Gilligan’s Island ruined a generation. What did we learn from Gilligan’s Island? We learned that rich people are superficial, cowardly, and self absorbed. Having a lot of money was bad. Money corrupts.

What did we learn from the tobacco industry? We learned that selling is evil. We learned that people, corporations, will do anything to sell their product. Even if it kills us. If this isn’t evil, it’s pretty close.

Many of us got confused about selling. We thought that selling was something we did to people. But if you are connected to your mission, your movement, as my coach Suzanne Evans says, then selling isn’t something you do to someone; it is something you do for someone.

If you believe in what you’re doing, if you believe you have something to offer that is good for people, good for the world, then it is your moral obligation to let people know about it. This is selling.

I am a recovering selling-phobic. I am in the process of unlearning many things. Money is’nt bad; money is a magnifier. If the greedy, corrupt, narcissistic sociopaths have money, then they will do bad things. But if people with heart, empathy, compassion, and the vision for a better future for the world have money, then money magnifies their mission as well.

So those of us who were ruined by Gilligan’s Island and cigarette commercials need to get over it. It’s time, it’s way past time, for people of integrity and courage to step up and get abundant. And we need to take over the world! And the time to do that is now.

So here is my call to action for you: get over yourself, get over your fear of bothering people, get over your fear that money is inherently bad and step up. Lean in. Let go of all of your excuses. Get support, make a plan, and stick with it.

And here is an example of me stepping up and leaning in: do you need a coach? Do you need someone who can listen in to the deeper meaning that’s living inside of you and help draw you out? And have fun while you’re doing it? I’m offering free 15 minute consultations while I still have time to do that. I’m calling them play dates. If you want to play with me, contact my business manager Sandy Parker, at sandy@myefficientassistant.com to set up an appointment.

And remember: selling is not selling out.

Blessings,

Vicki

David Neagle, one of my mentors, tells a story about the most successful network marketer he knows. I don’t remember her name, this is how my brain works, but I do remember the essence of the story. This is also how my brain works.

She makes several million dollars a year. She has one simple plan: in the morning she takes 10 pennies and puts them in one pocket. Each time she asks for a sale, she moves a penny from one pocket to the other. She doesn’t stop until she has moved all 10 pennies from one pocket to the other.

You don’t have to be interested in network marketing to use this idea successfully. Anything you are trying to do that you are having trouble doing can be shifted by using this 10 pennies a day system. Want to exercise more? Put 10 pennies in your pocket and every time you move or dance or jiggle, even if it’s for only one minute, you get to move one penny. If you do five minutes per penny — I’ll bet you can do that math in your head and figure out that’s 50 minutes of exercise a day. Fifty minutes of exercise a day without doing anything elaborate.

You don’t have to go to a gym, you don’t have to ride that exercise bicycle in your garage that you bought two years ago that you’ve never used, you don’t have to do hot yoga. You just use your 10 pennies to infuse your day with movement. And you’d better have fun doing it. Fun is not a four letter word.

Or what if you are working on being more grateful? Same thing. Every time you speak your gratitude or an appreciation, you get to move a penny. You could transform your family or your workplace being grateful 10 times a day. Speaking your gratitude is the single most important thing you can do any day to improve your mood, and improve your health, improve your effectiveness, and make the world a better place. You are only 10 pennies a day away from saving the world.

Now here is what is really beautiful about this system: all of your excuses get exposed and you get a chance to let them die. Does the system seem too hard? Too bad. Do it anyway. Does asking for help 10 times a day seem impossible? Too bad. Do it anyway. Do you feel guilty not helping someone in need? Too bad. Let them help themselves.

Ten pennies a day is going to bring up all your guck. Yahoo!

Here’s my penny for the day: want to work with me as a coach? I’m still offering a free 15 minute consult. Just contact my business manager, Sandy, at sandy@myefficientassistant.com, and she’ll help you set up an appointment.

That’s one penny for me! Now it’s your turn.

Blessings,

Vicki

Excerpted from Woman with a Voice: Daring to Live Authentically Ever After

by Vicki Hannah Lein, MS Counseling © 2005

When we listen to a racist, sexist, or anti-Semitic joke we are colluding with hate. It is not easy to be the one who says “No.” We risk losing friends, approval, even family members. But what are we saying about ourselves and what are we teaching our children when we allow beloved Uncle Joe to tell yet another racist joke this year at Thanksgiving? Fighting injustice may be very expensive, but allowing injustice to flourish is toxic for our souls.

I don’t say this lightly. Stopping my dad from telling me a racist joke was one of the bravest things I have ever done. The irony is that my dad had taught me the evils of racism when I was a child, but on this day, when I was in my early thirties, he decided in a phone conversation that he could tell me such a joke.

As I realized what kind of a joke we were headed toward, I was terrified, my heartbeat was drowning my hearing, but Dad had crossed the line. Maybe I couldn’t always stand up for myself, but I could stand up for my children. I would not bring them up in a racist environment. There was not a cell in my body that could hear a nigger joke and remain silent. (I can barely type the letters to make that word.)

When I saw where the joke was heading, I interrupted Dad and said, “Dad, I don’t like those kinds of jokes.” I was as brave as I had ever been, facing a scary enemy, a man who I had seen physically attack my mother and verbally assault anyone who got in his way.

“My, aren’t we high and mighty,” he said. High and mighty — for not wanting to hear a racist joke? He was trying to shame me into submission, but I repeated, “I don’t like those kinds of jokes.”

He hung up, and that was the end of my relationship with my father. Oh, we have seen each other since, had a short lunch even, where I gave him pictures of my children and copies of songs I had written. But this was the end of his calling me or coming to visit, the end of the thin semblance of a relationship we had.

My father does not know my full name, nor would he recognize his grandchildren if he met them on the street. I have not spoken to him for more than ten years, not since I lost my vision, got divorced, remarried, and became an international speaker. Simply saying “no” to my father severed our relationship.

Was it worth it? Would I do it again? You betcha! The entry fee for a relationship with my father is too high. I will not sacrifice my deeply held beliefs in the hope my father might love me. I will not allow anyone in my life to abuse me or abuse those I love. I take a stand for justice, and I will not change that because I want someone to love and approve of me. This was a huge act of courage for me, the first of many steps that have led me to the life I now lead. I do not know how people can be truly happy, truly authentic, if they sacrifice their honor in order to be loved.

Epilogue

At Oregon State University in the summer of 2006 I was asked to present to a faculty class on the subject of “Finding Magic in Adversity.” (I am legally blind.) While there I passed around my book from which this excerpt is taken. When I wrote the book, I put a “spell” on it, — the “spell” is that I wanted it to be a book someone could turn to and find just what she needed.

When I paused for questions a woman at the far end of the table, way too far away for me to be able to see her, said, “Vicki, I was looking through your book and it fell open to the story about your dad trying to tell you a racist joke. I read the whole story. I am African-American and when I teach my class on discrimination, my students must deal with this issue when they return home for holidays and are faced with their relatives’ habits and attitudes. Thank you for writing this.”

I got chills. What were the chances that the one story I wrote about stopping a racist joke would be the story she would turn to and read? I guess my spell works.

Blessings,

Vicki

If people can use, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” as an excuse to burn people at the stake, people can ruin anything. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” seems fairly unambiguous to me. It does not come with an asterisk. This command from Jesus does not say, “Love people who are easy to love, people just like you, but go ahead and hate people who are different. Go ahead and blow them up, cover them with stones and let them be crushed to death.”

So if we can ruin something so simple and so clear, we flawed human beings can ruin anything.

For example, one would think people who do yoga regularly, would be living in the flow. Yet I have known yoga teachers who were anxiety ridden, perfectionistic, full of self-hate, and yoga bullies. Doing yoga regularly does not inoculate us against life.

Let me be clear: I love doing yoga. Yoga loves me. I even wrote a song about yoga: “Yoga makes me feel alive. Yoga improves my muscle tone. When I’m breathing doing yoga, I am in my body and completely at home.”

I have recently discovered EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique. Jack Canfield calls it psychological acupuncture. I’ve been a therapist for over 20 years, and EFT is one of the best techniques I have ever used. Brad Yates, whose EFT videos I watch regularly, says that EFT is like taking an emotional shower every morning. We brush our teeth, we wash our hair, but we don’t regularly clear out our emotions. EFT is great for keeping our emotions soft and flowing. I’ve been comparing EFT to rust-removing spray. Using EFT regularly keeps our emotions soft and easy to wash off. Otherwise, we get rusty and it is more difficult to get to our shiny greatness underneath. (Okay, I was a literature major. I love metaphors.)

But just as with anything else, we can ruin the EFT. If people are afraid to feel their emotions, they can use EFT as an escape from the messiness of grieving and loss. Instead of using EFT as a tool we can use to help ourselves free ourselves from emotional patterns that keep us trapped, people can ruin the EFT by seeing it as a way to avoid dealing with the ephemeral nature of our lives, the fragility of our lives, and the big truth we want to avoid: we are all going to die.

And lastly, people can even ruin the Law of Attraction. Just as religion is corrupted into a form of control, using fear to manipulate people to vote for who they want, the Law of Attraction can be corrupted into a way of controlling our future and everyone around us. Nothing is impossible according to the Law of Attraction. But have you seen anyone regenerating any arms lately? Have you seen anyone flying around the world without a plane? Of course not.

The Law of Attraction can be misused as a way to try to be perfect, to try to avoid the messy work of grieving and loss, a way to control everything. Just as when we use religion to bargain our way to safety, getting mad at God when we lose the game, or when we get cancer, we are disappointed when we cannot manipulate the world with the Law of Attraction.

Let me be clear: I believe the Law of Attraction works. I just believe that surrendering is better than trying to control everything. I believe that Divine Right Action is at work. I believe that my having a rare genetic disease, a disease which they can trace back to the family in Ireland that first mutated the gene, a disease for which the genetic marker was discovered from research on my family — I don’t believe my getting this disease was any kind of mistake.

I don’t believe I am being punished because I do not want to see the truth in my life. I believe glib formulas of “Oh, you broke your foot, then I know that means you are afraid to step out into the world,” are ways for the speaker to feel he or she has a control that does not exist for human beings. It might be true that you broke your foot because you are afraid to step out into the world. But let’s have a little more humility and a little less arrogance around this phenomenon, shall we?

Joseph Campbell said that life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. I much prefer the surprise and delight and struggle of learning to live the mystery of my life. I much prefer to believe that when the challenge comes my way it is a gift ready for me to unwrap and discover. It is not a punishment.

I am not saying that people who talk about the Law of Attraction are corrupt. I am not saying that the Law of Attraction is corrupt. I am saying we can ruin anything. Our need to be perfect, which is really our need to be safe and loved, corrupts everything it touches.

Wow! What now? So if we could ruin anything, what are we to do now? That’s easy: laugh at ourselves. We are very funny, we human beings. Aren’t we just hilarious in the way we try to control everything and then give it a spiritual face? We are hysterically funny! Let’s forgive ourselves immediately. Let’s forgive each other immediately. Let’s not take ourselves so seriously.

I, for example, am committed to finding where the rubber chicken meets the road.

Blessings,

Vicki