Easy, Lucrative & Fun (E.L.F)

How Do You Do A ‘Total System Reboot’?

I was a good girl – that is until the age of 46…

What I mean was, I think I did pretty much what society, my skills, my talents and my upbringing dictated that I do to become a “success”. I got solid A’s in high school and went straight into Engineering at 17 at a university away from home and graduated one of 35 women in a class of 350+ men. I took one of the 2 job offers I was offered during the recession of ‘83 (while my friends went to Europe). I worked my way up in a man’s world of  engineering and IT (earning 6 figures by the time I was 28) and then I moved into the stress filled yet lucrative world of corporate IT recruiting and coaching – which I stayed in for over 20 years. In the meantime, I got married, and set up house and started considering my 2.5 children.

Let me give you some more stats though…

  • My first car accident was at 17 –  3 weeks after entering my engineering program.

  • my first and second concussion were both at 21.

  • my second car accident was at 35.

  • my first marriage didn’t make it to 2 years.

  • I was celibate for 5 years after that.

  • then I started my next 10 year “committed” relationship.

  • and just after I ended that 10 year relationship, I had my 3rd (and I have decided – final) car accident…(which was in 2009, so far so good!).

You know, I was still pretty good at living between the lines. Yet in fact I had really taken a square peg and was jamming it into a round hole – and in doing so I was losing chunks of myself. My sense of femininity and vitality being some of the big pieces.

I realized my choices were killing me from the inside out: I had added mononucleosis, hyperthyroidism, clinical depression, sciatica, fibromyalgia, and an extra 10 pounds to my life resume along with my multiple 6 figure income. My definition of success was warped and I was living from someone else’s rules. In fact, I was really living by the rules of working in a man’s world and I had not given myself permission to create something different.

In my youth I was too busy trying to answer the question that many young women ask:

“Am I ENOUGH?”

It took until I was 46 before I realized I had been trying to answer the wrong question and I had some fixing to do!

What if my “definition of success” (aka DOS) is a life that is Easy, Fun and Lucrative (E.L.F)? It sounds glamorous yet the world seems to favour the concept of hard work versus “focused effort”. What if surrender isn’t a bad word? What if compromise isn’t a win-win? What if pleasure is truly our birthright?!

Sure, I still coach men and women in having more money, new jobs, finding the guy/girl, creating a great love life among other things (yep I am a communications and relationship coach) yet my underlying desire for my clients is that we put the ladder up against the right wall for them to climb (in fact, I believe that as Sheryl Sandberg says – it is a ‘jungle gym” not a ladder) and that their goals are based in their true desires.

I am writing this as I practice snowbirding in Florida in the coldest winter on record for my home base of Toronto. That was one of my desires that fed my new goal of becoming of service to more women and men while retaining my own vitality! How can you do a total system reboot?

Got a burning desire yet not sure how to make it happen – ask me for a
FREE 1:1 Personal Coaching Session by phone or skype to see how I can help!
Email fiona@thebryangroup.ca with the subject:
“I’m in!” (don’t forget to include your phone number!!)

* Photo via elephantjournal.com

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