postpone the thought that we might be wasting our inexpressibly precious time.  
 
Often I have willingly suspended my life in purposeless activity, perhaps to delay the realization that the moments of my life are finite, and there is so much more for me to create and contribute in whatever time remains.

What pulls me out when I succumb to anesthetized life?

The lifeline is two-fold and includes both the associations I invite into my life — who and what I listen to and read everyday —AND, remarkably, those moments of overwhelming fear followed by the climb back to wonder.   The first -- the resolve to grow in ethics and impact every day -- is the the parachute that slows my fall and modifies the impact when life surprises me with crisis-adventures.

The wonder, the euphoria shows up once the soul-stretching, sometimes excruciating or terrifying experience yields to an undeniable miracle.  This is how I am expanded and elevated so that I can see the terrain of my life and make a new plan for the new life I’ve been handed.

Do I often wish for a nice long respite from the fire?  Yes. At the same time, though, I know I can’t be proven unless I’m tested.  I can’t “show my metal” without going through the fire sometimes.
 
What I’ve learned is that ALL adventures must be embraced with both arms, with my whole heart, with all of me.

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ANTICIPATORY GRIEF

5/24/2018

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​Anticipatory grief is a new concept for me, though it’s been around for a long time. There’s a page dedicated to anticipatory grief in Mom’s Hospice binder. The binder sits on the kitchen table along with inhalers, medications, Ana’s notes about Mom’s care and a calendar recording who’s relieving who and when.  When I was growing up, nothing was allowed to rest long on that table except African violets and a pretty tablecloth in one shade of blue or another. Mom’s DNR is posted on the refrigerator next to photos of her grand and great grandchildren-- to ensure that emergency personnel know what to do and what not to do.

When Mom’s primary doctor first proposed that it might be time for hospice, without questions or hesitation, she said “No.”  When her doctor asked again, she answered firmly, “I don’t feel like I’m dying.” The subject was broached yet again, because that’s what happens when a patient requires frequent trips to the emergency room due to falls or difficulty breathing.

I believe it was the fourth time she accepted.  She was seeing a respiratory specialist. This doctor suggested it, not as an exit-from-life plan, but as a strategy for having the emergency room come to her-- cutting out the arduous ride to the hospital and the 6-10 hour wait time until release or admission to the hospital.  

When the previous doctor pointed out this advantage, Mom responded, “Oh, I don’t mind going to the ER.”  Funny thing about Mom, she sometimes tells the most absurd and obvious of lies. We who call her on it are frequently and openly amused.  She’s fun to tease. Love to see her smirk and look to the side. It’s a sure sign that she’s still in there.

From Mom’s description of the pivotal conversation about hospice, I can see that what really convinced her wasn’t avoiding the revolving door to the emergency room, it was that this doctor looked her right in the eye, made her feel heard and valued, and Mom felt he was in no apparent hurry at all. I asked about this because Mom and I have had many conversations about her growing invisibility as she ages, and to a lesser degree, mine. Where it has never happened is with her Mexican housekeeper, her Salvadorean gardener or her Cambodian nail care specialist.  This cultural discrepancy is invisible until you cross the line. What is the line? It varies, but by Mom’s age, many people are talking down to you, talking around you, or looking right through you. I was so thankful that this doctor, whatever his heritage, took the time to see Mom and make her feel seen.

A sense of invisibility, of being a faceless piece being moved around the medical board, will always cause Mom to resist.  For years, she “fired” primary care doctors who said these words, “Well, Barbara, at your age…”   I share -- I think most of us share -- the need to feel that I am still the author of my story.

Here are a few chapter previews in the story Mom has authored to date, a few versions of Mom that add up to who she is -- so far.  

*Little Bobbie Roberts who slammed it over the fence before they knew to question girls in Little League…

*Barb Mauk who attended the very first Plenary Session of the United Nations by special invitation of the United Press Corps and never brings it up…

*Barbara Mauk who stood by the minister’s side to confront church matrons protesting an exchange with the Black church in Marin City...

*Barb Mauk who built a successful court reporting business, wrote a book and volunteered for over twenty year at Guide Dogs for the Blind, hiked to Lake Aloha in Desolation Wilderness in her 60s and traveled the world, even though Dad was done with travel on May 8, 1945 when Germany surrendered unconditionally.

*My mother, who, in her early nineties, joined other neighbors to fight to get Aleno back to his wife and infant daughter.  Aleno, a South American refugee, kneels by my mom’s chair, holds her hand and strokes her hair back from her face every time before he starts to prune her trees, mow her lawn and water her flowers.

And of course, there dozens more chapters and versions of Mom, too numerous to list and undoubtedly many unknown to me.

Bobbie, Barbara, Barb, my mother -- they’re all still in there,  The shell is deteriorating, but the substance is intact and still cumulative.

This brings us back to anticipatory grief.  
The meaning is obvious.  It’s the process of grieving the loss of someone who is still physically and sometimes -- as in Mom’s case --someone who is also still mentally present, but for whom the days are literally numbered.   

That number may be hours or days, months or even years, but the illusion that death is far, far off (which we all entertain as long as we can) -- that illusion is gone.  Some life process is deteriorating, some condition is progressing towards an inevitable end, and no matter how pharmaceutically effective we are at slowing the slide towards the final breath, it’s coming.

When someone we love is on the slide, it can be breathtakingly fast or agonizing slow and painful.  There are often twists and turns in the slide, where first one slows down and regains some ground, and then the slide gets steeper and it’s almost like freefall.   

I’m sure I’m not the only family member who has struggled for acceptance, thinking as I have so many times, “Okay, she probably won’t come back from THIS”? Mom has literally fallen on her face, fractured ribs, broken hips, suffered various SLOW healing wounds, gotten pneumonia, undergone gallbladder surgery - all in the past few years.  She has justly earned the nickname THE AMAZING BOUNCE-BACK WOMAN.

When Mom finally consented to meet her hospice nurse, Jeff, she loved him at first sight.  Mom’s always been a direct woman but there’s growing evidence that this character trait is on the ascent.  She looked him in the eye and asked, “So I’m not going to get better?”
Jeff:  “You WILL recover from the pneumonia.  You’ll feel better than you do right now, but your lungs won’t stop getting weaker.”  
Mom:  “That’s what I’m afraid of -- not being able to breathe.”
Jeff:  “That’s why I’m here.  I’m not going to let that happen.”

My heart weeps for this painfully honest and therefore incredibly respectful conversation.   

I read about the symptoms of anticipatory grief. These include loss of sleep, fatigue, forgetfulness, anger, sadness, even isolation and depression in some cases.  I would add sudden weepiness with two distinct triggers:

*A memory can bring me to tears these days-- like the time I called Mom about visiting her on Mother’s Day only to learn she was marching in San Francisco that day with M. A. D. D.(Mothers Against Drunk Drivers).  What better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than showing solidarity with other mothers?
*Support flooding in from friends and family causes me to spill over at times. Navigating this together, we sometimes lean in weariness but there’s someone right there to catch us before we fall.  

It sounds like anticipatory grief has a whole lot in common with post-death grief, right?  

Oh, but there’s more!   

Quoting from a website called WYG (What’s Your Grief?):

“We are aware of the looming death and accepting it will come, which can bring an overwhelming anxiety and dread.  More than that, in advance of a death we grieve the loss of person’s abilities and independence, their loss of cognition, a loss of hope, loss of future dreams, loss of stability and security, loss of their identity and our own, and countless other losses.  This grief is not just about accepting the future death, but of the many losses already occurring as an illness progresses.”

When I think of Mom, whose cognition is still mostly intact, one major loss is the dimming down of her usually spunky - even contentious -- personality. Now when she lets out a command or a correction, we’re all somehow relieved rather than annoyed or offended.

Another loss is that she’s so tethered -- to her walker, to her reclining chair, to her oxygen and her inhalers.  Her long hikes in the Sierras, her lifelong explorations to exotic destinations all over the globe are irrefutably over.  She always said she needed something to look forward to, some trip to anticipate. She still asks Ana when she’s going to take her to Fiji, but I believe she’s just entertaining the fantasy.  

I suppose it could be argued that she’s about to embark on the ultimate adventure, but let’s face it, there will be no slide show and no postcards, and her life is peppered with uncertainty not anticipation.

There are symptoms of anticipatory grief symptoms that I’m not suffering.  I don’t feel anger or depression.  It’s clear though that this rollercoaster makes it harder to relax into the present and feel untethered joy right now.  Harder for Mom, too. She, too, is grieving the losses. She wants to jump up from her chair and make pancakes and sausages for us, swim a few laps and move the couch herself!  She wants to plan a trip, go out to lunch without oxygen, go to the bathroom without an escort, take a really deep breath. She rarely gets depressed, but she does get angry sometimes.  She’s always found limitations maddening.

Often but not always, it’s a girl child who is the culturally designated caregiver for aging parents.  Once again, I never forget how fortunate I am that both my brothers, their wives, and my sweet husband, commit just as much, and often more, time, energy and emotion to helping Mom make what they call her “transition.”  Add four grandsons and three granddaughters, three magical great grandkids, and all Mom’s “adopted children” -- Brian, an old flame of mine, Bonita who cleans for Mom, Aleno, the pool guy whose name escapes me -- all adopted by Mom --not to mention Mom’s sister/friends who are still active in the world - Sally, Patty, Karla, Martha and Peggy.  When I ask Mom, “What are you grateful for today?” as I often do, she says, “Oh, I’m so grateful that I’m surrounding by people I love, who love me.” She is painfully aware this has not been true for most of her friends.

Although my brothers, sisters-in-law and my husband Lee share the load of relieving Mom’s caregiver Ana on weekends, we each experience the overwhelming exhaustion that comes with just two to five days a month of caring for Mom. It makes me wonder how Ana gives such attentive and compassionate care for five or six days running, often without a break. Our excellent guide in this journey, Ana explains we’re so tired because our emotions are on hyper-alert.  She explains that although she loves Mom too, she doesn’t feel the same losses, both current and anticipatory.

It’s far from what I’d call mastery, but in recent years I have gotten quite good at silencing fretful thoughts in the middle of the night.  But lately I’ve relapsed and my squirrelly wee-hours brain has been working overtime, seriously compromising my sleep quotient, not to mention contributing to the clenched muscles in my neck and shoulders. This, too, is characteristic of anticipatory grief.  And minimal sleep has led inevitably to forgetfulness, distractibility and emotions way closer to the surface than I usually let them get. Keeping a tight rein on emotions is unequivocally one way I’m my mother’s daughter.

This is probably why I fear Mom’s fear at the end.  Her grip on those emotional reins may loosen, allowing panic to take over.  I know that hospice has a strategy for that, and some might say being in touch with one’s feelings is a good thing, but I fear it anyway.  Mom remembers that her twin sister Kay struggled at the end, and I know she’s haunted by that. When we were all standing around Dad’s final bed at the hospital, and the doctor was recommending unhooking him from life support and letting him go, I intuited that Mom’s hesitation had to do with just that; she couldn’t face watching him desperately gasp for a last breath.  I asked what to expect, the doctor reassured Mom, and Dad passed peacefully without another breath, without another heartbeat.

Mom always said she wanted to go “with her boots on,” suddenly and unexpectedly while living life to the fullest, optimally on a hike somewhere up high where she could see far.  It hasn’t turned out that way, but I see now that she still has reasons to be here. She’s pushing through to her best end in her own way.

Back story:  Mom has been unfailingly dedicated to those she loves, but most of her life she has also been unapologetically controlling and judgemental.  There have been multiple women pass through my life who remind me of Mom. I call them “women with sharp corners.” I love and admire many of these women, but I’m careful to keep my boundaries in place around them.  


Growing up and all the way into middle age, I was painfully aware of what I didn’t get from Mom.  Approval, encouragement, hugs…   When I was about 40, I had given up on ever winning Mom’s approval.  We hadn’t spoken for months when I sat down one day and told her I needed to hear that she loves me even if she doesn’t approve of my choices.  She replied, “I can’t do that” This was not because she didn’t in fact love me, but because her cultural blueprint is non-demonstrative, and because she needed to control more than comfort.  For her, proclaiming her love translated as endorsement of my choices in life.  

Mom’s transformation to a much more loving and tolerant woman was not quick, but our relationship healed suddenly and somewhat miraculously.  One day I woke up and realized that with unconditional love, someone has to go first.  I started telling Mom I loved her, and began washing the dog, pulling her garbage can out, moving the couch AGAIN, calling her now and then…  NOT because I was trying to finally win her approval, but just because I love her. Everything changed that day. I have no illusions that I get the credit for this epiphany.  It was too sudden and too clear for me to be the source. Wherever it came from, it feels to me that this was also when Mom began to change. Mom hugged when prompted. Mom expressed love and gratitude without being prompted.  Mom praised more and criticized less.

Mom’s metamorphosis into a gentler, kinder person didn’t happen all at once.  Long after all friction was gone from our mother-child relationship, I frequently “rescripted” her when I heard her bark something like  “Move the couch over there. No! Turn it a little more this way!”   Without emotion, I would say, “What you mean, Mom, is ‘I’d be so grateful if you would move the coach over there for me -- if your back is feeling okay….  THANK you!’” Or, she’ll be critical of a friend or family member, and I remind her -- “But you love (whomever)”  and she would relent and respond, “Yes, I do.”

These rescripting moments - which I also used with my adolescent children - are extremely rare now.   It’s like Mom’s having a final growth spurt on the inside even as her outer self shrinks and weakens.

About five years ago my wise husband encouraged me to initiate a regular schedule with Mom.  Mom was first starting to fail but she could still enjoy a ride in the car. I began scooping her up for “explores” every Tuesday. Her friends started saying, “It’s Tuesday; must be Suz’ Day.”  For a year or two before she was too weak to go, we headed out to the ocean or to the top of Mt. Tam or navigated obscure back roads in Forest Knolls or Napa. We appreciated every vista and talked about every topic.  We worked on a list of life lessons Mom wants to share with all her progeny. It’s been an honor to witness what it looks like to reach and expand into the nineth decade of life.

Even before she began to mellow, I began to compile a list of what invaluable assets I have received from my mother. A sense of thrift and order.  Always being on time. A commitment to exercise. Foremost among the attributes I credit to Mom is backbone.  Like Mom, I’ve always trusted I could do hard things.  A few examples: She started a business from scratch. So did I. She traveled extensively.  To a slightly lesser degree, so did I. I remember the day she decided to move a bag of cement at 80 something years of age!  I relocated an entire wine cellar of 500 plus cases at age 50 something -- a dozen cement steps involved. It’s not always good for the back to have Mom -- or Dad’s -- work ethic.  My brothers can confirm this! Still, taking satisfaction in doing difficult and adventuresome things is also evident in the generation following ours, and I believe this will be an invaluable familial trait that will persist through the generations.  

Mom has always supported causes she believes in, not just with money but with her presence and her voice. She certainly deserves credit for the sense of purpose and love of accomplishment that drives me, and I see this in my brothers too, but in them it’s tempered with more of Dad’s gentleness than I internalized.

Mom’s family has always been her primary cause.  Her love of travel and her passion for her business never outranked us.  We always knew she’d drop anything for us. She still would if she could. Dedication to family -- rack another legacy up for Mom.

I never miss a chance to tell Mom that it’s impressive and inspiring to see her expanding and growing at 96 years old.  Even with the accelerating loss of control, her attitude and the quality of her relationships are still hers to enhance.  I applaud it everytime I witness how she can now offer love without conditions and say thank you without reminders.

Does experiencing anticipatory grief mean that one won’t grieve after the loved one dies?  The experts say there are no rules with grieving. My husband, Lee, said that he had said been saying goodbye to his much-loved mom who suffered from Alzheimer’s for so long that when she had a stroke and died, she’d been silent for so long that he didn’t have much grieving left to do, and he returned to work the very next day.  My daughter Mayme tells me she was a little surprised when she burst into uncontrollable sobs when her paternal grandmother died, even though for many months her Baci had recognized her only as “the nice girl who cuts my hair”.

We’re all navigating a very long good-bye with Mom.  The difference is that although Mom has moments of confusion, she’s still growing, she’s still giving, she’s still celebrating her family, she’s still spending time with her friends, she’s still cheering on her favorite team.  I believe that few of us will be finished grieving when Mom’s end comes. Mom has always been and still is the anchor keeping our family from drifting too far apart. Sometimes -- many times the pull has felt like constraint. Still, after she departs, I know I’ll feel adrift in the world for awhile.  In her decline, Mom has brought us all much closer. New patterns will emerge in the family tapestry when she’s gone, but now I know with certainty that it won’t unravel.

Writing this I’m realizing that we are all living one of Mom’s most powerful legacies right now. Mom saw her twin sister and Dad out of this world, putting in multiple years of care and anticipatory grief.  She grieves still.

And now it’s our turn.

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ALIVE IN THIS BREATH

9/21/2017

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It can’t always be about getting it all done -- stoking the money source, doing the laundry, paying the bills, stretching and moving to make sure my body remains optimally functional.
It can’t always be about planning the day, the trip, the year-end goals.
It can’t always be about processing the past, learning from my missteps, forgiving myself for not being perfect.
It can’t always be about nurturing those around me.
Sometimes -- to feel entirely alive in this breath -- it has to be about nothing less than FLAT-OUT WONDER.
I’m talking about those moments when time could stop and I’d be alright with that.  Those times when rather than trying to hold it all together in formation, I let it all go.  The clenched muscles in my shoulders finally release and worries dissipate like morning mist.
Maybe we each have a personal bliss formula, and -- if we could just identify the components -- we could trigger, expand and sustain those moments of heightened consciousness?  
What are some elements of MY personal bliss formula?

*Vast vistas, ancient trees, rushing water, sparkling waves, saturated sunsets, the oceans of awareness in a newborn’s eyes.

*People around me who are loyalty, compassionate, generous, kind, eager to learn, expand, explore, PLAY.

*Holding and being held by someone I not only love beyond expression, but someone I admire and respect -- someone I can learn from who is open to learning from me.

*Talking with someone that I’m so in sync with that we rise and roam on almost musical riffs, explode into fireworks of new insights, and laugh until our sides hurt.

*Silence so profound that it feels like time just slammed on the brakes.  In the silence -- since time is suspended for a moment and there’s no falling behind -- I can stop chasing the next task.  It’s a time-out -- time in the hammock of silence.

*Writing when the words and the analogies choose themselves and at the same time refine and expand my thinking.  I believe truer artists than myself create because they lose consciousness of time.  In the passion of creating,  I think an artist slips the chains of time constraints and limitations -- for a little while.

*Watching someone’s face change when they realize they don’t have to feel stuck in life.  They can return to the childlike pursuit of a fabulous life of their own design.
​
*GRATITUDE…  without the caveats that begin with “except for…”  Gratitude for the people who love us, the stories we’ve lived and the stories we will live, for the sky, the rain, the sudden smile -- for being alive in this breath.

That’s a good start.  I know for you the list will be entirely different and may require symphonies, or dance floors, or bungee cords or stadiums, or millions of dollars to advance a cause.
My personal bliss formula includes eight elements so far and, as it happens, none of them necessarily require heavy funding.  What they require is time and practice.  It takes focus and practice for me to implement the formula.

The question is how frequently can I beam up to my virtual mountaintop and soar with the eagles for awhile?

Not all the time, just often enough that I get the panoramic view where priorities crystallize and higher purpose is served upon re-entry.

Gotta go now.  Time in the hammock of silence is calling.



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Nothing Lasts?

7/13/2017

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Nothing lasts.  

Or nothing truly ends.

Which is it?

Assumptions are a funny thing.  We often don’t know that we’re assuming something to be true until the assumption is challenged by a cataclysmic-enough experience.

For example:  The one you love with your whole being nearly dies during an operation to insert a turbine into his heart.  The bottom drops out of his blood pressure during a procedure to keep his very fragile original heart going until a donor heart becomes available.  The assumption that you will have a long future of wedded bliss is challenged.  And all at once, the permanence of any person or any anticipated future is revealed as an illusion.  

For me, it was at this point that I realized that I had assumed-- subconsciously -- that I could create permanence in my life -- that through hard work and strong conviction I could plant some permanence in my life much like I planted sunflowers in my yard.
The love of my life DID survive that night, and now that Lee and I have lived without a permanent dwelling for almost 6 months, I understand that the drive to own a home, to sign a contract saying I am committed to paying off my very own plot of earth, to commit to an employer for a decade or more, to plant trees and perennials over herbs and annuals-- all these conventional acts were tremendously compelling because I wanted to buffer myself with some permanence.  

​These were my tap roots, anchoring me securely in time and place.  Cognitively I knew it was all temporary, but I realize now that I was still laboring to drop anchor in the ocean of time. The drive to mark my path in permanent ink -- to leave a visible lasting imprint on the planet -- is ultimately revealed as delusional.  

So nothing lasts seems to be the correct answer to the question.

On the other hand, Einstein teaches that nothing ends.  This enigmatic genius gave us the theory that linear time is a construct of our limited senses.  In reality, he posited, all time is happening at the same time.  

In other words, T Rex is tumbling into the tar pit at the same time man first steps on the moon’s surface at the same time that the first computer-replicated heart beats (briefly) in the tiny breast of mouse at the same time as…..  And I am an infant, a teenager, a young mother and a failing hospice patient all in the same moment.  All time exists at once.  

This would seem to be an argument for permanence -- or even for immortality -- except that our limited senses still convince us that everything -- youth, possessions, accomplishments, great loves and grand friendships -- all slip through our fingers in the end.  Does it change anything to subscribe to Einstein’s claim that everything that ever happened is happening now?  Not really.

As I’m sure you’ve heard -- if one is fortunate enough to be lucid at the end of life -- no one ever expresses regret that their home wasn’t big enough, their car luxurious enough, their garden extensive enough, their career illustrious enough, their children successful enough.  Rather, they wish they had loved more, laughed more, risked more, left a more purposeful legacy.

My personal conviction is that my only immortality is the ripples of kindness, compassion, tolerance and approbation I sent out onto the world pond.  All I ultimately have to leverage as my legacy is a happy, generous, adventuresome spirit.  So this is where I choose to invest -- in my own good heart.   

Nothing lasts but the ripples never end.

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SORROW UNMASKED

4/14/2017

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SORROW UNMASKED


Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
                                                                                                                                        Kahlil Gibran




At the time, it felt like our wings had been clipped just as we were about to take flight.  

Just over a year ago, in March of 2016, Lee and I divesting ourselves of nearly all our possessions in record time.  We left behind a three bedroom, two bath farmhouse with an endless porch and a large detached barn/office on 2 acres, a forest of sunflowers and four vegetable garden boxes.  We found new homes for every dish, table, couch, desk, lamp, for 90 percent of our clothing, for every antique treasure and physical photograph, every file cabinet and monitor, an ocean of cords -- for every seed… as well as three vehicles.

Unencumbered, we were ready to fly.

In April, we began our nomadic adventure touching very lightly on the planet and moving on every few days.  We felt a kind of buoyant bliss to have pulled up our roots.  It felt like going from a heavy, vegetative state to much more airy yet sentient one.  We were acutely present, aware of each new experience -- but also more and more alert to Lee’s changing physical condition.

By month’s end --one year ago -- a different adventure had rooted us in space once more. In fact, our circumference of movement had become severely restricted.  

In April we left the quintessential beauty of Yosemite ahead of schedule because it was clear that Lee’s heart was failing rapidly.  The next breath was so hard to come by that he felt like someone was holding a pillow over his face, and I spent the nights lying awake trying to capture the next breath for him.  I counted as many as 12 to 15 seconds between breaths and lying next to him, I could feel his heart beat infrequently and with effort -- like each beat was barely breeching a high hurdle.  I couldn’t help asking myself, “What are my first five actions if his heart just stops now in the middle of the night in the middle of this campground?  The options weren’t good.  

It wasn’t my fear that propelled us from that campground that morning.  It was Lee's surrender as he sat by the window with the shades still drawn.  He was weeping --not in fear of the outcome -- but in dread of the process.  Against all reason but true to character, Lee never doubted coming out the other side strong, grinning and sure of his steps again. 
 
From Yosemite, we drove straight to Lee’s cardiologist’s office in Petaluma, and within minutes, Dr. Lehrman informed us that he would be recommending Lee for a heart transplant at UCSF Medical Center. For both of us it felt something like jumping off a bridge, trusting the bungee technology and the practitioners of the sport to bring you springing back to safety above the raging falls.  Not something all of us elect to engage in. It may be that the heart transplant adventure is more like being pushed into a well.  Lee didn’t have the option of walking away from the brink, and he didn't know how far down he’d have to fall before the team could assist his prolonged climb to the surface again.  
 
A week later, Lee was in the hospital undergoing intense evaluation, our new home was in storage, and we were again in a stationary abode -- this time within the required 30 minutes of the hospital.   This is where we would wait for the call that a heart had been found for Lee.

Lee spent almost a month in the hospital at the start, leaving -- after a very close brush with death -- with a turbine (LVAD, Left Ventricle Assist Device) implanted in his heart. This device boosted Lee’s dying heart from an feeble 23 percent performance to between 80 and 90 percent.  Now Lee was battery-driven during the day and plugged into the wall at night, but the LVAD gave us the freedom -- once he’d recovered for a month -- to visit the Botanical Gardens, try one of dozens of neighborhood restaurants, and take a ferry to visit friends and family- to have some fun while we waited for the call that Lee was on the active list for a heart.  

We always been clear that if one had to be confined in a city, San Francisco is indeed a gilded cage -- but, for us, it was a cage all the same.   The sensation for each of us was that with buildings looming all around and wires obscuring the sky, we were indoors even when we were outdoors.

Altogether, we waited five months between one major surgery and another. It seemed like forever, especially to Lee.  Given that it’s crucial to be fully recovered before a second major surgery is performed, it was in reality a very, very short wait.

Lee’s heart arrived on election day, November 9, 2016.  It was a joyous day for us, full of excited phone calls to friends and family, and it was a somber one too. We may never know who Lee’s donor was or how he/she passed, but -- even as we rejoiced at Lee’s rescue -- we felt the sharp proximity of grief.  Our team reminded us that this heart is a gift.  Lee didn’t take it from someone else. It is a gift from someone who Lee now honors by living and loving deeper than ever before.

Between waiting for a heart and waiting to recover sufficiently to travel, Lee and I spent endless hours viewing Youtube vlogs of other budding nomads and planning our travels once what we were released back to the wild by our post-transplant team. We took our imaginations on daily test flights to all the peak experiences we anticipate.

We remained in the city for just under three months after transplant with outpatient appointments four or five times a week at first.  From start to finish, our San Francisco adventure lasted nine months. And yes, it did feel like gestation was complete and birth was imminent.  

I sit here looking at the pine and bay trees out the window and listening to the birds and to children playing in an adjacent loop of the campground.  Lee is at a thrice weekly rehab appointment re-growing his muscle strength after two major surgeries within a five month span of time.  He’ll complete 36 of these sessions, and then the promise is that he’ll be as strong as he ever was, and we can begin strenuous hikes again to awe-inspiring vistas starting in June.

We can’t fly far yet, but now I see.  Hidden in the wrapping of this miraculous gift of a new heart is a sister gift.  We’ve both been boosted to a new level of appreciation, a new intensity of mindfulness.  This adventure that felt so much like a detour is really a first destination that will make all destinations that follow much more precious and purposeful.  

Our wings weren’t clipped.  Our hearts were grown in 2016, and we can roam much farther now and love much deeper in 2017.

​
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HOW ABOUT AN UPGRADE

3/5/2017

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HOW ABOUT AN UPGRADE?

For Lee, he upgraded from a enlarged spongy muscle doing less than 25% of the work required to pump blood efficiently throughout his body to what the surgeon called “a pristine heart” that beats so strongly that it sometimes keeps Lee awake at night.  He went from a heart that could fail at any time to a heart that has decades of beats left in it.

Today we’re proposing an “income transplant” -- upgrading from an insufficient, time-intensive, transactional income that could fail at any time to an leveraged ongoing income that has no ceiling.

What sounds better?  

Working 40 hours a week (or more) for 40 years (or more) to end up with 40% (or less) at retirement of the income you weren’t quite making it on before?
                        OR
Working for 6-10 focused hours a week for 5 years to build to an ongoing income of $55,000 to $500,000 a year (or more)?

Here’s the bottom line:  Success comes to those who JUMP!  

There were times when Lee didn’t think he could climb this Everest of heart transplant.  There will be times when you don’t think you can build a growing, ongoing income that will deliver a life of unprecedented freedom.

How did we learn to persevere and keep the faith? It can only be described as transformation by association.  We received incredible support from our family, friends, our team AND our cousins in the business throughout our transplant journey.  We were the recipients of the same unfailing support from our team in building an ongoing income that allowed me to dedicate myself 100% to Lee’s care and recovery over the past year, and for him to give his full concentration to sustaining a great attitude while getting stronger -- not to worrying about our livelihood.       

 “There are two ways to live your life:
One -- as if there are no miracles.
 Two -- as if EVERYTHING is a miracle.”                    
​(Author unknown)


Some victories can be traced back to our own concerted effort.  We believe many of our victories -- both in Lee’s journey to transplant and in the business -- are miracles that arrived because of our 20 year preparation for victory in our lives.  From attitude development to goal expansion to people skills to the propensity to JUMP, we owe our life victories to exposure to people like you through conferences, audios, books … and zipline adventures!

Everyone who launches there own business gets started for the money -- for more financial ease and more choices.

Sooner or later the realization hits that the REAL victory is the growing mastery of HOW to create victories, how to INVITE miracles into my life no matter what the circumstances.

This culture of positivity -- visualizing the best outcome, listening, encouraging, celebrating, pivoting when discouragement creeps up on us -- influences ALL aspects of our lives -- our relationships, our finances, our sense of self worth, our gratitude and sense of wonder. AND this process of transformation through association means we will ALL impact uncountable others for the good.   

LEAD WITH YOUR HEART:

Make it about service.  Focus on what you can give, not just what you stand to get.  This stance takes the stress out of building the business for me.  Should I come up with extravagant strategies to create more volume?  Or should I focus on helping someone step into the life they most want to be living?  

It’s not about growing my bank account so much as growing myself.  Growing myself and helping to grow new leaders WILL cause our bank account to grow exponentially.

The big victory is made up of many, many small, simple victories:  making it up the steps, enjoying food again, walking the way you want to feel (a little swagger), etc.  In our business too, the big victories are made up of many small, simple victories:  listening to audios, reading books that grow us, rebuilding our list, asking people about their lives, showing the plan, following up, NEVER missing a chance to commune with the larger team.

What got Lee through -- is still getting Lee through the rough parts are these words “How’s it going to feel….”
*How’s it going to feel when we can roam the National Parks for weeks at a time?  
*How’s it going to feel when I can hike ten miles again?  
*How’s it going to feel when I have the chance to guide others through this Everest of heart transplant?  
*How’s it going to feel when our income transplant continues to grow to $10,000 a month, $30,000 a month and beyond?  What kind of a contribution can we make then to the people and the causes we care about the most?
*How’s it going to feel when we see the lives of our teammates transform and take flight?
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HOW DO I PUT A POSITIVE SPIN ON THIS!?

1/22/2017

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I had a long talk last night with a good friend.  We were sharing insights about growing through prolonged health challenges.    The word “acceptance” came up and soon we were deep in shades of meaning.  

Some definitions of “acceptance” are starkly polarized.  Definitions like “submission” or “resignation” have a flavor of settling for a reduced existence.   Others -- like “adoption” and “endorsement” -- suggest that acceptance is the first step in welcoming a new, larger purpose -- a bigger life.

First a disclaimer: I don’t believe that health complications are an inevitable part of getting older.  How would that belief serve me?  A severe or terminal condition is not something I anticipate, but if this is what shows up, a regimen of acceptance is what I’ll prescribe for myself.  

Why?  Because not to accept what is happening carries a twofold threat:

*One, the resulting withdrawal from social connections, new experiences, sometimes even from going outside is also a withdrawal from serendipitous moments of insight and wonder.

*Two, I would be deflecting energy from recovery to anxiety.

​The struggle to recover from something like Lee’s heart transplant has meant accepting pain, massive doses of toxic medications, extreme weight loss and muscle weakness, loss of mobility, loss of privacy and loss of income.  Acceptance in the context of any major health hurdle means acknowledging that it’s going to take longer to recover than anticipated and there will be some lifelong compromises required.  Lee has scaled this heart-transplant mountain to the peak, but there are still many foothills to conquer before he’s on level ground and his health is considered stable.   

Just now, Lee explained that the struggle to make his own breakfast this morning -- with his hands shaking from the steroids -- requires acceptance, because if he didn’t accept the struggle -- if he succumbed and let me do it for him -- he would opt out on the improvement.  He said, “You can’t stand still.”  Once again, acceptance put him on the starting blocks to recovery and reclaiming his life.

If Lee chose not to accept what is happening -- if he sank into cursing the fates and an endless “Why me?” litany --  I believe that he would be compromising his recovery and forfeiting joy in the moment over and over and over again.

I remember someone telling me once that it is important to tell myself a new story -- if I don’t like the one I’m living.  If the story I tell myself is a dead-end story full of complaint and despair, then I am, indeed, at a dead end in my life.  Conversely, if I persist in telling myself a story of new doors opening and new discoveries to make, those doors will eventually open and I will learn much about my capacity to grow and to give.

WE ARE CONSTRUCTED OF WHAT WE OVERCOME.  This is probably my favorite truism. But first I have to overcome.  I can’t lie down and give up.  I can’t acquiesce to my circumstances.  

All change and improvement begins by acknowledging my point of departure.  This acceptance is the step that unlocks the emergency brakes and frees me to move forward -- that frees me to overcome rather than be overcome by my circumstances.

Sometimes it’s damn hard,  There have been many times when Lee has wept in discouragement.  He’s felt impatient, angry and defeated all at the same time.   He believes it’s not only inevitable but crucial to allow himself to feel all of these things.  This is the fog of frustration obscuring the pass through the mountains. This fog starts to burn off when he's ready to get back up, voice gratitude for the slightest progress already logged and acknowledge/accept the distance still to cover.

​Innumerable times I’ve watched Lee ask himself: How do I put a positive spin on this?
On feeling weak and helpless?
On taking 22 medications in the morning and 19 at night?  
On being confined to a city when I love wild places?
On never venturing into the sunlight again without protection?  
On not being able to feel touch at several incision sites?
How do I learn from this?  
Adjust my course?  
Decide on a new trajectory coming out of the spin?  
Reach out to people in a similar life struggle to help them accept and overcome?
How do I come out of this with more gratitude, more substance, more allies, more purpose, and more moments of wonder?

Wayne Dyer said that acceptance is the key to enlightenment.     Not surrender, but acceptance.  I think of it as being at peace with the present without surrendering a wide screen vision for the future

ac·cept·ance
əkˈseptəns/
noun
  1. the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.

I can consent to receive a new life, a fresh self, even a new mission.  I can undertake something that is offered and trust that this undertaking will become clear -- as long as I accept what is and -- embrace what is offered.
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    Susan is a published writer and motivational speaker with 20 years of experience, dedicated to guiding people to a life of financial invincibility and peace of mind.

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