It’s Valentine’s Day and a lot of people are posting sappy-sweet things out there. 

I don’t begrudge them their gooey tidings. I’ve been known to get mushy here and there. 

Just stay aware of feeling swept away by this day being a holiday of sorts. Like so many of our current celebrations, the origins are centuries old (dating back long before St Valentine became a martyr) and not what you might imagine. I’ll leave you to do your own research on this. 

Today, I just want to put your head back in the game.

What game?

This Valentine’s Day – that is TODAY – it’s important to think about yourself. First of all, you can’t give what you don’t have. That means, you have to make sure you’ve got the energy reserves to muster up some kind of positive emotion for the people you see every day. And if you inwardly acknowledge that doing so is hard, you might, maybe, possibly need to give...

How many businesses do you know that operate with LOVE as one of their core values? While some individuals might bashfully admit that they experience love and they like the idea of love, and somehow highlighting it publicly, especially as a core value, seems a little much.

It’s not.

From my DynamicLeader, Inc. Vision Statement comes this value:

Love – This is the thread that weaves through all of the values and the work.
We feel it, we create it, and we bring it to all that we do.

I have ten other core values I’ll be sharing with you over time. I think it’s important that you know how a human like me and a brand like mine lives. 

It doesn’t mean that I don’t have boundaries or might not have to do hard things sometimes. I do. And it’s still done with love. As an example, I’ve told a client that I wouldn’t abandon them and that I also wouldn’t rescue them. It’s self-serving and makes...

The opening to Van Halen’s song, Right Now, goes like this:

Don't want to wait 'til tomorrow
Why put it off another day?
One more walk through problems
Built-up and stands in our way

Alex Van Halen, Ed Van Halen, Michael Anthony, and Sammy Hagar

We’re at the end of January. One month behind us in this New Year and you might have a few things on your “list” already. “Oh, I’m gonna.” 

“I’m going to do that, someday soon.”

Ouch.

I don’t have many regrets in my life. One big one was being in such denial about how ill my mom had become before she passed away several years ago. I told her I’d come to visit soon.

I had not made time and when I finally put a date on the calendar to get to visit, she passed the day I was to visit. My “someday soon” had blown past. 

I can’t undo that. And again, this was several years ago.

While I can’t go back in time, what I can...

Great coaches have great coaches. The learning never stops. It’s how I keep ever more sharp in service of my clients. 

Part of the work is to let go of the things I picked up along the way – the ways of being that served me when I was younger that no longer serve me and, in reality, haven’t for some time.

A quote attributed to Michelangelo goes, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. It is already there; I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” Each of us has a masterpiece within. We’re living with the “shoulds” and “supposed tos” imposed by others.

As I’ve opened to becoming more me, I’ve found a joy – I mean real, profound joy – something that eluded me for decades, in letting go and opening up to possibility. In the past few years, I’ve grown exponentially. And my growth has been foundational for the work I do in my...

The bills are coming in, the resolutions are dropping off, and the tensions related to getting back to reality are seeping through. And just like that, you’re backsliding.

SNAP OUT OF IT.

You don’t get to backslide on my watch. It’s not what you’re doing here and it’s not who you are. Is going back easier even if it means there might be drama? Yes. Yes it is, even if it means more drama. That’s because your subconscious knows how to do the “put up with drama” loop.

Here’s what’s important to keep in mind: When you let go of the things you’ve been tolerating – that includes tension and drama – you become more.

There is addition to you by subtracting the detractors from you.

You become lighter, more focused, and dare I say, even joyful!

The bills – be joyful that you are paying them because of what you got in return for creating a delayed payment. The resolutions...

We’re just a couple of weeks into the New Year. 
And it’s time to interrupt the saying, “Let’s see what the New Year holds.”

I just can’t wait to see what the New Year will bring. 
Well, let’s see.

 
What did last Thursday bring?

What did June 5th bring?

What did any random date actually bring?

 
If you lock yourself in your home and wait for something to be brought to you, you’re going to be disappointed. 

The truth is, it’s not about what the New Year will bring.
It’s about what you will do to grow yourself 
so you have something to bring to the New Year. 

There’s no date on the calendar that is waiting for you to get to it before bringing you a reward. In fact, it’s every date on the calendar that is waiting for you to show up at your best, having grown from the day before.

So what do you want to have done by the end of the year? On New Year’s Eve, think about...

Blunt moment and a quick concept for the New Year: It’s not what the New Year holds, it’s what you are bringing to it. What are you choosing to become this year? You want new things in your life? Who do you need to become to be the person that has those things (house, vacation, relationship, career move, etc.)?

Just remember this, You Are The Hero of your life’s story. 

There will be new challenges; let’s hope so, that’s what keeps you growing! So with this blank page of a New Year looming before you, whom do you wish to become?

Let’s back up a second. For the year ahead, what are the top six things you wish to do or have? That is, by the end of this year, what can you look back at with a smile and say, I’m so glad I did that?

The truth is that a lot of people – and you may be one of them – are afraid to declare what they really, truly want because doing so demands that stepping into the unknown. 

...

You NEED to take this into the New Year. 

Look back at the past year. It all went pretty quickly, didn’t it? Amazing! As you lean into the new year ahead, it’s important to recognize how much power you really have. 

Any time we’re given a challenge that seems beyond our current capabilities, we shrink back a little and we take inventory. “Can I really do this? Am I good enough?”

We’re told to feel the fear and do it anyway. You can choose to feel the fear. It’s there for a reason. Once you realize you aren’t in any mortal danger, you can then choose to feel something else.

You Can Then CHOOSE To Feel Something Else

What could you feel?

Could you feel a trust in yourself so deeply that you know, no matter what, you can figure it out – whatever the new situation holds, do you have that trust in yourself? Do you hold that faith?

The opposite of fear isn’t courage,...

Your current circumstances are the result or the outcome of the actions you’ve taken to this point. That means, you have gained some experience along the way.

That experience has given you the expectations for your next outcome.

And that, my friends, is a horrible loop to get locked into. 

I’m not saying ignore your experience. I am going to suggest that you create different imagery for your expectations.  

What if you expected your life to be easy? What if the things you wanted, truly desired, came to you easily?

Did you “yeah, but” me there?

If that was your first response to that thought, you’re simply stuck. 

You’re stuck in someone else’s old stories that working hard is the only way for things to pay off.

What if you truly LOVED everything about your life? I mean, you awaken and you love the bed you’re in. You love the smell of the air and the sounds around you. You...

Last week I suggested that you look at the things you value and uplevel the way you value yourself. If you didn’t get that out of last week’s Wednesday With Wayne, I’d invite you to go back to it with that sentence in mind.

One way of valuing yourself is to treat yourself as if you mattered.

YOU are the CEO of your own life. You might feel like you are at the mercy of someone else’s agenda. Ultimately, the schedule you set is your own. For every job I had that took me out the door before the sun came up, I had to acknowledge that I chose to do that. No one made me stay in that job. And then, I branched out on my own. And now, I smile at my boss every morning as I look in the mirror. We’ve got this. We’re here to serve greatly: me, myself, and I.

Think about being the CEO of your life – the Chief Executive Officer. 

If you had an outside executive land in your life, what would be the first three changes that person would...