2010 Year in Review Post – a Big, Transformational Year

Last year at this time, my entire life was nearly completely different than it is today. I’ve resisted writing my 2010 year in review post because it feels like there is so much to write, so much to think about.

But now that my big end of the year call is over, I can focus on it.

Okay here goes …

Last year at this time, I lived in LA, I had not yet created my Money Map program,  was putting final touches on LIFT, had a business with Dave (my life and business partner of 3 years).  My lawyer coaching business was on track to bring in big revenue for the year ($1.5mm) and my overhead was out of control. Todd and I were living together and parenting the kids together, sort of.

In the midst of all of it, I felt like I wanted to blow something up.

Life was good, really good (though sometimes it didn’t feel that way), and I knew it could be far better if I could let go of really good for off the charts unbelievable.

It was hard, and I did it anyway.

2010 has been a year of letting go, going within, getting clear, rebuilding on a healthy, strong, radically honest (with myself and others) foundation.

It all really began in late 2009, as I experienced my first medicine journey and began working with Tim Kelley, both experiences showing me how I really wanted to be in the world.  And the gap of how far away I was from that.

It was around this time that I came to realize what suffering really is – it’s awareness of and being in the gap between who you know you are and how you are showing up in the world, at least it was that for me.  It can be painful to be in that gap.  And yet, necessary.

In late September/October 2009,  Tim attended a mastermind meeting I hosted and he did a purpose/working with my parts session (voice dialogue) with me.  As I left the room after working with Tim, I had this awareness come over me that within a year, my entire life would be different.  Totally, radically different.

And I remember in that moment, nodding my head yes.  I was ready.  I accepted the challenge.  I knew it would bring up all sorts of emotional stuff, and I was ready to sit in the fire and go for it.

Within three months, on the first day of 2010, we moved to Colorado.

In the first two months of the year, I launched the first Money Map to Freedom course and my LIFT Foundation program.

Within months, I let go of the entire team that ran the lawyer training business I had built and I stepped into many of their roles as I rebuilt the organization from the ground up.

I brought in an interim CEO to help me understand how to rebuild the company.  He made me really look at where I was in the way of my business and what I really wanted.

Together, we invested months to create the foundation for a business that now has the potential to substantially  impact and serve millions of people by guiding lawyers to profitable, sustainable new paradigm relationships with their clients.

I am still in amazement at how deeply I had to let go for that to become a possibility.

I went into 2010 with the strong intention to see if it was truly possible to move from a stage 2 to stage 3 entrepreneurial business and create passive revenue.  A part of me had stopped believing it.

If you read my past posts over the year, you may see from them that there were times I simply did not think it was going to be possible.  I was scared.  My mind was pessimistic.   This is where I had failed in my law firm.  I had gotten impatient and turned the reins over to someone who couldn’t run the systems I had created.

I was terrified to make the same mistakes again.

Thanks to Bryan Franklin, I  had good counsel through the process.  That was imperative because I would have for sure given up without it.

Bryan helped me find and hire Hitch McDermid, the interim CEO I brought in to help me rebuild the company on a new foundation.  In many ways, he saved me.  I needed someone who could navigate me through the emotional roller coaster (that Cameron Herold talks about here) and keep me focused when I lost clarity and found myself wanting to give up because it was just too much.

With Hitch’s help, we revamped our flagship program for lawyers so it is now scalable, which means our programs can serve a whole lot more lawyers without any additional time on my part.  And I am eternally grateful to Kyra Howell, Andrew Baber, and Jo Ann Hillery for their help with that project.

Hitch showed me how much I could do with a much, much, much lower overhead.

Once we dropped our overhead, we were able change our pricing model to make our programs far more accessible and these changes prepared us for partnerships that are now bringing it all beyond the beyond in 2011.  And, long story short, I’m once again excited about this business in a way that I have not been for quite a long time.

David Feakes, Darlynn Morgan, Gerry Kane, Nicole Newman – you have been with me since the beginning and I’m grateful that you’ve hung in through all of it.  It’s your commitment to a new way of practice that has made it all worth it for me.

In late July, I went on a date  with an old friend, fell in love and got married – at Burning Man. I thank Hitch and Bryan for this again because they inspired me to relax into my feminine far more than I ever had before.

Through that experience, I launched the Powerful Feminine Leader Program for other women who were pained by doing it the old masculine way and ready for something different.

I’ve felt so blessed to coach amazing powerful women who are relaxing into their feminine, taking action from a place of more clarity than they ever have before, and having a far greater impact in the world. Manisha Thakor, Alice Armitage, Chen Yen, Michelle Conboy, Kia Kiso, Philippa Kenneally, Mikhaila Stettler, Chelsea Moser, Elizabeth Purvis – I am beyond proud of each one of you and grateful for the opportunity to support you to be more of you.

The last quarter of 2010 has been the beginning of a massive integration of various parts of myself.

Eden, Peru, new family and friends to venture deeper with in 2011 and beyond – Rebecca, Sean, Melodia, David, Joy, Annie, Jeffrey – looking forward to so much more of you.

I have finally gotten clear about who I am, why I am here, and exactly what I am meant to do (and not do) in the world.

2011 is about living it, deeply.  And bringing you with me.

I couldn’t, no wouldn’t have done any of this without a decision-making framework in place that let me move beyond ego and image and step into who I really am with the comfort of knowing I could support my family and work through it.

That framework is the Money Map.  A gift the Universe gave me at the end of 2009 to support me stepping into my purpose.

If you’d like to hear the end of the year call I hosted about the Money Map and hear me reveal more about my journey than I ever have before, register here to get the recording or join one of the encores.

And if you are ready to build your own Great Business around your Great Work and live a Great Life and make a Great Living while you do it, join me for the first two months of 2011 and let me help you build your custom business model.

As I sit here on the eve of a new year and new decade, I’m more excited than ever at what is coming.

I feel more in my purpose than I ever have before.

I’m working closely with a good friend, Craig Filek, founder of Purpose Mapping, to take the Eyes Wide Open business to stage 2. We have a charter group of Money Map Master coaches in place and ready to serve (congratulations to Rebecca Prien, Scott Garver, Renee Henderson, Alycia Edgar, and Felicita Sanchez for stepping up in such a big way!), a big team meeting in Colorado the weekend of January 13/14 to strategize our own business and create our Company Bible, and I’m grateful for the amazing team of people I get to work with this year.  Debbie, MaryKay, Craig, Kelly, Jeremie, Jonathan, Cathy, Dawn, Corey, Kim and Lisa – thank you, thank you, thank you.

Personally, my best friends, Joanne and Martha, both live nearby (which is always so funny to me considering we all met in CA and now all live in CO) and are consistent sources of extraordinary support to me and the kids, and my relationship with Russell is deepening into something I know will bring more to the world.  And thanks to Charu Morgan and Jolette Jai, we are so supported.

And I’m exceedingly grateful for those of you who show up here every time I write a post, whether you share a comment or not, know that I am grateful to you and I hope to “see” a lot more of you here in 2011 and beyond.

Here’s to you and your Great Work!