Motivational Leadership Speaker, Bestselling Oprah Author

Archive for August, 2008

Do you ever notice that, when you go into a funk, it is so hard to do the simple things that will lift you out of it?

Like, you know that you feel better if you exercise, but you can’t make yourself put on your shoes and go for a walk — not even it is to just go down the block. Or, you know that affirmations work and take no time at all, but you can’t make yourself do them. So, you start off feelin’ the blues and slide into a funk and wind up in a full-blown depression. Five pounds later, you wonder what happened.

I think we have to consciously do everything we can to keep from sliding into the darkness. Too often, we wait until it is too late. I had lunch with one of my best friends yesterday and she’s on a real downswing into a depression. Note: she makes her living as a clinical therapist. So, when we started talking about what she needed to do to climb out of it, she couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t take the tiny steps she’d need to take in order to begin feeliing better.

I have had my dark moments. I felt like I was sliding into a black hole several years ago when my mother started showing signs of Alzheimer’s. She couldn’t recognize my father, and I would quiz him about tiny details from our past so she could see he knew things only her husband would know. It didn’t prove that he was her husband to her. She just said, “I wonder how he knows that.” I was devastated and the world turned dark.

But, a friend told me to meet her at Fort DeSoto park at sunset with my kayak. We went three times in one week, and at the end of it, my perspective was in check. I’d come back into the light, and it wasn’t that hard.

The people closest to me know to give me a push when things start getting tough. Someone will usually say, “Go get in your kayak.” And that usually wakes me up.

I think the trick to warding off the blues is to have people around you who give you that kick in the butt you need when you can’t do it for yourself. Know what makes you happy, and have good friends to remind you to tap into it.

free true colors Fawn Germer is the best-selling author of four books and speaks to corporations and organizations about courages and creative leadership strategies.

One thing I notice when I am out on the road is that people “in the ranks” think they are somehow different from those who have soared above. Like the superstars have something special or have been pre-ordained for the success they achieve.

That is a complete crock. Some people are “special” because their self-confidence lets them see that they can do big things, and they have the guts to try. So, the next time you see an opportunity and hesitate, ask yourself this:

Why not you?

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What makes anyone else more deserving of great success and financial reward than you? Are the people who control the business, financial and political worlds the most deserving or even the most intelligent and competent people in the world? No! They just got in line, had a vision and started working.

I think I need to drive this home a little more. You cannot assume that those who have “made it” are any more special than you are, because they are not. I promise you. I have spent much of my career interviewing people who are held out as great success stories and visionary leaders. They are special people because they had the courage to chase their dreams and manifest their success. But, they are not always the best or the brightest. They are the boldest. They bet on themselves and carry forth.

Fawn Germer is the best-selling author of four books and speaks to corporations and organizations about courages and creative leadership strategies. true colors free

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The vet called and confirmed the worst, so I am taking a time-out today.

I can’t tell you how many times I think to myself, “Thank God I got out” each week. That’s because there is always another story about another newspaper eviscerating its staff because people no longer read newspapers, circulation is plummeting and they can’t get the ad revenues they need. I feel a profound sense of loss.

Newspapers were my life. I was as passionate about journalism as I am about the work I do now. I escaped daily journalism in 1999 when I quit to write my first book kid for two farthings a divx download , and I was lucky to get out when I did. Many of my friends lingered too long and are now jobless. Or worse, they are still working in newspapers, waiting for the bottom to completely drop out.

I loved local news. Lived for it. But, at some point, it felt like I was repeating myself. News no longer challenged or excited me. And, the newsroom politics were brutal, especially when I went into management.

I never understood why petty infighting could affect the product, but it did. What was so hard about going out, finding good stories, then printing them? Initially, it wasn’t that hard. I’d write tough stories, the paper would run them. When critics would say that I was “just doing that to sell newspapers,” I would laugh because that was never

a consideration. But, later on, it was. I worked for one major paper that scored editions to see which kind of news sold better, then built a news budget based on sales. That diluted the integrity of the content.

There was the time that I was assigned to do a story on how poor snowfall was killing the ski season in Colorado. Industry analysts forecast real doom for the bottom line. That story made the ski industry crazy. The publisher and editor said they backed the story, but the minute there was a minuscule snowfall, I was told to write a story about how “snow saved the day” for the resorts.

As an editor, I was once ordered to run a story that was false and misleading on the front page of The Tampa Tribune – just because we had a good color photo to go with it.

Now I am not a reporter. I am a reader. I pick up the paper and constantly roll my eyes at stories that are pumped up and overplayed. If I can get a better version of a story online, why bother with a paper? I used to subscribe to at least two newspapers. Now I get one paper, on Sundays, because it has ads.The newspaper — and the industry I so loved — is irrelevant in my life. It makes me so sad.

I called this posting “-30-” which is what used to go at the end of a news story in the days before computers. This really is the end of the story. It’s not long before we write the obit.

I just got back from the vet’s office and it looks like my guy Vinny has lung cancer. I have no idea why I am sitting here writing, except that I am so stunned and pained and, well, I am sitting here writing. With Vinny sleeping on his bed next to me, surrounded by his babies.

The doctor said it is either lung cancer or a serious fungus in his lungs. The fungus is the unlikely option and, depending on which kind, is likely just as bad to treat as the cancer. What I know is, I have a very sick dog.

I was raised in a home with no pets. I got my first dog within days of getting my first apartment, and since my Irish Setter Sean, I’ve had two Golden Retrievers, a Sheepdog mix, and Vinny — my Pit-Chow mix. I still have one of the Goldens — Reggie — who is 12 years old and an Olympic swimmer. He does two hours of laps in the pool every day. Like it’s nothing.

So Reggie is 12 and Vinny is 10. I never thought Vinny would leave me first. I was not ready for news like this. I can’t even process the possibility, although the vet said that it is likely we are not talking much time here. Maybe a month.

download over the top free I owe this dog a lot. He has taken good care of me. And now, I will take care of him. When the vet was talking about the available treatments, I told him that my first consideration will be taking care of Vinny in a way that minimizes all suffering. I will not hold on to him for my own sake and let him suffer. He’s given too much to me, and it is now my turn to return the favor.

When I came home, I helped Vinny into my bed and cuddled him as I cried. He has made me happy for almost ten years. I have been so lucky to have him. I just can’t imagine life without him.

Fawn Germer is the best-selling author of four books and speaks to corporations and organizations about courages and creative leadership strategies.

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I can’t scoot my chair in under my desk because my dog Vinny won’t move. This means I am stretching to reach the keyboard, but that’s okay. Vinny has been my soulmate since April, 1999, when I found him living in the elements on a busy Tampa street. He was eight months old and the vet said he was days away from dying. He was literally starving, and he needed surgery because of a broken hip that occurred when he was hit by a car. Anything I did for him was nothing — nothing – compared to what he has done for me.

I am crazy for him. He’s part Pit Bull, part Chow — and his hair is cut into a Mohawk, so people always play with the hawk and tell him how very cool he is. His breeding sounds ferocious, but he is the biggest baby you have ever seen. Proof is that he has two huge boxes stuffed with about a hundred of his “babies.” Every day, he digs through those boxes until he has selected the “right” baby that he wants next to him. Awhile later, he’ll go back and select another. Right now, there is a brindle dog at my feet, along with his stuffed owl, fox, chicken, parrot, moose, possum and chipmunk. He has killed the squeakers in all but one of them.

When I left on a two-week trip last month, Vinny was still spry and playful. When I came home, he’d aged into an old man. The vet told me that, in human years, Vinny is well into his 70s. He has a heart problem, a respiratory ailment and arthritis in his bad hip has him in a great deal of pain. It feels like this happened overnight, and it’s breaking my heart. At night, his breathing is labored and he is restless. I’m going to the vet in two hours, hopeful that a different drug treatment will work. But, I am so worried. I want him to live forever, and his health over the last two weeks reminds me that he won’t.

I’ve written four books since I’ve had him. In every book, I have acknowledged all of my supporters. I never thanked him. I never thanked Reggie, my other dog. Or my cats. I didn’t want to sound like some crazy dog-and-cat-lady who had no life.

But, they’ve really been the heart of my life. So I want to acknowledge them now.

To Vinny, Reggie, Katie, Little Bit and Willy. Thanks for everything.

Fawn Germer is the best-selling author of four books and speaks to corporations and organizations about courages and creative leadership strategies.soul men dvdrip download

Someone sent this to me… It’s “me” with my wonder dog, Vinny.

Yesterday, I wrote about my response to the aspiring author who wanted my advice on how to write a book. It was quite simple. Start the book. Finish it.

Have the dream, do the work. This advice applies for anyone who aspires to do anything different, whether the dream is to write books or be an astronaut. What good is a dream if it stays locked in the imagination? That’s just fantasy. Forget your fear and just take the first tiny action step that turns an idea into reality. If you need to get more education, sign up for a class. If you aren’t sure what you want to do, go get career counseling. Just do something to get going.

Life change sometimes seems so huge and unwieldy that we are paralyzed to take the first step. Stop seeing it for all of its enormity and see it as a series of very workable, manageable steps that you can knock off, one at a time, until your dream is complete.

A book is a great example of what I am talking about. There is no book until you start it. So, start! Just write one page. Don’t get caught up on perfection, but write the page. The next day, write another. Do another page every day and, in about a year, you’ve got your book done. You don’t write a book in one sitting. You do it one step at a time — one page at a time, one word at a time.

The manager at the Goodyear where I go happened to see some of my books in my car when I went in for an oil change and he asked if I was an author. He told me he was working on a novel, then described the plot, which I thought was really good. Every time I go in there, I ask how it is going. He always has a huge progress report. He spends all of his lunch hours in the library. He forces himself to write at least three paragraphs on an index card, which he will type into his computer when he goes home at night. He’s got more than 500 pages written! And, he has done it three paragraphs at a time. See? Just take it a little bit at a time.

That’s the formula for making any change in your life. Don’t overwhelm yourself and be your own biggest naysayer. Just analyze what it will take to make your dream come to life, write down the steps and do them one at a time.

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During the Q&A portion of my keynote yesterday, I was asked what advice I had for an aspiring author who wanted to write her first book.

“Start it!” I said.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“Finish it!”

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That’s about the size of it. Anyhow, back to my very spontaneous advice of “START IT!” and “FINISH IT!”

People get so stopped up because they think they have to write the perfect piece of literary prose. Well, I give everyone permission to write prose that sucks. Just start, get something going, then clean it up later. Go for quantity, not quality, then edit like hell once you have finished a draft. When I was working on my novel, Mermaid Mambo, I went through periods when I couldn’t seem to get anything out of my head. I was uninspired. Then I read the book, No Plot, No Problem! which told me to stop sucking my thumb and just write a massive amount of words every day, for editing later.  Author Chris Baty’s theory is that you write, write, write without worrying about quality, then quality will emerge. It is a theory that I now ascribe to. Just keep moving forward.

In that novel-writing process, I did produce a few sections that I would never want anyone to ever see, but they were easily deleted. Because of Baty’s advice, I finished the book.

I constantly meet people who tell me they want to write books. They ask me for advice and I always tell them that, if they will just write one single page a day, they’ll be done in a year. And, I tell them to buy The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published and Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents. The publishing industry will give you brain damage, if you let it. Those books tell you the truth and guide you through the maze.

Fawn Germer is the best-selling author of four books and speaks to corporations and organizations about courages and creative leadership strategies.

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“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Well, what is it today? Russia’s going to wipe out Georgia, and talk radio says we are on the brink of World War III. The economy is in the crapper, and talk radio says we are on the verge of a depression. Frogs are dying and global warming is real and so earth is about to bite the dust and…

What is going on here! Seriously, if you pay attention to the news or the pontifications, we are all on the verge of extinction, killing humanity with either our brute force, greed or stupidity. Are we on the verge of a depression? NO! WE ARE IN ONE — and it’s our attitude.

You can’t listen to all of this bad news without it affecting your psyche and behavior. People are afraid they are going to lose their homes, their jobs, their retirement dreams, their security. And, those fears are so powerful that, in so many cases they are real. Positive attitude can’t save your job when your company is going down. It can’t pay your mortgage when you are sinking faster than you can swim. But, attitude is your key to resiliency in tough times.

None of us like feeling out of control, but the world really is spinning these days. Know in your heart that you are strong enough to counter your obstacles with courage and creativity. Don’t let fear paralyze you. It’s paralyzing enough people, but you can steer your way through these hassles because you know you will be okay. You’ve got friends, family and spiritual support. You also have your own strong self to drown out the voice of fear and uncertainty.

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