Failure Must Be Your Friend

Most people are fooled into the belief that living your life purpose should be easy. They feel that if they could just find their God-given talent and be able to live it that live would flow much better. Well, it does and it doesn’t.

         Living a life of purpose often entails great big things. It definitely will call you to live outside of your comfort zone and to accept that you can do much more than you have ever conceived. The tricky part is that since you haven’t lived your life purpose fully, up until the point at which you take the plunge, you haven’t practiced your skills much or haven’t polished the way in which you’re going to live it. Therefore, you will be met with failure.

         Many people look at failure as the end. You might be one of them. I know I had a hard time with failure for many years. I felt failure was the ultimate rejection from the universe that told me I was of little value. Now, I look at failure as the universe’s way of telling me, “Not yet.”

         In the limelight, we see people who are successful. We see people like Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, J.K. Rowling, Mark Zuckerberg and many other wealthy successful people and we may be inclined to think, “Boy, they have it easy.” What we don’t see is the numerous times they had to fail to get to where they are today. Every single successful person who makes his or her way to the history books failed many times before becoming a success. I love the story of Sylvester Stallone told on Get The Edge by Tony Robbins. Stallone was rejected as an actor 1,500 times before he wrote the script for Rocky. He was so broke he even had to sell his dog. Then when he went to sell his script, he got offered $125,000 by United Artists but only if he wouldn’t star in the film. He refused and went on to make a compromise to only be paid $35,000 if he could star in it. Henry Ford went bankrupt five times before creating his Model T successfully. Walt Disney went bankrupt several times before creating Disneyland. Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times before creating the light bulb.

         If you want to live out your life’s purpose (as you well should), get used to failure. Failure must become your best friend until you succeed. You must embrace it, love it, learn from it, welcome it, and not let it shut you down.

         You must have the tenacity, persistence and perseverance to push through disappointments, rejection, and failed attempts and living out your life’s purpose.

         I have lived this experience time and again. When I first self-published The Wheel of Healing, I submitted a proposal to Barnes & Noble to ask to have the book on the shelves. Within a few weeks, I had received a rejection letter. At my book launch on May 3, 2014, for The Wheel of Healing, I shared the rejection letter with the thirteen or fourteen people who showed up to the book launch party. I said because of this rejection, I would not only have book in Barnes & Noble but also would sell at least 1 million copies of my book to prove that they were wrong. Well, one year later in May 2015, my book was on the shelves at Barnes & Noble and published by New World Library.  Another more recent experience happened with Whole Foods Market. I had tried back in 2014 to get my book on the shelves at one Whole Foods Market in Fair Lakes, VA. The people in charge of mind body health at that Whole Foods were excited to carry my book and do a book launch at this very busy store. However, I had to go through corporate, fill out all the paperwork and carry insurance on the book, which cost me a lot of money. Then, there was a long delay with corporate, over a year. It got so expensive to carry the insurance that I had to drop it and when Whole Foods Corporate finally got back to me, I didn’t have the necessary insurance coverage they required. Just this past week, I got a message from New World Library that Whole Foods Market bought over 1,200 copies of my book to distribute to, not one, but to all of their stores.

         Never give up on your dreams and purpose based on one failure or even 1,000 failures, if you do, you just might be denying yourself success.

Love,

Michelle

 

 

On My Knees: Making Sense of France and Other World Tragedies

Late Thursday afternoon, July 14^th, the calls came and then the texts. “Are Xavier and Christophe back yet?” I hadn’t yet heard about the events in Nice and my son and ex-husband were in the South of France for a 17-day family vacation. Luckily, my 12-year-old son had texted me “Goodnight” just minutes before the first call came in.
          I wasn’t shaken up before I actually knew the details of what had happened even after that first call. I had been asking Archangel Michael to protect my son, his dad and his dad’s girlfriend throughout their journey.
          When I woke up the next day, I realized the magnitude of the tragedy when I turned on NPR in the morning and later at the gym when I saw a CNN report. Because I’m sensitive to news stories, I generally try to stay away from watching TV news, but one headline struck me hard as I was doing cardio on an elliptical machine, “10 Children Killed in Nice Attack”. Tears instantly came to my eyes as I really realized that on the same night, my child was watching the fireworks for Bastille Day in the neighboring town, Cannes, France.
          Then, all the events of the past few weeks in various news stories around the globe came rushing back to me as I was reminded of the terror and violence surrounding so many different scenarios. And then it came to me that the solution to these terrible events does not lay in human efforts but in spiritual ones.
          I was instantly drawn to say prayers for the victims of the attacks in Nice and for their families. I was also compelled to pray for the world and our battle against evil.
          Being that this is a blog about life purpose, you may wonder what a current event posting is doing here. The miraculous thing about life purpose is that it always involves service to others. Life purpose is never about me and mine but always about, “How can I help?” And “How can I serve?”
          One of my first gurus, Dr. Wayne Dyer used to say, “When you hear it once, it ceases to be news.”
          We can go over the events of Nice, France, Orlando, Florida, Texas, Paris, and any other place where terror has struck but going over these events and staying rooted in fear never solved anything. What we must realize is that this is a battle of spirit and not a battle of flesh. Flesh will always be weak and covered with ego will always want to fight, get even, seek revenge, and create more violence, war and turmoil. Spirit seeks peace, looks for higher solutions, is compassionate, loving, kind and strives for wholeness rather than separateness.
          On my knees in prayer is the only way I can help the violence of the world. Praying for humility, the willingness to forgive, the ability to be compassionate, kind, understanding and to only show love is the only way I can make sense of how to heal this broken world. Regardless of your religious beliefs, it’s easy to see Jesus, the Prince of Peace as an example to follow when trying to make sense of insane acts by humans.
          In our life purpose and through everything, God has a plan to draw us back to Him. But we have to be open and willing to receive the messages. In conclusion, I’ll mention that I lived in France for many years, my kids and I all hold French passports and have dual citizenship. As many European countries have, France has also lost faith in God for intellectualism. Churches and cathedrals are virtually empty on a Sunday morning. After the tragedy in Nice, I heard a news report about churches staying open for memorials and vigils and that flocks of people crowded to these churches in memory of the victims of the Nice attack. This is the second attack in France in a short duration. I’m not suggesting that God caused tragedy. It’s never God but our own free will choices that cause human tragedy. But it’s most often through tragedy that we find God.
 The same goes for your life purpose. Life purpose is not often revealed in great times. Most of the time, life purpose is revealed through hardship, tragedy, desperation, sadness and loneliness. It happens when we are so broken that we fall to our knees and awaken our relationship with God once again. But you don’t have to wait for those moments to occur. You can humble yourself now and ask, “How can I help?” And “How can I serve?” You can ask, “How can I use my God-given talents to make this world a better place?” And “What can I do to help bring peace to this world?” Ask and it will be revealed to you so you can be a beacon of light that lifts the energy of this world from darkness.
 Love,Michelle

Moving Toward Purpose: Cheerleader Party of One?

As you begin to pursue your life’s purpose, you may find that you are the only one who believes in what you’re doing. This is 100% totally normal and you shouldn’t feel like a freak. Get your pompons out and get ready to cheer yourself on.
            Life purpose tasks often involve taking great risks and moving forward despite setbacks. Most people don’t have the tenacity to stick with life purpose tasks long enough to push through the tough times. Life purpose also involves believing the unbelievable. When Guglielmo Marconi discovered that you could send messages wirelessly through the air, his friends checked him into a psychiatric hospital because they thought he had gone mad. Louis Pasteur was denounced as a quack when he proposed that microorganisms or germs caused illness rather than evil spirits or the earth’s elements.
            When I had told my then husband that I was planning on studying yoga, meditation & Ayurveda with Deepak Chopra at his center in California and that I was going to make a career out of these three, he thought I was completely crazy. I think he said something to the sort of, “Good luck with that.” Yet I knew, deep inside my heart that I could make it work. The same thing happened when I sought to be a published author. When I told people about wanting to get my books published, people looked at me pitifully as if to say, “You poor thing. You have no idea how hard it is.” Yet, I still had to believe that it would happen.
            When you start living your life purpose, no one may believe in you. Most people will think you’re crazy. It doesn’t matter as long as you believe in you. You are your biggest fan anyway. Soon enough you’ll have another person who believes in you just as much. But meanwhile, you have to be enough to propel yourself forward.
            In my experience, I’ve found that if you have no supporters, it’s best not to tell anyone about your life purpose activities. It’s hard enough to be a cheerleader for yourself without cheerleaders for the opposing team drowning you out. People have various reasons for not encouraging you, including being disappointed in themselves for not pursuing their dreams. But most often, I’ve discovered that most people just live within their own limitations as well as societal limitations. And if they are “warning” you that you shouldn’t be doing something, they feel they are protecting you.
            But in the end, even though it feels lonely, stay strong. There are many of us out there working hard toward living a life of purpose without social support. Envision all of us cheering you on to a flourishing finish! J

I am one of the lucky ones

As far as living life purpose goes, I should be considered one of the lucky ones. Since I was a kid, I knew I was going to be a writer (I also thought I’d be a film actor too, hmmmm). It took me a long time to come back to writing after multiple detours, but I got back here. I say that I’m lucky because most people don’t even know why they are here or don’t have a clue as to their life’s purpose.
     When I was 36, I had the opportunity to explore other talents. I had the good fortune of studying yoga, meditation and Ayurveda in Carlsbad, California at the Chopra Center. I’ve taught at various Chopra Center events with Deepak Chopra, which was something I could only dream of just a few years prior to actually doing it. In fact, I’ve often had these streams of good luck. In 2000 to 2001, I wanted to study journalism and had the good fortune of interning at CNN and Fox 5 News in Washington D.C. I’ve done plenty of cool things but the road hasn’t been easy.
Being lucky will get to far to a point. But after that you must have hard work, tenacity and a bit of stubbornness to get further.
     Much of the time I’ve felt like a cat stuck inside an empty tall aquarium trying to paw my way up to the top to get out and maybe reaching the top but then sliding all the way back down.
     Another thing about being lucky is that it’s a double-edged sword. You know luck will take you places and when it does, you have a tendency to loosen the slack, goof off a little and try to sail toward your next lucky break.
     For example, when I “luckily” got my book contract with New World Library, I felt on top of the world. How many authors try for decades to get a contract and here I literally walked into Book Expo America in 2014 and most literally walked out with a book contract. Lucky huh?
    Well...little did I know that getting a book contract with a major publisher is great but it’s only the beginning. Marketing your book is an even higher mountain than getting the contract.  Lucky breaks get you to the top but then you slide right back down.
     After all this time, I’m learning that luck can be used as a surprise gift that you weren’t expecting. It’s the surprise party a great friend throws for you. Or it’s the bonus commission check you receive for being an extra good employee. But it’s not often the one thing that will thrust you forward into your life purpose. And like a Vegas casino gambler, the luckier you are, the harder you fall.
     I’m not saying to discount luck. Please keep wishing for great things to appear into your life. Lucky breaks, amazing people and surprise money can and should come your way. Yet, make sure you stay grounded and realize that your lucky breaks are not for you to count on but to count as your blessings from heaven. And in the other moments keep moving forward toward your life purpose.

            What kind of luck have you had toward your life purpose?

Moving Toward Purpose

I’ve been climbing an uphill battle, a battle toward my life purpose.

For few, luck strikes and they find themselves thrust into a podium of praise, wealth and recognition. It seems like they never had to work toward anything. Childhood fame, a genius invention, or being born into an influential family, these people can make the rest of us look like failures. I mean what exactly is it that we’re doing wrong? And how weren’t we blessed with such immediate good fortune?
What we don’t often realize is that, a large majority of successful people living out their life purpose, were exactly where we are at one time. They were struggling, living with self-doubt, trying to make ends meet all the while knowing that they had a greater purpose out there than what they were currently experiencing.  And most of the time, climbing toward your life purpose is an uphill battle.
I’m starting this blog to get motivation. I need the motivation to not leave my path. It’s difficult out here seemingly all alone, on the road less traveled. (No silly pun intended, really.) For those who are not awakened to living a life of purpose, it can seem ridiculous, idealistic and downright irresponsible to pursue a path that to most, makes absolutely no sense. But to me, it’s the only way. I need to stay true to my heart, my soul and my God.
So here is the story, I will tell mine throughout this journey and for those who wish to share, I invite you to write comments and give yours. Together, we will make this journey more palatable and in the end, actually enjoyable. For the road need not gather up dust, but have the dust lifted up by the sheer numbers who feel compelled to join this remote path.
I know you’re out there with a calling in your heart toward your life purpose. Don’t ignore it. I’m here. And others are here supporting you and most of all, the Divine is supporting you in your mission.
Please share below. What is your heart’s calling?

Love,

Michelle