Elizabeth M. Johnson

Plugging away on the elliptical yesterday morning, I saw Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN summarizing a recent study by Pfizer which reported that a small study of 100 women who were on anti-depressants showed an improvement in sexual function by using Viagra.  Dr. Gupta pointed out that about half of all patients on anti-depressants suffer from some kind of sexual dysfunction.  Taking into consideration that adult use of antidepressants has tripled recently, leading antidepressants to be the most commonly prescribed drug in the United States, this number is significant.

I don’t know what makes me more angry; the fact that so many Americans are on antidepressants or the fact that the subtle message is that maybe one more pill is the answer.  While I do believe that some of us do sincerely need antidepressants to function, I cannot reconcile the sheer number of people who take them.  I just do not believe that they are truly needed by that many people.  Part of the problem is that our modern society perpetuates the value of quickness over the value of thoughtful consideration. We are encouraged to take a pill rather than ask what is really going on that prevents us from satisfaction and happiness.  This is wrong.

Here’s an idea: why not put aside the pills temporarily and look at what’s really going on in your life.  Could your lack of ability to orgasm have to do with the fact that you are ashamed of your body?  Or unhappy with the quality of your relationship with your partner?  Are there past traumas that have not yet been dealt with?  Or are you anxiety-ridden over your job or your husband’s drinking?  Maybe you are questioning your own sexuality?  The answer is not to take another pill but rather to honestly question what’s not working in your life as a way to get to the roots of the problem, instead of opting to mask it with medication.

Taking the easy way will always be the quickest path to deal with a problem but it’s important to understand that nothing has actually been resolved.  Acting by not acting relegates you to living the worried, anxious, unquestioned existence. Sound good?

Since the sale of my property fell through last week, I have been asking for more of what I want/need than usual. Asking for what you want/ need is one of the cornerstones of putting yourself first, a practice that builds self-esteem. Self-esteem is built because you are taking action (actions always makes you feel more confident than sitting by idly) and because you are allowing someone else to help you.

This latter reason may seem slightly counter-intuitive so let me explain. Allowing someone to help you gently rubs out our unhelpful internal belief system of self-dependence, meaning we often believe that we are the only ones who can make something happen for ourselves. This is simply not true. Look at your heroes. Are they solitary folks who have never asked others for anything? Not usually. People need other people to thrive. From where I sit, most people who don’t ask others for what they want/need are people who are simply surviving, not thriving. These are usually the folks who have difficulty expressing gratitude for the gifts in their life. They also are often the ones who are paralyzed by fear or choices and end up doing nothing, opting to live with that fear, instead of enrolling someone else for their sage opinion or expertise. Lastly, those folks who don’t ask others for help are often the least successful people, not necessarily in material wealth but life balance.

Don’t forget the person doing the helping usually feels blessed to be asked. They know how capable and smart you are and that you can often solve many issues on your own. They also know that you have helped them in the past and feel grateful to you for being able to return the favor. The blessing factor is not small potatoes. Helping you also makes me feel good about me and my capabilities. Therefore, I am helped by the help that I have offered you. It’s a pretty circle of giving and receiving that makes everyone feel warm and needed.

Asking for help is an acquired skill not a sign of dependence or ineptitude. True devotees to personal growth know this.

Anyone who has ever struggled with an addiction (eating, smoking, drinking, drugs) knows nagging does no good. Unfortunately, those concerned by the addicted person’s behavior still persist. They see that it does no good (”the person must want to change,” we are told) but for most of us having the patience to sit by and do nothing feels impossible.

Recently, I saw the nagging issue addressed in The New York Times: should doctors nag their patients about losing weight? The 723 comments (and counting) that followed the brief mention of a doctor who opts to not lecture his patients illustrates just how hot a topic obesity is in our country. I side with the good doctor. Most overweight people are not oblivious to the fact that they are overweight. Indeed, if we are to believe Wendy Shanker, author of The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life, most overweight people, especially women, have tried everything imaginable to lose the damning weight that society endlessly faults them for. Just like anything else, excess weight is not lost because your doctor chides you for it. And, yes, the solution does start with a desire for change, but the person must also be willing to dig into the emotional, often deep-set reasons for the addiction. This combination is an essential one because without it no real progress can occur. Weight can be lost (temporarily), drinking might stop (for a while) but if there is no understanding of the where and the why behind the problem, there will be no permanency.

The second part of the above essential combination (going deep and looking at where/why) will be addressed in my Fall teleseries. More details will be in the next issue of my bi-weekly ezine In The Pink (click here to subscribe) but if you simply can’t wait, click here and let me know how I can ease your mind.

Nagging is often part of the problem, but not a solution to it.

Have you seen Casino* ? Besides being filled with lots of shiny bling, fabulous music and amazing actors the film offers a particularly salient success lesson.

My favorite character in the film is Ginger, played by Sharon Stone. Ginger is, essentially, a beautiful hustler who schmoozes high rollers at the casinos by temporarily offering them some of her sexual glam in exchange for money. In addition to Ginger’s amazing hair and to-die-for clothes–if you are a vintage junkie you will love Sharon Stone’s outfits from the early 1970’s–there’s something else about her that is memorable. Ginger tips out everyone in her circle, like the valets at the casinos. And, she does it with a smile, not grudgingly or with resentment. As a hustler, she relies on others in the know to point her in the direction of the big spenders. The valets and the women who work behind the cages at the casino are people who help her become successful. And, Ginger is successful. Sadly, she hands over all of her money to her old boyfriend who is a total loser but the bigger lesson here is that Ginger is successful because she takes care of and makes other people successful.

Success works like this; it feeds itself. While it’s more than just a belief in spreading good karma so good karma comes back to you, it isn’t a lot more complicated than this. Making other people successful puts you in the powerful position of Resource. Being known as a Resource grants you two things: expertise and–you guessed it–success. You can declare yourself an expert in a certain area, and I strongly encourage you to do this, but you need to be able to back that up somehow. Having other people consider you an expert helps cement that status.

Take a lesson from Ginger: one of the most amazing things you can do for yourself and your career (or your karma) is to make someone else successful. This doesn’t need to be time-consuming or complicated. The next time someone admires the earrings you are wearing, tell them about your closet-jewelry making friend who gifted them to you. Mention her name and tell them that she does jewelry parties and custom pieces for people. Check! That’s all it takes. Or, give someone else part of the kudos for the sale you just made. Tell your boss that Miss Y had dealt with the client initially and was the one who sent the fabric swatches. Check again.

There’s no sure recipe to success, of course. And ingredients like creating continual learning opportunities and building a good support team are not to be discounted. None of these will make you Oprah-rich but they won’t certainly won’t bankrupt you either.

*Casino is a Godfather-type movie so you may want to watch the trailer here before watching the whole movie, especially if the sporadic, sudden violence turns you off.

Close to this time last year, I started to explore going deeper into a specific niche. All of the savviest business builder folks point to niching as the way to create a successful, self-sustaining business. Their position states that you (the business owner) want to have a specific audience in mind. A target audience of “women” doesn’t count. Too big. A target audience of “women business owners” is also too big. But a target audience of women lawyers who are solo practitioners is just right. In choosing a specific niche to work with, that specific audience will flock to you because your service is exactly what they need. The point is you don’t need every woman to be your client, just the ones that really have a need for your service or product. That’s enough.

I had resisted this notion for a while because while it rationally made sense to me, it felt exclusionary. My business model has always been as inclusive as possible: all women were welcome. It didn’t matter their age or education level, what their job was or their race. Every woman I knew could use some self-esteem boosters. Why offer these tools to only a few? The reality is that while thinking I was a specialist–a life coach for women who wanted to become more confident–really, I was a generalist: a life coach who (aside from tackling financial abundance work with clients) would work with women on most issues because so much does relate to self-esteem. [Side note: If in doubt yourself about whether you are truly a specialist or actually a generalist, read Seth Godin's post on this very subject here. Seth Godin is brilliant. There are a few people that I consider to be brilliant. My friend Jevette from grad school is one of them. A friend from Miss Hall's, Marina. Mr. Godin has been on my brilliance list for a while. Subscribe to his blog. His posts offer precious and pithy insight, applicable to anyone interested in distinguishing themselves and their business in a sea of mediocrity.]

Generalist no more, I decided. Initially, I talked to a few experts. These conversations were less successful. If you want details, let me know. After these fruitless explorations, I decided that I was actually the expert and so assigned myself some work to do: surveying the readers of my ezine, In The Pink; talking to my Passionality team leaders; doing some how-to work on niche identification and speaking with a few fellow solopreneurs like my good pal, Sarah Stitham of Revamp.

I have come up with something that speaks to some of my passions (a key aspect of defining a niche) and one that is specific. Right now I am working on the new business name. Keep your eyes open for a post next week, sometime after Wednesday’s issue of In The Pink, which will give the full details. In the meantime, ask how this story relates to you:

• How can you go deeper?
• Are you willing to risk alienating some of your fans/friends to pursue a more meaningful path?
• What have you done recently that scares you?

In a recent workshop, one of the participants wrote to me that she had experienced a great deal of “Aha!” moments over our weeks together but had recently realized she had only been skimming the surface, looking at the easy things. Sound familiar?

She continued in her email that this revelation had created a desire in her to work harder, look deeper, ask for more from herself. It’s not an easy thing to admit that you have been doing the easy work, especially when, after working with me, you know the hard stuff is where the real growth and confidence truly resides. Sometimes we look at easy because it is a default, kind of like using the same weights at the gym. We know we can do it, it’s pretty much second nature so we keep it up. The problem with this, of course, is that your muscles grow bored and you don’t lose any more weight/get stronger/ realize what you really can lift. Can you imagine if you were still doing Explode the Code workbooks instead of graduating to Nancy Drew? It’s the same with looking at easy in your life, too.

Create a little rumble in your own life by asking yourself if you, too, are looking at easy, skimming the surface. How to tell? One way is to look at the issues that surface. Are they same-old, same-old or is there something else going on there? Is is just bad communication between you and your partner or is that just one piece of a whole litany of dissatisfaction on your end. Look closer. It won’t take long for you to determine whether or not you are looking at easy.

Quick, what are you passionate about? The basics come to mind immediately but it’s essential to Authentic Self growth and thriving to consider what also might be hidden below the surface.

Here’s another Authentic Self Exploratory Tip:

Picture yourself in a situation where you must defend yourself or your position on a certain issue. Other factors may include someone acting cruelly toward someone/something or an especially hot day when patience has been tried and exhausted. What is an issue that you feel passionate enough about to defend, whether verbally or physically? An example: I saw an older woman dripping with heavy jewelry, leaning against a sparkling white Mercedes, yank a little dog off the ground by its collar and leash. She tossed it off the ground and through the car door, as if it where an errant sweater. I was furious and sorely tempted toward physical violence. What injustices really boil your blood?

Behind the anger from an injustice is one of your Authentic Self passions. An Authentic Self passion is a great tool to use as you explore life purpose. For example, a business cannot thrive without passion. You can work your 9-5 without having any passion for your job but if you want to start your own business you must have a passion for it. Why? Because with so many uncertainties inherent in the starting and maintenance of a new business, passion is a must because it will get you through the times when the check doesn’t arrive, the client cancels or your shipment is lost.

So, it’s worth taking a closer look at what you feel compelled to defend or protect. Contained within that is some element of your Authentic Self that once understood, will allow for more meaningful personal growth and confident decision-making.

Trust me. You want to be a fly on the wall in one of my workshops. Not simply because I am a skilled facilitator (although I am) or because I bring coconut cake for a participant’s birthday (although I do) but because the women who attend my programs offer amazingly keen personal insights that you really want/need to hear.

On Thursday’s session of Awaken Your Passion, one of the women mentioned that she had questioned herself, after watching coverage of Tim Russert’s funeral services, what her own personal code of conduct would be. What a delightful question! The concept of a personal code of conduct is especially relevant because a great deal of conversation in Awaken Your Passion centers on the definition of our personal values via Authentic Self exploration and group activity. Outlining a personal code of conduct is a similar journey. Your personal code of conduct must be based primarily on one aspect of your Authentic Self: your values. Your values are the most essential ingredient in a personal code of conduct. But, what else must be inherent in your personal code of conduct?
Here are a few ideas to get your started:

1) Start with Your Word . Use that one word as a springboard from which to work. My word, after much deliberation, is impassion. So, I ask myself how must I bring “impassion” into my daily code of conduct? What action, for youthen, is implicit in your word?

2) What about a hero? In Awaken Your Passion, we juxtapose our heroes and their qualities with ourselves as away to gain greater power and control over our own lives. How might your hero and her qualities be included in your daily code of conduct?

3) Incorporate purpose. In The New Feminine Brain, Dr. Mona Lisa tells us that we are more prone to life-threatening illness if we are without a life purpose. Why are you here? Take the quiet time alone to answer this question to the best of your ability for where you are right now. Use it in your code.

When you have 1-3 ironed out, select a visual. What picture or image do you associate with strongly? Adopt it as the personal representation of your code. An image enables association more strongly. Think swoosh (Nike), the Starbucks’ siren or the ultimate in evil–aside from Wal-Mart--the golden arches of McDonald’s.

You may decide to 3D your personal code of conduct, maybe as a Happiness Project. One more recommendation–don’t over-think this project. Spend time on it, yes, but don’t let perfection take over in the process! If prone to perfectionist tendencies, work on it piecemeal. Give yourself a time-line and stick to it to ensure that you are not consumed by the fine details, losing sight of the larger picture.

Happy creating!! Let me know how it goes.

It’s almost summer–the first day of summer is actually tomorrow!–and many of us love to get our hands in the dirt of our garden. I don’t actually fall into this category but I do love the idea of reaping what we sow, so instead of the physical garden, I ask you to imagine the mental garden of your life; a place that frost cannot touch, bunnies won’t chomp on and flowers always bloom.

Here are a few tips to Grow Your Own Garden:

1. Savor Everyday Joys. Smell the fat, dewy peony which blooms so briefly in your yard. Take the 15 minutes to go pick a quart of warm strawberries from your local farm. Get out the dog comb and brush your beloved greyhound for 5 minutes in the sun.

2. Think on It and then Let Go. Don’t attempt to solve everything today. Remember that most of the time, most everything is actually not in your realm of control. Instead of lamenting the chaos of limbo, acknowledge what is on your mind and then release it. Breathe.

3. Study New Subjects. Get ye to the local library! You can get practically any book, DVD or audio CD in the world (if I can in my small, rural corner of the world then you can too). Borrow a different magazine. Join a town committee. Learn something new.

4. Give, Give, Give. Say a prayer. Offer to watch a friend’s children. Pick up random garbage. Mail someone’s letter. Give a friend the business. Donate old clothes. Share a compliment. Give something away on a daily basis. Likely, as is the case with most of us, you have too much. It will come back ten-fold.

Growing your own garden allows for perpetually blooming, your own! What would you add to this list?

Do you preface, or end, most comments with a self-deprecating comment or “I don’t know,”?
“I don’t know,” seems innocuous enough but the words that we use to talk about ourselves are key to our self-esteem. They serve two purposes: 1) to teach how we want to be treated and 2) to show what is important to us. Our words can be unintentional teachings e.g. when we talk negatively, we send the message that our thoughts, opinions, belief systems matter less than other people’s. This is a form of verbal violence that we commit against ourselves. This verbal violence is an invitation to get cut off, remain un-promoted, under-valued at work or be emotionally disparaged! Yikes.

When someone compliments your new pedicure, do you tell them that it is actually turned out a lot shinier/darker (read:worse) than you had hoped? If you do (as I *almost*did yesterday), then not only are you committing verbal violence against yourself but you are also negating the gift of the compliment that you gave them. That’s not only showing your icky, ungrateful side but also not winning you any future kudos either. Consider shifting your perspective to see compliments as an invitation to share a bit of your Authentic Self with someone through your response to their words.

Instead of speaking out of habit (”I don’t know,”) or negating a received compliment and perhaps committing verbal violence, choose words intentionally which allow your authenticity and integrity within self to ring through. Doing so honors your Authentic Self while simultaneously building self-esteem. If this is too much of a stretch, especially if a compliment flows your way, concentrate on just speaking two, always acceptable words: “thank you”.

If Wendy Shanker in real life is anything like Wendy Shanker author, I really want to hang out with her. Anyone who writes, “I have no patience for people who won’t eat this and won’t eat that…Three cheers for discipline but, like, stay home and eat.” is someone I want to know. YES! Stay home, indeed. Being a scone/muffin/pastry-a-day gal myself, an immediate sense of camaraderie flooded my senses upon reading these lines and it has stayed. Shanker, author of The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life, is a laugh-out loud, intense author who isn’t afraid to call it like she sees it. Shanker invites women to take another look at their own bodies and their (twisted, unsafe, atypical, {fill in your own word here}) relationship with food in an attempt to show all of us that thin is not holy, deprivation is essentially unhealthy and fat is a feminist issue! It’s feminist because fat, as a societal judgment, is not equally pejorative for men and women. The judgment of fat is more often used against women (by both men and women) as an instrument of shame and belittlement than it is against men. Like me, I bet you know plenty of fat men who seem perfectly comfortable (and why wouldn’t they be? No one calls them “fatty”. . . ) with their extra girth? Gives you pause, doesn’t it?

With The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life Shanker proves to be a bright beacon in an otherwise murky sea of societal pressure, celebrity worship and cruel prejudice. We all need a Wendy Shanker in our lives to remind us to occasionally re-check our perceived reality, step away from that scale and move toward what’s truly beautiful: a love and appreciation for the body that we do have.

A recent issue of the ABA Journal featured an article, Gender Gap Due, in Part, to ‘Ambition Gap’?, which looked at why women are so under-represented in “lawyer-laden” political circles. The question of whether or not women are “intentionally” steering themselves off the path to partnership or whether they are blocked on that path (as sociologist Mary Noonan questions in the article) is not as black or white as it appears and the real reasons for the discrepancy are much more nuanced, as I explored in my Masters’ thesis.

Namely:
*Women in our society are more highly valued by how well they care for others and less valued for their ambition, “cockiness”, and desire to make money. ‘Nuff said. Women reading this know there is no need to elaborate on this point.
*The only value a lawyer has is in their ability to bill clients. That’s it. It’s less important–and can prove to be career-endangering–to write articles, work cooperatively, niche yourself or any of the other networking tools that the rest of the business world embraces as effective. The inherent value in billing is less of an issue for men who are expected to devote 100% to work (it’s where the bulk of their self-esteem comes from, unhealthy yes but very true) but it is a huge issue for women who are expected to do it all and do it all well: work and family.

And–newflash to Martha E. Neil, article author: it isn’t just politics that women are represented in when it comes to law! There are fewer women partners in law firms; fewer women judges; fewer women general counsel. The list goes on and on. The one legal area where there appear to be more women is public service. No surprise there.

In short, an “ambition” gap isn’t really the issue. The issue is more about taking a closer look into how society views men and women and then looking at how those views influence the choices that we feel we need to make.

According to a 2006 study by the American Bar Association the percentage of female law school entrants is at 50% and greater parity appears to have been reached within this traditionally masculine field. Yet, women are leaving the law sooner and in greater numbers. Fewer women are able to achieve the benchmarks of success that men have attained within the same field. But who defines success? For my research of the possible disconnect between a woman’s view of success and that of society and the subsequent effect on personal self-esteem, my work takes an in-depth look at a group of established female lawyers who decided to leave their seemingly successful careers for an alternate profession. And so I sought to answer the above question, “why are women leaving the law?”, over the past year. This research constituted the bulk of my Master’s thesis which I am pleased to announce has been accepted. Thank you, thank you!

In the end, I came to two significant conclusions from this research:
1) a significant number of previous female attorney’s ideas of what constitutes success varies greatly from what is typically defined as success by American society
2) The acceptance of a commonly accepted idea of success in lieu of an individually defined one causes dissatisfaction which leads to a loss of self-esteem.

What else did I discover? Here are a few key findings:
*Women put themselves and their needs on the back burner to their physical, emotional, psychological detriment. This is serious. This goes for women in any profession, although law, by its very nature is so utterly consuming that women lawyers are at a higher risk for complete immersion into their professional self, than a woman who does work that is not measured by the billable hour economic model.
*Individuals must define success for themselves instead of defaulting to the socially acceptable definition of what success means for us as women, or, for that matter, what it means for men. We each need to define success for ourselves–no easy task, I realize–so that we feel happy, satisfied and fulfilled in all areas of our life, not just our professional life.

If you would like a copy of my thesis, click here and request it via my contact page.

You are not the voice in your head. That voice is not you. That voice can be practically anyone (mom, dad, your high school math teacher) or anything (perfectionist cheerleader/Martha Stewart type or Glamour magazine) but the one thing it is not is you. It’s easy to become identified with this voice; it’s always snipping away, sharp pinch by sharp pinch, into your Authentic Self. It’s always there.

In Uncommon Confidence we learn a way to silence that belittling voice in your head. We do this by re-introducing ourselves to the girl within. You remember her, don’t you? She is the sweet mini-you that isn’t so long in your past. She is girl who loved to read in her bedroom, play train with her siblings and their dolls, visit her grandparents alone, run around without a shirt on until she was at least 12, etc. Where has she been? Ah, yes! She is still here; we just forgot about her. Open up your door and let her in, for goodness’ sake! She is You. You are still that girl. Considering that girl, ask yourself if you’d tell her if she was fat or stupid. Would you tell her that she was dumb for taking that chance?

It’s really time that they met. Evil, belittling voice of menace and cruelty, can I introduce you to sweet, innocence, genuine goodness who smiles at people she doesn’t know and laughs loud and often? Will that voice speak that way to Her? Will you let that happen? Or, will you say “NO!” and hold her close and whisper how amazing, capable and beautiful she is to her? I thought so.

Honestly respond with a “true” or “false” to each of the statements below.

1. I often make unhealthy food /drink choices.
2. I struggle with my weight and/or about my comfort with my weight.
3. I often sleep poorly.
4. I sometimes feel like my wardrobe doesn’t represent who I really am.
5. I don’t exercise regularly or if I do, I often force myself to do it.
6. I am unsatisfied with one or more aspects of how I present myself to the world (hair, make-up, skin, clothes, shoes, etc.).
7. I over-think…a lot, even seemingly “small” decisions.
8. I was sexually abused as a child or raped as an adult.
9. I sometimes question my loveability.
10. I am unhappy with my sex life or am resigned to not having one.
11. I sometimes wonder about my drinking or someone else has expressed concern about my drinking to me.
12. I suffer from an anxiety disorder or have suffered from one in the past.
13. I usually wear the same things to work, out of indecision as to what else to wear or frustration over not having clothes that fit or look good on me.
14. I frequently suffer from low energy.
15. I play it safe in most areas of my life: conservative/neutral dress; seldom venturing out (to dinner or movies) by myself; ordering a safe/“usual” off a menu; not contradicting what someone else says if I disagree; staying in a relationship or position longer than it serves me; driving a “practical” car. (If you agree with three or more, give yourself a “true”.)

Tally your answers. If you answered “true” to 9 or more, I really want to hear from you. Please contact me via my website or phone at 860 435 0170 or email at pink@ejohnsonandcompany.com. What’s in it for you will depend on what you want or need. I know your time is valuable so trust that you will be repaid accordingly for speaking with me in greater detail. So if you responded “true” to 9 or more of the above answers, please let me hear from you. Thank you!

It is tempting to see one area of your life as the root of all other problems. Sometimes it is money, or a lack thereof, and sometimes it is weight. If only we could improve or control this one area then everything would be different: people would change, the job would be bearable, the relationship would have passion again. This is not reality, however. When everything feels so out of control, our next steps is not to constrain ourselves as much as possible or put all of our energies into managing just one thing. This is a recipe for disaster because isn’t this hot chase of control really a pursuit of perfection? Perfection sets us up for failure. Every time, all the time.

A better strategy is to pay small, thoughtful amounts of attention to the different areas of your life that need attention. Admit that you are frustrated with your work and then take some time deciding whether or not you want to look for another job or sit and stew some more. Opt to toss out the crappy food in your fridge and restock with fruits, veggies and some healthy snack options that taste good or don’t leave your mouth and taste buds feeling deprived. Consider whether or not you want to ask for a raise from your boss or search for a better paying job. Get it? Small thoughtful steps save you from the mania of over-doing unhealthy actions while simultaneously allowing you to see that fixation on one insane area doesn’t solve all of your problems.

Do you attempt to solve challenges that come up by looking at the issue from a strictly black or white perspective?

Our natural inclination to tackle challenges is usually with an all or nothing mentality: ignore the challenge and hope it somehow miraculously resolves itself or throw every possible idea, option or inspiration at the challenge hoping to solve it that way. These tactics seldom work. Why? Because our Authentic Self is not black or white; she is a blend of different colors, textures, patterns and passions. Because of this, black and white answers aren’t solutions.

In both of my workshops and with clients, I introduce the concept of “the big grey area of opportunity”. This perspective offers that there are endless options to solve challenges, if we look beyond the obvious i.e. black and white. Just like your basic brown suit is traditionally formal, it can look casual if you skip the standard white button-down and opt for a fitted tee or scoop neck instead while mixing in fun jewelry or a bright scarf.

Work issues are a common challenge that can be solved more easily if we use the perspective of a big grey area of opportunity. Let’s look at an example. Imagine that you are sick to death of your current job and find yourself passively aggressively dealing with co-workers and superiors while at work. You are looking for another job but can’t quite get past the fact that your current job, while utterly misery-inducing, does offer you good pay, excellent benefits and some other perks that you take advantage of. What options are open to you by using the perspective of the big grey area of opportunity? Would you consider a new career which offers less pay but an opportunity to travel or the option to work from home? What about changing industries entirely? The skills that you have acquired are more transferable than you might think. Remember that these pearls are coming from someone who went from dealing with corporate clients who bought racing and driving programs for their clients or employees to supporting sales reps who sold skill-building training programs to companies nationwide! It can be done.

Consider what challenge is facing you right now and ask yourself what is possible if you look beyond the obvious answers and into the big grey area of opportunity.

Still reading Eat, Pray, Love but am finally in the penultimate section where Gilbert travels to Bali. In Bali she realizes that marriage is a very important concept to the Balinese and so when asked if she is married, she lies and says, “Not yet,” feeling this answer is kinder than the truth. This decision struck me as so inordinately wrong on multiple levels that I felt compelled to pull over, i.e. not continue driving and writing simultaneously.

Frequent readers of this blog know that I am not in favor of compromising the truth of your Authentic Self for anyone else’s sense of security and balance. This holds true even if you are a visitor in a foreign country. I would argue that allowing spoken dishonesty, dishonest actions or even untrue thoughts to come from you is the worst possible path you can take if you are at all concerned with a) an overabundant well of personal guilt b) anxiety c) perfectionist tendencies or d) control issues. Why? Because you are denying who you truly are. Whenever you deny your Authentic Self, you shrink your ability to be confident about who you are and what you want in any situation with anyone. You are in essence telling your AS that she isn’t good enough.

If this isn’t enough to stop your barrage of platitudes, consider then, the affect of your dishonest words on society at large. What statement are you making when you choose to not rock the boat of societal mediocrity? Where would we be without public dissenters like Rosa Parks, Gloria Steinem or the Dixie Chicks? These women chose not to accept the status quo, the comfort of complacency that others of us have done. When we challenge socially acceptable constructs like the role of media in our lives or like the expectation of marriage, or what Adrienne Rich calls “compulsory heterosexuality” as my friend Christan’s Master’s thesis explores, we stake a claim on behalf of our Authentic Self. To deny our self is to accede our rights as individuals in favor of the rights of the collective.

The only truly kind answer is the one that honors your Authentic Self, not the answer that tries address the ideology of someone else.

In the March 31 issue of TIME there is an excerpt from Pico Iyer’s new book, The Open Road, which features his journey of five years with the Tibet’s exiled Spiritual Leader The Fourteenth Dalai Lama. At one point in the article, Pyer notes that the Dalai Lama’s favorite words are: “investigate, analyze and explore,”. These are words that I react positively to also. I like their action-oriented sensibility; they have positive movement for me. Pyer goes on to say that the Dalai Lama believes that the Buddha was a “scientist”, which Pyer tells us, “means that a true Buddhist should follow the course of reason (recalling, perhaps, that anger most harms the person who feels it),”. Anger harms most the person who feels it. This philosophy is something that dovetails nicely with Monday’s conversation in my Uncommon Confidence workshop about acknowledging emotion as a way to put one’s self first.

It’s essential that we acknowledge where an emotion is coming from so we can deal with it appropriately instead of allowing it to fester unhealthily into our body. Remember that unacknowledged emotions don’t ever really go away; they manifest as a health problem for us in our body. For more information on this, visit the work of Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz. So, the Dalai Lama’s words are relevant to all of us today. The next time you swallow your words or your anger, remind yourself who is really being harmed by that bitter mouthful.

Like every other woman in the Western world, I am reading Eat Pray Love. Actually I am listening to it on audio in the car. A little late on the Gilbert fan wagon, I just started the book. Boy, did she annoy me in the beginning! I hung in there because of the promise of Italy in the not-so-distant future. Had I known she would have ended up in Rome, I might not have continued listening. For a should-er like Gilbert, Rome makes perfect sense but it was still a disappointment learning she went to Rome to discover pleasure. But endless descriptions of creamy gelato, beautiful men and an almost continual flow of pizza and pasta made my own formerly Italian heart ache with envy. Toward the end of her stay in Rome, Gilbert has a conversation with a friend who, upon learning that Rome is not her (Gilbert’s city), shares his theory that every city has a word associated with it. Rome’s word is Sex. The Vatican’s word is Power. Naples is Fight. What’s her word, he asks, since it is not Sex? She ponders. I can’t say I recall if she had an answer; I was too busy writing down (while driving of course) this theory of one word to represent an entity. I muse on this: what is my word? Upon asking the question, the expected barrages flows towards me: confidence, authentic, learner, restless, pink. I consider beauty which is close but I don’t think that’s it. Relentless and passionate feel closer. I’ll play with these two for a few days.

What’s your word? It may be tempting to choose a “should” word but I would encourage you to think about this for a few days and come up with a list that you feel represent your Authentic Self. Then narrow it down. Beauty is so important to me. Not only is it a recurring theme in my list of 6 Things I Cannot Live Without but it is also one of my five personal values and an instrumental influence in the choices that I make in my surroundings. But it isn’t a complete representation. What’s your word?

By the way, Florence’s word is Beauty.