Although the main focus of this blog has been to detail the different aspects of the lives of billionaire women, I like to think that it goes deeper than that. After all, we are all human beings, no matter what our income level or our inheritance accounts. That’s why I think that it’s really important for us to take a step back from the every day routine to look inside. It also helps to know what you’re looking for when you peek inside your own dark abyss. Sometimes we like to think that we are all after something different, but Tony Robbins suggests that all human beings are only trying to meet the same few basic needs. One of these needs is the topic for this post today and I’ll go over the two sides of it in more detail now.

Photo by: Kristy

Achievement is…

Dictionary definition: A thing done successfully, typically by effort, courage or skill.

It seems today that everyone is fueled by the golden carrot of achievement. This carrot is dangled in front of us day and night and it is something that gets ingrained in us from birth through social conditioning. We want to succeed, we want to be the good child, the one who does well. So we try harder, put more effort into it and develop our skills. We achieve, whether it is what we want or not. We achieve at school and at work. Then we show off our achievements to everyone through the house we buy, the family we build, and the wardrobe we wear. For men everything revolved around their car, for women it can be the size of the ring on their finger or their beautiful home.

We live in an achievement driven environment and if we don’t have anything to show our achievements, then we feel inferior. Do you ever feel weak explaining your career choices to strangers or new acquaintances?

“Oh, I’m a nurse,” you say. Or a hair dresser, a shop keeper, a designer. It doesn’t or shouldn’t matter what your job title is, but somehow it can’t help but bother us if it doesn’t sound prestigious enough. That’s the achievement minded way of life that is making us feel inferior day after day.

Fulfillment is…

Now, fulfillment has two definitions and both of them sound wrong to my ears.

Dictionary definition #1: Satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one’s abilities or character.

This definition implies that you need to do a lot of work to develop your abilities or character, in order to experience fulfillment. The feeling of fulfillment itself is this satisfaction and happiness. But both of these emotions are short term, because satisfaction can be wiped off your face like a cloud covers the sun, and happiness is just a reaction. Yes, it’s unfortunate but happiness tends to be a reaction to some outside circumstance like getting the results you wanted.

Dictionary definition #2: The achievement of something desired, promised, or predicted.

The second definition of fulfillment depends on the achievement of a given thing. This is another way of describing the golden carrot that is dangled in front of us. Once we catch the carrot, only then can we be fulfilled. Even worse, according to this definition we need to achieve something in order to reach the state of fulfillment. So we keep the wheels turning, reaching for more and more achievements in order to get to a place of fulfillment. Because of course, once you reach the end of an achievement there is always something new and exciting that needs to be achieved. So by following this logic, there never would be a time or a place for fulfillment, since we are constantly reaching for our next accomplishments.

Image via Wikipedia

What You’re Really After is…

The real definition of fulfillment should be something more like this: A feeling of joy and a knowing that everything is right with you and the world.

Real fulfillment is when you wake up knowing that you are enough, you have everything you will ever need (or it will fall into place soon enough). You are filled with joy, with a deep lasting satisfaction that doesn’t disappear with the changing of circumstances. It is something that stays with you always and that cannot be shaken. Real fulfillment is a belief that you are whole, and yet a part of a greater oneness. It is a sense of being at one with the life force energy, sometimes called God, Goddess, or just love.

I’m not saying that we need to stop achieving anything and become lazy slobs. Of course we still need to strive to be greater and reach our goals. But we need to understand that this driving force does not need to be the only feeling in our hearts. We can be comfortable and joyful without the pat on the back we get from achievement.

How to Get Fulfillment

So how exactly do you wake up every morning feeling this true joy and love of fulfillment? It might be too simple, but the answer is that you go to bed feeling that way.

1. Before you close your eyes at night, feel at one with this great universal power of love.
2. Feel the smile stretch across your face.
3. Be grateful for everything that you are and that you have.
4. Count your blessings and know that you are enough.

You have enough and achievements are just like bonus shooting stars flying through the sky. You already have the whole sky and all of the stars to be satisfied with. When you wake up, you will feel lighter, more loving and truly fulfilled. Give this exercise a try for at least 30 days and get ready to be surprised by the benefits you experience in your day to day life.

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When it comes to people who are interested in spirituality, the law of attraction and other self-help topics, I have noticed a strange pattern. It seems that these people appear to outsiders as being more soft and this therefore results in them being exploited more. I don’t know about you, but I often find myself agreeing to do things for other people that I really don’t want to do. You might think that there’s a very simple solution to being in this predicament, and there is. Just say no. We all know this word, but sometimes mustering up the courage or the backbone to say it can be tough.

Photo by Christiane Michaud

How many times have you given in to a request to babysit someone’s kids when you were already busy. I’ve done that. How many times have you agreed to proof read someone’s resume (essay, dissertation, etc). Ditto. How many times have you let yourself invite someone who was pressuring you over for dinner? Ditto, ditto. How about pushy sales people who make you feel like you are getting a bargain and then add some hidden costs, while you feel obligated to finalize your purchase despite this fact. Ditto, ditto, ditto. What about tele-marketers calling during dinner? I think you get the picture.

Well this is where all of these push-over tendencies stop. Let us explore a bit more of this “yes-sir” type of mentality before I explain how I plan to stop saying yes to every request thrown at me.

Women Are The Selfless Caregivers

Starting at a young age we as women are taught that being nice is the right thing to do. I still believe that being nice is a good thing to aspire to and treating others with kindness is still important. What I don’t agree with is the notion that our first priority should be to please others. I know that there are a lot of culturally ingrained ideas when it comes to how women should act with others. In some cultures women are meant to serve their parents until they marry, and then to serve their husbands, and later to serve their children. With all of this selflessness, no wonder women are so used to agreeing to everyone’s requests. The requests that women agree to every day may seem trivial, but after years of saying yes and denying yourself some of your more basic freedoms, you really aren’t living for yourself anymore.

I have watched my mother go through years of denying herself the pleasures and goals that she wanted to reach. She would always put others before her, her parents, her husband, her friends and even me. Today she speaks of those days bitterly and I understand why. She was never living for herself, instead she was merely a nurturer in someone else’s life. I believe that there needs to be a way for women to draw a line and learn to say no for themselves. Contrary to what everyone believes, I think that an empowered and loving person is one who is able to say no when they need to. As such good spiritual leaders and wealthy people tend to be ones who are able to stand up for themselves and say no.

Saying No Empowers Others To Solve Their Own Problems

Sometimes denying someone your services or advice can help others solve their own problems. For example, instead of agreeing to make your teenaged children lunch every day of the week, why not teach them some independence and let them learn for themselves. Instead of agreeing to review someone’s homework or thesis, let them re-read it once more. Often times people don’t work as hard knowing that someone else is going to look over their work and fix things. Saying no gets them to produce high quality work from the get-go and is one way to empower them. The same goes for advice, if someone asks you to comment on their relationship troubles, you could just say you would rather not and ask them to walk you through a possible solution of their own. This lets them work through their problems on their own, while venting a bit, without getting you involved or responsible.

If You Don’t Stand Up For Yourself, Who Will?

We all hear about “the inner child” from various sources. You know, that little voice inside of you who wants to have fun all the time and who comes up with lots of crazy and sometimes successful ideas. But what about the inner parent? We rarely hear about the inner parent, but it is there. Usually it takes on the voice of a parent by telling you that you can’t do something, that you’re not good enough or that you should be careful. We tend to ignore this voice when we are passionate about our desires, and listen to it too much when we are fearful of failure. But what is the main purpose of the inner parent? It is to protect and help the inner child grow.

The inner parent is the one who should lay down the law and say no for you. When you get a request for something that you really don’t want to do, trust your inner parent to take care of you. Let your inner parent say no, and remember that your inner child is being protected by your inner parent at all times. The inner child can then come out and play without fear of being squashed by other people and their demands. This creates a more balanced and healthful way to live. So speak to your inner parent, love it, take care of it for it needs to be strong in order to protect your inner child and nurture it.

The Terrible Twos

The way to start utilizing your inner parent to its full potential is to revert back to your terrible two’s… at least for awhile, until your “no” muscles get strong enough. Here’s how you do it.

• Set aside 2 days where you will unapologetically say no to every request you receive, without exception.
• When someone asks you for a favor, for food/money/time, for your attention or for your advice, simply say no.
• It will feel weird at first, but that’s why you need to practice so much to get good at it again.
• To soften the blow, when you are turning people down you can add something along the lines of: “I wish I could, but I’m really not able to right now.” Don’t give an excuse, because people will try to talk you out of your excuse and appease you in order to get you to comply to their demands.
• Don’t make any exceptions. You can return to your usual yes-sir attitude after these two days, so stay strong and be firm.
• Others will recognize how much they ask you for things and they will be more conscious about asking for things in the future.

Good luck and may your inner parent and child work together to make you a strong willed woman!

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If you are an ambitious high achiever type of woman, then you have probably experienced first hand how hard it can be to try balancing out your personal relationships with your work. As billionaire women enthusiasts, we can learn a lot by taking a few steps back and noticing what other women and men have learned about the fragile balance of work and life. After all, we don’t need to balance our work and personal lives all by our lonesome, there are others out there to help us do this the right way.

Photo and caption by Ron Marshall

As Dave Navarro highlighted in his post about making the time for your family and your life, time is always ticking and there are moments that we can never truly recapture. Moments like your child’s first day at school, their theater performances, sports games and competitions, your spouse’s anniversary, your parents’ wedding anniversary and so on. From my observations, men tend to be more involved in their work and not have time to focus on some of these types of activities as much as women. However there are definitely times when a woman might decide that getting some work done and calling the babysitter to watch over her kids for the evening is a good choice. Indeed these situations are hard to judge on the spot, but if you come up with a plan for yourself with guidelines ahead of time, you won’t feel so guilty about your decisions.

Work Life Balance Exercise

Here is a quick activity that you can do that will relieve all of your work/life balance stress, if you put it in practice.

1. Write down what activities and events take precedence over your daily home life routine. For example if there is a business meeting with clients that comes up and you are asked to be present, decide whether or not this is more important than going home and spending time with your family. You might decide that these meetings are only important if you are going after a promotion more aggressively, or if you feel that the clients need more attention to make a deal. On the other hand you might decide that company events such as dinners and galas take precedence only if you do not have any engagements with your children or spouse. For example you would choose to go to a school play over a company dinner, or vise versa. There are no wrong choices here, as long as you make them ahead of time and stick to them. Of course after working with these decisions for awhile, you should review your decisions and see if you need to make any adjustments based on your new experiences.
2. Write down what home life activities and events take precedence over work. These might be things like taking your children to the dentist, doctor, or hospital. Or things like your children’s school activities, parent-teacher night, your spouse’s night to make dinner, etc. These will vary wildly based on who you are, what type of a family you have and what your priorities are.
3. If you choose to do so, you can let you boss know about this new framework that you have put in place for yourself. It will help you stick to your commitments and if you feel guilty about skipping out on a business breakfast to bring your kids to school, your boss and coworkers will understand and even encourage you to stick to your commitment.
4. Every few months, take the time to review the priorities that you’ve set in place and see how they are working for you. If they aren’t, then make the adjustments necessary. I recommend that you write everything down on paper or in a document on your computer. It is much easier to refer to something that is written down than to try to remember why you decided to place priority on working overtime instead of on cleaning the house, a few months down the line.

I am personally putting this system into practice in my daily life and already I am seeing some good results. I do not yet have any children of my own, but I am prioritizing time spent with my parents, my grandparents and my partner in order to feel good about both my work and my life. I really think that once you are clear about your expectations for yourself, you will feel great making those quick work/life balance decisions and sticking to them. Not to mention being able to relax knowing that you are not missing any of the important moments in your family member’s lives, because we all know that time flies and if you don’t make an effort to be there for your family, you might regret it when they are all grown up.

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Photo by: Andrey Sukhanov
With many articles surfacing recently about the pay inequalities between men and women, I have been asking myself a few questions. Most of the people who are commenting on the article posted in Portfolio are saying that women should stop complaining about inequalities in salaries. They say that women have come a long way, and that it is time to focus on bigger issues in society. Now I have personally been on both sides of the fence, when it comes to the salary differences that are still being observed between men and women in the workforce. I do believe that how much money men and women earn should not be our main priority, when there are starving children, global warming and animal extinctions around the world. Yet at the same time, I can’t help but look at the numbers and realize that women are not equal in our society. This brings up the question of what equality means and what we should be striving for when it comes to an acceptable balance between the sexes.

Focusing on the important things in life

Before taking a look at the equations for equality between men and women at the workplace and at home, let us take a look at what is most important in life. Most people realize that life is short and that to truly enjoy it, we must do the things we love and focus on what is important to us as individuals, family members and members of a community. To some people this means expressing their creativity, teaching others, volunteering their time, raising a family, growing a garden or running a large farm, and starting a business. Everyone has different core values, and it is possible that a majority of women are raised to uphold certain values higher in their hearts than men do. For example, women tend to be raised with the ideals that having their own family is paramount. They are also raised to take care of others before themselves, to always play nice and to be a good girl. On the other hand, men tend to be raised to think that winning is crucial to success, that they need to achieve big things in order to make a difference and that they need to be strong and take care of their family in a protective measure.
As we can see, these two views of life are bound to have an impact on the types of work and the amount of energy put into certain jobs by men and women. As a more concrete example, a woman might decide to leave her job if her children need to be homeschooled, or if her husband needs to relocate. On the other hand, men might feel the need to take an assignment that is overseas to prove that he can handle the new challenges and that he is a winner. These scenarios are both acceptable, and there are certainly cases where men would be leaving their jobs to allow their wife to pursue her career, and some women who would uproot their families just as much as men do. These male-like females tend to have been raised with similar values as most men are, and vice versa for men who are happy to become house husbands and primary caretakers.

Equality at the workplace

From the perspective on an employer, seeing that your female employees are leaving the company or wanting to cut back on their hours to focus on their personal lives might seem like a negative. In addition, seeing men that are go-getters and willing to take on any challenge no matter the cost to their personal lives shows men in a more positive light. Managers might naturally select men as those worthy of a promotion in these cases. Of course not all cases are like this, and there are certainly women who have decided that the traditional family life is not for them, and chosen to focus on advancing their careers. Unfortunately, these widespread stereotypes do influence managers and when it comes down to the bottom line, the pay of women and men. Today most companies still operate under the paradigm that the more a person is present at work, producing value, interacting with others and “putting in the hours”, the more productive they are. However, after speaking to a few managers at some of the companies I have worked for, this trend might be changing. There are more people tele-commuting to work, or taking one day per week for their personal lives or taking care of their children. The firms who are embracing these new ways of treating employees will benefit from the work that employees can do without sacrificing their values. And as we all know, employees are happier in their personal lives tend to do better work.

Equality at home

Photo by: Anita Gould
The whole problem with pay inequality actually stems from inequalities at home. Single men and single women might measure similarly, when considering salaries. However when we add adults with families to take care of, we can see the balance tilting because most women tend to be the default caretaker at home. Why would this impact salaries? Mainly because women need to attend to more things outside of work, while men can focus all of their attention on their work. Traditionally men were the breadwinners and women stayed home with the children. Today women have entered the work force, but they have not necessarily been given leave from their primary job: taking care of the household and the children. Yes there are alternative arrangements: some families use babysitters, daycares or grandparents; some have house husbands, and others just don’t have children. But overall, the norm is still that women must be available for their children when they come home from school, they must prepare meals, drive children to their extracurricular activities, help with homework, do laundry, clean the house, and the list goes on. Modern society kind of sweeps all of these activities under the title of “Soccer mom”, but we don’t really analyze what this does to the earning power of women.

Is it good to complain about these inequalities?

For the most part I don’t think it is a good idea to complain about pay inequalities. One quote which is very a propos here is:

“What you resist persists.”

So if we continue to gripe and whine about the injustices of society and companies who are being sexist… well guess what? We will continue to create more of these problems. I think it is important to know that these issues are out there, to take the time to consider them and form opinions about them for ourselves. But at the same time, I don’t think it is fair to blame anyone, not the men in our lives, the men who are at the head of large companies or even the women who continue to live with this paradigm. We are all here to experience personal growth, and if pay inequalities are something that we are not willing to accept, then we can simply raise the issue with our own families, coworkers and bosses. But complaining never got anyone further in life. So let us focus on what is important to us: creating a beautiful loving and welcoming planet for everyone to live on.

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After reading a few self help books or listening to a few episodes of Oprah, most women realize that in order to change things in your life you need to take control of it. But taking charge of your life might seem to be a bit hard at first, because life might appear to be out of our control. But there’s an easy short cut to taking control of your current circumstances and steering them into a new direction: a direction that serves you and empowers you. This short cut might seem completely unrelated to your current unfavorable circumstances, but once you apply it in your life you will see how quickly things will begin to shift and the things you want will just start to unfold for you. The trick is to let go of your old story.

Everyone does it on occasion: we tell people our story and make ourselves sound pitiful. Sometimes we do it because we want advice, we want to be comforted, or we want people to know where we are coming from. But the truth of the matter is that our story does not define us and really doesn’t serve our highest good either. But how exactly do you know if you carrying around a victim’s story and if you are, how do you stop telling over and over again? The first step is to recognize the moments where you tell your story, then to just stop telling this bad rep of yours, and finally to replace it with a new and fulfilling story. Let’s see how we can do that.

Recognize What Your Story Is

The first step to taking charge of your current situation and making a change is to recognize that you may be spouting off a negative story about yourself. I cannot assume that every person carries a bad story along with them. However, let me explain what this story sometimes sounds like and try to see if you have ever heard anyone else tell you such a story. After you recognize it in other people then you are more likely to see this story in your own interactions with people. Let’s take the example of Susan, she is 35, single, overweight and lost her job recently due to her company downsizing. If you just met her she would tell you these facts or a combination of them. She might say “I’m just one of those unlucky people, you know how it is.” Or she might say that she never loved her job anyways and that the gym membership was always too expensive. Or she might explain that she chose to be single because it suits her lifestyle, in an apologetic and “don’t worry about me” kind of way. She might not say these things to everyone, but every now and then these things that she is unhappy about would creep into the conversation.

Although you may not be in the same situation as Susan, you might find yourself telling people that you were never good at Mathematics, or that you just don’t get finance. You might tell people that your kids are your only focus in life and that’s the way you like it. These may not be bad things in themselves, but you should not make excuses for yourself and you should certainly not be telling other people about these shortcomings of yours. Remember that whatever you say consistently becomes reality. So the more often you tell people your story, the stronger it gets and the more it multiplies. If you are always complaining about your weight, just watch the weight add on. If you always blame others for the problems in your life, watch how these other people will continue to create problems for you to “deal with.”

Stop Telling People Your Story

Now that you might have realized that your story is not supporting you it is time to let it go. Consider the analogy of the chair: your story is like carrying a heavy chair with you everywhere that you go. You might bump into things, get stuck trying to pass through doorways, hit other people with it, not to mention just get tired of carrying it around. You might start showing it to people and saying “do you see my chair?” and “how do you like my chair?” or “this is my chair, it is always there with me.” People will definitely get sick of you talking about your chair, especially since they can clearly see the chair and you describing it just makes it worse. If you put yourself in the position of the observer you will see that you know about the chair but talking about it over and over again is annoying. So how do you get rid of your old story? You just stop carrying the chair around with you.

This might sound overly simple. And it sort of is! One practical technique to stop carrying your story around with you is to write down your usual story. Just write it all down once in your notebook, journal or on your computer. Then take the piece of paper or the file and “put it away.” You can put it in an envelope or you can file it in your file cabinet or save it in a folder on your computer. Don’t look at it again. And make a pact with yourself never to tell that story again. It might be hard at first not to revert to old habits. But you can stop yourself mid-sentence if you have to. In fact you will find that to stop telling your old story it is easiest to start telling a new one.

Start a New Story About Yourself

Now this is the fun part! You get to decide what your new story will be. Take some time for yourself, get into your pajamas or an uplifting outfit and sit down with a pen and paper or your computer and write your new story. You don’t have to be an excellent writer to do this. You don’t have to make your story poetic or epic, but you can if you want to. Decide on what is important to you in your life. There are several different aspects of life that you should write about too, not just your career or your finances. For example you should write about how amazing each of these aspects of your life really are: your relationships, your health, your career, your finances, your connection with nature, your creative side, your home, your food program, your friends, your family and so on. Write everything you want right now in the present tense. Remember that this is your new story, your new way of life and it is a reality. It is replacing your old story and it will move you toward these goals faster than you would ever imagine.

Write everything you want to experience right now. Our example lady Susan could write something along these lines: I wake up every day beside my wonderful and supportive husband, I exercise for 45 minutes before sitting down to a wonderful breakfast of fresh fruits. Then I drive my new car to my new job at Wonderful Company, where I am head of marketing and I work with the brightest and nicest people. I have more money than I could ever spend or count and I love going on vacations with my husband every few months.

Of course you would want to make your new story even longer and more in depth. And the next time that someone asks you any questions, just tell them your new story. This is not considered lying, if Susan were to tell someone that she is in the process of relocating to a Head of Marketing position, no one would deny this fact. On the contrary, they might offer their suggestions or contact information for someone who might be able to help Susan get such a position. Similarly if Susan said that she is starting a new exercise regime, the person would commend her on making such positive changes in her life and maybe even offer some advice or encouragement. Everyone can use a little bit more encouragement, so I think that telling people about your new goals is always a great way to boost your confidence and motivate yourself. Of course you should not say that you are a billionaire already, since people might react strongly to that one. But certainly telling them about some of your tamer visions is going to elicit lots of helpful comments from people.

Summary
-Look at your conversations in the new few weeks and recognize that you may be telling a negative story.
-Drop the story right away!
-Replace your old negative story with a new positive one. Dig deep to find your true passions and desires.
Just watch what happens in your life after you implement these simple changes in your communications with others.

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Photo by Belinda Hankins Miller

In my post on how to start down the road of financial freedom, I mentioned the first three steps to becoming wealthy. But one of the things that I wanted to revisit is the idea of gratitude. When most people think of gratitude, they probably think of Thanksgiving. Think about it, if we made a holiday to remind us to give thanks for what we have, there must be good reason. And there is! Being thankful for what we have is one of the most powerful practices that you can develop on your road to prosperity.
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Every day we make decisions, some of them are trivial while others might impact the direction that our lives take. Compare the choice of eating a hamburger or bringing a salad from home. It might seem trivial, but if done consistently it will make a big difference in your life. Similarly, when it comes to making big decisions you may find yourself tempted to take the easy road, or to shrug off any possible consequences. Let me share a few examples with you.

When faced with a decision between two job or career path opportunities someone might be tempted to pick the one that gives them instant gratification. They may realize that there are more potential benefits in the long run with the less appealing option, but they might get side tracked into short term thinking. Saying things like “if I don’t like this job I can just do it for one or two years and then move onto something else.” But the problem with this type of thinking is that we tend to convince ourselves that the current situation is the only possibility. Have you ever started doing something, thinking you could stop at any point in time, but found that you’ve gone on doing it more than you ever imagined, simply because the years seemed to fly by?

Starting smoking comes to mind here. Some people take up smoking thinking that it is a habit that is fully under control, but then a few years go by and when they decide they want to stop, it’s almost impossible. I think smoking is just an example here, because there are tons of other things in our life that are like that. I think careers is definitely one of them. If you get into the groove and develop a habit of accepting your current job, you will stay there and let inertia keep you under control. You might even grow roots under your desk!

Sometimes it takes an outside circumstance to wake us up and to realize that we want more in life than a stagnant career or job. We are creative beings at our core, so it is crucial to make the decisions that do not box us in. Returning to the original example of choosing between two career paths: make the decision that makes your heart sing right now. Follow your gut instincts, and don’t listen to all of the people around you who might be doubting you. Sometimes other people do not understand your point of view, since they are not yet ready to realize they may be stuck in their own form of inertia.

So if you are currently stuck in an unfulfilled career, relationship, or addiction, it is time to take action. No one said it was easy to follow your gut instincts and do the things you know are right for you. There will always be people around you questioning and judging your actions. But remember that you are always loved no matter what, and let them keep talking.

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