Advance Yourself: A work in progress

Reflections from the last year….

Hi everyone!  Whew - it’s been a bit of a hiatus from this blog!  Since I  last wrote, I was on the journey of trying to understand and help my clients understand what was the “right” path. Part of that journey involved getting pregnant, growing my business in triple, learning some valuable business collaboration lessons, giving birth, and completely losing all structure and order in my world for 3 months to care for a darling baby girl (who did not feel so darling at the time believe you me).  What was immensely helpful was actually deciding that I would do a “soft return” to work.  In late January, I started taking clients again and found that I had to find ways to create patterns, habits and my sweet girl would follow suit.  My first session back felt like an out of body experience.  Here I was in my home office and my baby with a babysitter in the next room, doing something from my “old” life - before I was a mother.  It was totally surreal - because what happens when you become a mother, from the day you actually give birth onward, you physically, emotionally and spiritually never feel the same.  It is almost as if you can barely RELATE to what life was like before you had this baby. It’s totally scary.   What I didn’t expect was incredible rush of joy: to be doing something I love doing and helping others.  Let-down reflex? You bet.  TMI? Oh well. :-) 

The good news on the parenting front is that it really does get better with time.  This tiny human which basically lives to eat, sleep and poop starts to develop a personality and appreciates all the work you do.  Now, just a smile from her completely melts me and creates that crazy in love feeling I always heard parents talk about with their kids but could not understand it until I experienced it myself. 

Anyway, I digress. 

I’m really excited to continue exploring the “Advance Yourself” space as a coach and mom.  My intention is to create posts that give some insight and inspiration to our generation - those that want to “have it all” and those that question “what having it all means?”.   And of course, figuring out how to advance our careers and our lives in practical ways.  My next post will talk about a career mom who found a new job in less than a month by exploiting her networks.  Can you say connector?   

Feel free to follow, share, comment - let’s open up the space! 

All the best,

 

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Alignment: Featuring Designer Melody Ehsani

Where did the first month of 2011 go? I know that I went to the gym 8 times and met with all my coaching clients but I certainly meant to get more done.  It is a confusing feeling when we see time flying by.  Especially when the bigger questions are still yet to be answered… 

Am I going in the right direction? 

Do I want the right things? 

How do I know if I am right? 

The question of rightness continues to amaze and baffle me.  When I coach others, I try to point out the fallacy of the dichtomomy of right and wrong when it comes to lifes choice.  However, I’ve come to realize that “right” really means “good”  for many of us - which actually becomes a moral issue, and it’s where we get stuck.  

I had the chance to meet up with an old friend and now hot hot hot fashion designer, Melody Ehsani. If you are a lover of shoes, jewlery or design, then you owe it to yourself to check her out.  In the past 5 years, she has outfitted celebrities such as Beyonce, Keri Hilson, LMFAO and most recently, Lauryn Hill.   But if you knew her back when, she was like many of us, worrying about having the right career and the right husband, when one day she realized that none of that would really bring her happiness. 

Over a sumptuous brunch at Southport Grocery and Cafe in Lakeview, we talked about what has been happening in our lives the past few years, her work success, my marriage and leaving New York City, and her amazing meeting with Lauryn Hill the night before.   

“How did you do it, Melo? Why do you think you have been so successful?” I asked her point blank.  

“I wanted to be good”, she said simply.  ”I had to realize that my idea of good was really everyone else’s idea and not who I was put in this world to be. Once I became aligned with my true calling, everything fell into place.”

She went on. “Everyone I knew thought I had literally gone insane because I had never studied design or made anything in my life.  But I tried not to let that get to me, because inside, I felt like I had to keep going.  I took classes, did an internship and found a manufacturer in China to make my first collection”. 

The rest is history.  Many fashion forward, trendetters got wind of her work and inevitably that included many famous music entertainers. 

What amazed me the most was that Melody was in the most incredibly grounded and genuinely spiritual state I had ever known her to be.  It was touching and moving. 

“This is my divine blueprint - I believe I was designed to design.  If we all could just find what God designed us to do, we would be aligned with God’s plan for us to be of service to the world.  I believe this is my service and my calling.”  This was no starstuck celebrity chaser; this was a woman who influences and inspires a group of people that influences millions of others.  

For Melody, this is her “right” path, or rather her aligned path.  It feels wrong when our bodies are out of alignment, how more so if our careers, relationships and work are as well.  

But, we have to give up the fear of not being “good”, which is what I learned from Melody.  You can’t worry about what others will think, if you will fail or if you will suceeed.  You just have to go in the direction that feels right and the confirmations will come.   

It’s not just as simple as, “You have to believe in yourself.”  You have to believe that God, The Universe, the Force or whatever you think is larger than yourself actually has created you with special talents and skills to offer to the world and wants you to fullfill your purpose.   

We all have a purpose.  Now we just have to find it…… !?! 

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think about alignment…. And, click here to learn more about my professional coaching services.