I was sitting at brunch the other day with a friend. I was feeling perfectly happy and was thinking she might need some good energy. She had crossed the million-dollar mark in her business and was wondering if perhaps having hit that important milestone was affecting her motivation. Somehow it didn’t quite feel how she imagined it would. Of course I love helping people find their next level of motivation and impact, so I felt like I was in my territory. I wasn’t expecting a breakthrough.
My book is still unwritten.
As we were exploring some of the loves she had before her business took center stage, I learned that she is quite the writer. Short stories, screenplays, wow. We talked about that and I got very excited to see what she might write next.
We continued to talk about a variety of things, and then I brought up my own writing. I told her how I had a book half written, and I couldn’t quite figure out why it wasn’t completed, and that I wanted to get to the bottom of this. Because I know that when human beings have a clear goal that is important enough we blow past all resistance to make it happen. I thought maybe I was afraid of the permanence of print but couldn’t quite put my finger on the resistance. It could be a lot of things.
See, I started the book a month before “the Universe made me gay :),” i.e. I became suddenly aware that the reason I wasn’t manifesting the man of my dreams was that he wasn’t a man. 🙂 [If you missed it, I had a sequence of uncanny signals that got me on a new path to happiness!]
In so many ways my world was quickly turned upside down. I met my love, I systematically informed my friends and family, and started to learn all of the little nuances of things that had changed that I’d taken for granted in the straight world. I also learned profound lessons about the power of our subconscious mind, and the freedom that comes from trusting our Truth no matter what (my best friend suggested I was wrong!). Yet I couldn’t begin to put them on paper.
And here was this book I was intending on writing. And truly, while I was in a whirlwind, in the big picture nothing had changed. And yet I no longer knew what the hell to write about.
Why being gay is like a million dollars.
So I was hypothesizing about my lack of ambition for this book, and my dear friend, heartbroken over making a million :), suggested, “Your gay is like my million dollars.”
Huh? I thought. But I sat with it a minute and I got what she was saying, and she was right. It pissed me off because I wanted it to be different, which is exactly the point she was making.
To me everything about the last year of my life is so significant. I walk down the street with a giant smile on my face wondering if people can tell what’s going on with me, and delighting in the knowing that I’ve unlocked a key to happiness for myself.
Nothing about it is as I pictured, yet once I surrendered my belief about how I thought it should be, I manifested my dream. And the skies didn’t part, time didn’t stop, and quite frankly, no one cares.
No one cares if you’re happy. And really no one should…
So, truly, over the course of the last year hardly a day goes by that someone doesn’t comment on how happy I appear, and how glad they are for me, so I’m being a little extreme here. But no one’s cares if you’re happy, and no one should… except you.
When my friend crossed a million, she turned to her team member and informed her, and they both said, “cool,” and that was the extent of it. The world did not stop, and at the end of the day no one cared. Same with me coming out of the closet. No drama, no fan fare, nothing.
And yet she’s made well over a million and I am deeply happy. So now what?
It’s only your dream until it’s reality. (Even if it was never your dream.)
I did dream of an amazing relationship, even though I had a different view of it. She dreamt of 7-figures. Some people dream of a mobile business. Some dream of a house or a car or a certain vacation. And inevitably once you get there, while you may enjoy it deeply, I am beginning to believe it will never have the fanfare we expect.
This could be a sad fact, or an exciting case for enjoying every single step of the journey!
Sometimes you’re called to lead. Sometimes…
I’ve built my business on being transparent, and sharing with you the higher order lessons of my insights, ah-has, breakdowns and failures. I believe this is the way in which I’m called to lead on this planet.
And yet the most profoundly insightful time of my life has drawn for the most part a big blank. What I realized over brunch is that I hadn’t noticed this. I’ve spent the last year waiting for the big ah-ha to smack me over the head. “Universe, please reveal to me the earth-shatteringly deep reason you’ve given me this crazy experience.”
And waiting is not the best entrepreneurial energy! What if no ah-ha is coming? What if the ‘big why’ is simply me being happy, and there is no burden of making it anything other than that? Huh. That just might be a million-dollar insight.
Why saying less is more. Unless it’s not.
Often my clients hold back on sharing their stuff because they think it’s not important or profound enough. They really need to say much, much more to connect people with them and their stories and allow people to see their natural brilliance (my clients all come by it honestly).
Yet sometimes less may be more. Perhaps I don’t need a perfectly crafted story about how the subconscious patterns of my mind kept me from my Truth for most of my life. And how the exact right combination of environmental circumstances changed everything. Perhaps words aren’t necessary. Because our energy communicates louder than any words could. Maybe just modeling being happy in the world is enough.
And I can write the same damn book I was going to write in the first place… with maybe just a bit more credibility for a happy life.