Motivational Leadership Speaker, Bestselling Oprah Author

Archive for the ‘Living Large’ Category

“Fawn,” my mother said. Her eyes brightened with recognition, thrilled by the surprise visit. “I’m so happy…”

That was an extreme moment of clarity from a once brilliant woman who has faded into the fog of Alzheimer’s and has been in a nursing home now for three years. She’s not doing well this week — she has the MRSA infection throughout her body and we’ve gotten a mixture of reports from her caregivers. They range from hopeful to dark, and there is a thread of seriousness and worry that connects them all. This is a tough time, and it confounds me because she seems healthy on the outside.

My mom had a major stroke in 1992 when she was 66 years old. The signs of Alzheimer’s appeared eight years ago. My father took care of her until he literally wore his back out and we had to let her go to a nursing home three years ago. It is a place where she is happy and feels safe.

I don’t think anyone would have imagined she would have willed her way into her eighties, but that is what she did. Instead of becoming depressed over her loss of independence and mobility, she embraced life fully, finding joy in everything she did. I think of that all the time, because I sometimes get so wound up in the demands of the day that I forget how meaningless those hassles are.

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Mom can’t communicate much, but she can communicate love. That is what has kept her going and has filled her life with more meaning than most able-bodied, fully-alert people have.

I’d like you to meet her. She’s the most amazing woman I have ever met. This short video tells you a truly inspiring story.

I always tell people to know their passions and indulge them.

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When I was in college, I studied journalism and photography. When I got to my first newspaper after I graduated, I had to make a choice between being a reporter and being a photographer. Reporting won. But, all these years later, I love capturing the moment with my camera. So, here are a few shots from my Alaska gallery that I shot while on a cruise two weeks ago. That old passion for photography still lives in me.

And here is a shot taken of me just enjoying the whole experience:

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I had lunch with a friend today who was a hormonal mess. First came the cancer. Then, the hysterectomy. Now comes the tug-of-war with her body as it adapts to a massively changed set of rules. She’s impatient. Can’t sleep. And the post-hysterectomy weight gain is making her feel terrible.

I was thrilled.

Not for her difficulties, but for the glass-is-half-full flip-side of the situation that is becoming more obvious as I watch so many friends deal with cancer. Suzann’s alive. She looks fantastic. Her acerbic wit is still intact and she remains one of my greatest confidants.

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So despite how much the new reality of her body affects her, I chalk her story up as a victory. There have been a lot of victories in the decade since the first of my friends was diagnosed with cancer. All of them have had to fight so hard to get beyond their obstacles. All but one of them is still alive.

I lost my friend Bette to ovarian cancer in 2002 and have thought of her almost every day since. She taught me so much as I watched her fight to live while she was dying. Thinking of her grounds me when I get caught up in my day-to-day worries. The hassles of work or daily living are nothing

compared to cancer. The simplicity and reward that she found in her last year by creating a butterfly garden for her neighbors in her condo community showed me so much about life. One day, we went kayaking out to Caladesi Island. It was in the winter, yet she dove right into the Gulf because she thought the water looked beautiful.

So much of us fear diving in because we know it is cold. We miss so much living by holding back. But, Bette really lived until the end. Still, in the end, there was an ending. I miss her. I wish we could do one more lunch.

All these years after her death, I sat with my friend Suzann and thought about how much fun it was to just have lunch and download all of our stories and thoughts. I hate that she’s got to deal with all of these hormonal hassles, but I love that she is here to keep going. I love that we laughed about the mini-hamburgers she ordered for lunch and that we talked endlessly about everything from dogs to sales at Macy’s to our crazy siblings. Lunch was simply great.

It’s that simplicity thing that I learned from Bette.

I went to a concert last night with a friend who has been having one of those year-from-hell-good-God-I-can’t-take-it-anymore moments. With good reason, too, because it really has been the year when everything that could possibly go wrong professionally has gone wrong for her. One thing after another. There was a frivolous professional grievance filed by a spiteful former client. Legal bills that escalated from outrageous to astronomical. A settlement that should have ended things but instead made the problem mushroom to other parts of her professional practice.

Last night, she showed up at the concert with more bad news: Someone had gotten hurt in the parking lot of her office building, and the building manager was able to force her out of her shared office arrangement since there was no lease.

She’s had enough. She wants to quit her practice and get a job. There wouldn’t be so many problems, one on top of another, each one getting bigger and bigger, if it weren’t some sort of sign that she should be doing something else. She’s exhausted and depressed and can’t stand the thought of anything else happening. There’s been so much bad news – way too much bad news – and she just wants it to stop.

“I just think this may be telling me it is time to leave the profession,” she said.

If she does, it is a real shame for the people she serves – and for herself — because she is gifted in her work and deserves great success. But, she’s lost faith in herself. Her reserves are depleted and she doesn’t think she has the energy to deal with another disappointment or setback. If she does abandon her work, she will do it because she is surrendering to a merciless run of horrible luck, not because she doesn’t want to do the work and not because she can’t succeed with it. It’s a decision made out of frustration and exhaustion.

Don’t look for ease, look for strength. Like all of us, you will go through difficult times, and how you emerge depends entirely on your approach adversity. You either give power to your obstacles, or build strength to deal with them. You can’t know when a run of bad luck is going to end, but have faith that it will end.

I have been taught something profound from every one of those old, unpleasant test points I have experienced in life, and my difficulties have ultimately led me to far greater personal or professional success than any of the accomplishments that came with ease.

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

I often think of a story told to me by Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space. Her mission was to deploy the Hubble Telescope, and it entailed complicated, intricate steps that all had to be perfectly executed.

“This was not the time to be staring out the window. We had the professional futures of other folks and a lot of federal money placed in trust in our hands.”

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While she was doing her work outside the space shuttle, Commander Bob Crippen called out to the astronauts and had them take a second to look away from their tasks “…so we would know this was not a (training) repetition in the safety tank. It was the real deal. There was a planet over our shoulders. He made us pause to absorb the reality, and I’m so glad he did. We could well have gone back in the airlock and said, ‘Was that the (training) tank or was that for real?’”

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When we immerse ourselves in so much intensity, it is so easy to lose perspective. The reward is not only achieving our goals, but the joy that comes from trying to attain them. Which memory means most to you – getting your college diploma, or remembering the things that happened on your way to earning it? Your wedding might have been a crown jewel moment in your life, but wasn’t it fun to go through all the giddiness of meeting and falling in love?

Remember that as you go on your way. Some of your experiences will be quite trying, but they really provide you with a defining moment to live all out and be who you are. Enjoy that. The reward is in doing something different, pushing yourself, feeling the support from your friends and family as you dare to be bold.

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

There are occasions where our greatest growth comes from making the hard decision to cut losses and move on. Let’s say you launch a business and quickly start losing money. Time passes and you lose more money. It continues like that until you realize the hemorrhage won’t stop until you either shut down or file bankruptcy. You prove nothing by sticking with an obvious loser. The boldest option is quitting before you are completely sucked under. But, get the information you need to know that your decision is made from the power of information and insight, not fear.

Or, in another case, let’s say you have a real bully of a boss who is holding you back and making you miserable. He has made it clear he isn’t going anywhere and you are stuck with him – probably for several years — if you stay. You don’t want to be pushed out, you know you didn’t deserve the ordeal and it certainly isn’t fair. You shouldn’t have to leave. But, staying just gives him the power over your psychological well being. . Does it require more confidence to stay in a bad situation, or to pack up and leave? Quitting requires more strength in this situation. But it shows you decide your destiny, not some jerk. You may feel pushed out, but leaving in this kind of circumstance really means you are “firing” your boss.

Weak people encounter test points, stop what they are doing, let themselves feel bad, then slow down or quit altogether. Strong people see those moments for what they are: tests of stamina, creativity and willpower. They may ultimately choose to leave a losing situation, not because they are weak but rather, because they are strong.

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

You don’t lose fifty pounds in two weeks. You lose them one pound at a time. You don’t begin a fitness regiment by running  a marathon. You run a mile or two. counteracts lipitor

So don’t stare at the prospect of de-stressing and re-building your life by expecting to change everything by midnight tonight. It’s too intimidating. You are who you are. You may want changes, but those changes can’t – and won’t – happen in an instant.

The one thing I have seen repeatedly in people who face daunting challenges is that they often won’t try because the situation seems to big and hard to conquer. They think they must do it all and fix it all – at once, and that’s too hard so they just don’t bother and settle for the status quo.

I know a very bright young woman who had a child when she was 17 and wound up cleaning houses. By the time she hit her 30s, she was convinced that she could have nothing more for her life. She blamed it on foolish choices in her youth, but I told her that the foolish choices continued every time she chose inaction over action. She wanted to be a nurse, but the prospect of going to nursing school was too overwhelming, especially since she’d be doing it while dealing with life as a single parent with very little income.

I told her about a man I interviewed at a college graduation. He started his studies as a young father and it took him ten years to get that bachelor’s degree. He did it one class at a time. It didn’t matter what was going on in his life, he always had one class in progress to move him forward toward his ultimate goal. And, he achieved it.

You don’t have to fix everything in one day. If you think you do, you will be tempted not to fix anything. Just take small steps.

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

The tapes inside your head are powerful. If you repeat a negative remark enough times, it will load itself into the permanent memory on your personal internal hard drive. I don’t believe you have the power to completely erase those tapes because it does seem like they are ready to play themselves again, as soon as you stop repeating your revised versions through affirmations. But, you have great control over the tapes and possess the ability to write over the bad ones, recording positive, constructive and productive affirmations that your psyche will absorb and use if you repeat them enough.

Like I said, I am no different from anyone else. I have had good times and bad in this life. When I am in a bad spell, I have to remind myself how easy it is to fix things by saying the right words to myself. It’s so easy, but it can be so hard to get started.

So, make up your mind. You want an easier way? You can have it.

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

Don’t be so skeptical of the value of positive self-talk until you really look at the wonders of all the negative self-talk with which you’ve filled your brain. Yes, isn’t it a wonder how some of us voluntarily build ourselves up to be worthless, unattractive failures?

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If you look in the mirror and see “fat,” you will be fat. If you look at your career track and think “average,” you will be average. If you look at possibility and see impossibility, you will encounter impossibility. You know it’s true that when you say you can’t, you can’t.

So this blog will, in part, teach you how to believe you can, because you can.

The beauty of it is, it is not hard at all to erase those negative tapes and overwrite them with positive ones that will drive you to a less stressful, more productive and happier life.

Countless studies have proven the connection between positive affirmations (either through self-talk or hypnosis) and positive results. The concept is this: If you tell yourself you are attractive and fun to be around enough times, your brain will overwrite your negative tapes that say you are ugly and unpopular. You will actually believe it if you say it enough times.

It works. Let’s just say I am in one of my disorganized spells. I might say to myself, “I’m a mess. I can’t get anything done, my desk is out of control and I can’t focus.” Well, what is the result? I can’t get anything done and I can’t focus. But, I launch into affirmation where I repeat, “I am more organized every minute. I am on task and producing better than ever.” I might say it fifty times the first day, thirty times the second day, and so on. It doesn’t take long for me to shift into high gear and start focusing hard and doing my work. If you want proof that it works, you’re reading it. I had to get this blog going, and I talked my way into it.

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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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