By Lois Barth, Motivational Speaker NYC, Resiliency Speaker NYC, Coach, and Author
One of my LOIS-isms (which stands for Lessons, Opportunities, Insights, and Solutions) is:
“Life is Always Talking….Make Sure You’re Listening.”
Every story, incident, and occurrence has a lesson embedded into it, and today was no different. My internet carrier technician came to address a weak phone and internet signal.
Message 1: How Strong or Weak are my “signals” in the areas that are meaningful to me in my life?
Whether the questions are big like life purpose, calling, and divine guidance. Or even smaller like “Am I spending my time doing things that are meaningful and moving me forward or just frittering it away?”
As I move my Bling-Bling Bureau back (yes I have an entire bling bureau) my earring tree (part of my earring forest) crashes to the floor. An assortment of earrings, rings, and pins cascade to the ground.
What catches my eye was my late Grandma Lily’s merry-go-round pin that she wore pretty much every day on her stark black turtleneck. She wasn’t one for excess and pleasantries.
Through my five-year-old eyes, it was big, overpowering, and a bit daunting, a metaphor for our rather strained relationship. It wasn’t till years after her passing, my Mom revealed that she resented my mother having a third child and insisted my Mom “spend more time devoted to her rather than another child.” Yup, she wasn’t exactly the Poster Child for healthy loving boundaries.
But today I saw that small and delicate pin as a sacred messenger reminding me that our perspectives shape our lives. And yet again, if we want to change our lives, we need to start with our perspective.
It’s been decades since my Grandma Lily is gone, and I now see her very differently. In reality, she was only 5-1” a deeply pained soul. I feel for her, even though it pains me how badly she treated my Mother and the impact it had on my Mom’s life. My Grandma traded the best gift in the world, the option of opening up her heart to another and loving deeply and profoundly in exchange for a dime store default of control and domination, sprinkling in a whole bunch of shame along the way.
Why this lesson today on perspective I asked myself. I just wanted to get on with my day! I immediately asked myself how this relates to my life today in a very practical way. The answers came quite quickly as they often do when we ask the spirit to intervene and guide us.
Move from Wi-Fi to Ethernet? Move modem and router into my office? My “daunting” perspective kicked in as expected. Too many wires! Too much time! Too crowded! Too much time dealing with technology!
I asked myself “Is this a perspective that will help me move forward today?” The answer was a resounding “NO.” I asked the technician what would be involved. It was fairly simple and straightforward, and he agreed it was a better approach.
While the internet was down, rather than find some other work to do, I did what I love to do, engaged in “Conversations that matter.” I asked him about the lineage of his exotic and beautiful name. How long he had worked with this carrier? Did he like it? What were his goals and dreams? He had just finished his second degree and was so proud of himself, rightly so. Everybody’s got a story and within that story, there are so many rich connections, and lessons we can learn.
About an hour later he left, I thanked him for his service and told him his behemoth goal of completing two degrees while working full-time was incredibly inspiring and that I hoped he was going to make sure to celebrate it.
I walked away realizing what a different outcome that simple exchange and transaction would have been, had I not shifted my perspective. And that every day we’re given messages, and we have a choice to embrace the messages or messengers or rail against them, as a result, leaving us small, scared, and stuck.
I’m not minimizing that some lessons bring tremendous emotion, pain, and loss, and we can’t slap a happy band-aid over it, and just have it go away!
But as this year ends, and whether you’re either reviewing the year past or looking at the year moving forward, take a moment and ask yourself, “What is my perspective on this (fill in the blanks), and is it serving me?” There’s no right or wrong, it’s simply ‘Is my perspective serving me?’ Only you get to answer that. And if it isn’t serving you, what shift can you make for it to begin serving you?
As a Motivational Speaker in NYC, and a resiliency speaker in NYC, who is brought in to help teams experience less stress and greater engagement, energy, and leadership skills, our perspective is absolutely foundational. When we start by taking an honest look at our perspective without judgment but with discernment asking ourselves that vital question, that’s when our lives can change.
Are you ready to make a shift in your life? One that speaks to your heart, your sense of meaning and fulfillment. I can help you not only make that shift with powerful tools but also how to map out a continued plan for coming to fruition.
Let’s set up a time to speak, feel free to book a DISCOVERY call to see if we’re a fit.
May you end this year and begin the next year with a perspective that truly lights you up!
Thanks for tuning in and not tuning out.