Can you see where you’re going on a really cloudy day?

Can you find your favorite shirt if it’s in a messy closet?

Do you know how you really feel if you’ve buried your feelings?

Can you promote your personal brand and attract the right customers if you are so busy that you’ve lost your passion and don’t even know who you are anymore? 

In all of these scenarios, the busy-ness and clutter of life and “shoulds” and “muchness” can keep us from clarity and what it takes to feel – and live – the way we want to. In business. In relationships.

In writing novels, our stories begin with an INCITING INCIDENT. It’s what gets the story rolling and is often a problem that kicks off the plot and motivates the protagonist with both inner and outer goals.

IN REAL LIFE, we all have inciting incidents. We have major events that shape our lives and even minor events that shift our perspective. We are constantly growing and changing which is why I encourage my clients to practice self-compassion and give them some grace regarding where to take their businesses if they feel they have lost their passion or are struggling with what to do to balance growing a business and still rocking their personal life. What are yours? Write them down. Think on them.

So, how do we find our north star? In my newest ONE BOW MANY ARROWS podcast, I review Martha Beck’s book, FINDING YOUR NORTH STAR. Check out the 5 Golden Arrows from the book by subscribing to my iTunes podcast OR listening here:

In the journey to finding our true purpose, we are on a teeter totter of dealing with the concepts of EMPTINESS AND FULLNESS, which I discuss in my latest Bow & Arrows video. (Below and on my Video page.) Sometimes we feel LOST because we feel empty – no direction, no passion, confusion. Other times we feel TOO FULL because our lives are too busy and we feel BURIED IN OUR TO-DOS. Yet emptiness can be a good thing because we NEED to get rid of the clutter to identify our core desires and how to get there. If you are feeling empty, you are already PRIMED FOR FILLING YOURSELF UP. Yay! Awareness is the key to our journey and where ALL THE ANSWERS LIE. This doesn’t mean that you will ACT on them, but I promise you the answer is there. Doesn’t mean it isn’t damn hard to deal with that “gem” when you’ve uncovered it.

How it works: I call it the Artemis Infinity Loop. You are the hunter and your loop goes like this – AWARENESS, ACTION, ASSESSMENT. It’s a PRIMAL instinct so it’s not like we can stop it from happening.

You’re in the cave, you hear something like a tiger outside in the bushes, AWARENESS. Your heart is pounding – you feel fear, yet you must protect yourself and family. You gather the courage and decide to check it out with your spear in hand, ACTION. You quietly tiptoe out, all senses blazing, and see that the noise is only a raccoon foraging, ASSESSMENT. So you go back to bed. The loop begins again. We make a thousand choices a day. THEREFORE GETTING BETTER AT MAKING DECISIONS IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS. The loop is your friend, yet we are often terrible at all three steps! We stay “unconscious” so we lack awareness or our minds are stuck in an untrue story about ourselves and our lives. When we act we might be afraid or ignore the awareness. Or we skip over assessment and find – ta-da – that same issue WILL ARISE AGAIN, because we didn’t deal with it properly the first time.

November is a great time to do this exercise for assessing what you accomplished this year – how you felt about it – and where you want to take your personal brand and business in 2017. I‘m teaching a workshop tonight MODERN MARKETING FOR A KILLER 2017 at The Collective in Edmond and have a few seats left (I’m keeping it small so we can discuss your goals) so INVEST IN YOUR BRAND and come if you can make it a priority. I think we’ll pop over and have a beer at the Patriarch after. I’m also offering the workshop as an e-course so use my contact form to let me know you are interested and I’ll send you the registration. Course is $99, four classes including a Powerpoint, video and worksheets PLUS a personal follow up via phone call to discuss your plan.

Coming up I’m also featuring The Collective Mermaids as part of my ongoing Mermaid series here on my blog. These are kick ass business owners and entrepreneurs I office with that I think you should know. They have amazing stories to tell. Subscribe to the blog so it will always pop into your email when I have a new post (which is about every other week if I’m managing my time right.)

Now…In personal news…I’m engaged! Life is full of pleasant surprises and my fiancé

has been a huge gift in my life the last two years. We told our friends at our annual Halloween party and since then we’ve been busy making plans for a May wedding. I was the Bride of Frankenstein. Appropriate, yeah?

Let’s finish 2016 strong! I’m here if you need me. xo