With love, respect and great appreciation,

Tanya

So, while I’m a big starter, I’m also pretty fascinated by those who are big FINISHERS. Enter the fabulous, inspiring and über-cool Dyana Valentine. Her motto? “Helping self-starters self-finish: one project at a time”.

She’s been on my radar for a while, though it wasn’t until she issued a challenge that I decided to say “howdy”. Her challenge : 40 Days of Our Bodies – a commitment to tending to our bodies for 40 days and noticing the shifts that arise.

I decided to jump on in with committing to 40 days of yoga. No small feat, right? Hatha = hard. Here’s the kicker though. I LOVE yoga. Making room for a daily practice is a challenge, yes, but I started to feel that I was cheating myself out of the substance of this exercise…kinda like a vegan giving up liver and onions for Lent. So I looked a little deeper and I didn’t much care for what I saw…which is precisely when I discovered what I had to do.

On October 3^rd, I decided to give up the smokes. FOR GOOD. Yup…that’s right. I had been smoking “socially” for the past two years (again). It pains me to type those words: inner monologue goes something like “you should have known better”; “how can you coach people towards self-care if you weren’t walking the talk”; “yucky stinky” and so on.

But self-imposed judgment doesn’t ever work too well with me (which is why I hadn’t managed to REALLY quit before). Here’s what does work for me:

1. A good and resonant reason…love. I am 37. My mother died at 59. I am madly in love with my family…and I do not want to cheat them out of ME and what I bring to this life. Ain’t nothing more resonant for me than love.
2. A good challenge…with accountabilities built in. I shared with Dyana and she’s been a valued source of support, inspiration and giggles. I knew she wouldn’t let me fall. And she won’t.

Am on Day 20. Half-way through Ms D’s  challenge…and 20 days into a new and freer chapter in my blessed life.

What do you need to be finished with so that you can get started on your new path?

While I am still blissfully defining and refining my own version of truth about success, I do know that by all accounts, last night’s Coach Buffet in Montreal was indeed a success. How do I know? I saw it in the faces of the clients and coaches, felt the energy in my scalp and toes, and read the glowing feedback forms from everyone involved.

There is no one secret to success (just google that and you’ll see that there are ostensibly 106,000,000 secrets). But for Coach Buffet, there were 3 very good reasons…none of them a secret:

• WHAT – It is an excellent idea. Props here to Lisa for conceiving of it…she asked me to partner early along and we coached each other to the place of making it happen, but success does indeed come from innovation. People are hungry to learn about coaching and Coach Buffet is the perfect place to sample different “flavours” of coaching styles. Lisa was right…as she often is.

• HOW – We worked hard…this is a core value for both of us. We clocked several hundred hours executing the strategy. Period. And managed to keep it fun and are still the best of friends.

• WHO – We needed two types of people to say “yes” to this event to make it a sucess and we are ever-so-grateful:

So, I leave Montreal this morning, unabashedly basking in the glow of success for a job well done…and excited to refine for Toronto’s Coach Buffet on November 17^th. We do hope you’ll come out, hungry for possibility and even, if you can imagine, just a little bit more.

Here’s the problem. We gorge. We overdo it. Too much stuffing. Too much wine. Too much pressure to pull it all off. Heck, even too much family (yup, I dared say it….now please read on for the reframe). What I mean here is that it’s a hectic, crazy blur. Look outside your window right now…do you see any life? NO, because everyone’s on their couch rubbing their bellies with the phones turned off and watching the Seinfeld marathon on TV Tropolis. It was all too much to handle.

There must be another way. A softer, more moderate display of our gratitude for what we all have in abundance. Other ways to tell family that we love them and that we care: more frequent (and shorter?) visits. A little less butter on the turkey skin (uh-huh…1200 calories per serving…we did the math). One less bottle of wine. A little more chatting and one less side dish.

I am grateful for much…and choose to tune into it all on a daily basis, rather than binging on it over one weekend in October.

And now, I’m off to make a sandwich and see what the gang in Manhattan’s up to these days…but will leave my phone on in case family wants to talk.

“The room was ALIVE, VIBRANT, In MOTION.  The LOVE. LIGHT and LAUGHTER was magical, healing, profound.”

Sorry folks, but those are some of my trigger words (others are: yoga retreats, equality, kittens, Loire Valley, Lauren and Greg, popcorn and Donna Karan, but I digress). I had to speak to this man. Some due diligence first. A quick peek at his website revealed that he had performed for Deepak Chopra, Byron Katie, John Canfield and many others. Now I REALLY had to speak to him. I tried to e-terview him, but he would have nothing of it. He wanted to talk to me. In fact, he wanted to SING to me.

We chatted for a while about who he is and what he’s all about. He is a very funny comic, a laid-back Californian, an intuitive coach, a scarily talented song-writer and performer, and a fiercely proud father and husband. I asked the dopey question: “are [wife Venus and daughter Aysia] your happiness?” and was pretty pleased when he replied: “No, that’s called family. Happiness is an inside job”.

And here’s what he’s about:

I’m about looking fear in the face and saying “Excuse me but you lie. You’re not the truth”. And I do that in my own life and for others in my coaching, comedy and music. So I do that and I am that.

What has been your most thrilling performance to date?

It would have to be the first time that I did stand-up comedy because I was intimidated by that form of expression. I was going on the stage that Dana Carvey and Robin Williams had been on.  In fact, I opened for Robin Williams. I had so much fear and so afterwards, I was so proud of myself. I was high on that for days. This goes back to my commitment to not let the fear take over or be the truth about me.

What is the most thrilling performance that you’ve YET to do?

I imagine it’s about making songs in the moment…this is likely what’s most unique about me and what I’m able to create. I have a vision of being on Oprah and her saying “I’ve heard about you, do your thing” and there being tears. Lots of them…and joy.

You have enjoyed a fair amount of success…other than sheer talent, what else can you attribute it to?

I’ve been performing full-time for 20 years. I didn’t set out to do this, I just started writing songs. After college, I started to become fascinated by personal growth and while I was still just writing songs for myself, they became part of my expression. I had no real thoughts about sharing it with the world. That wasn’t the intention…the intention was on the personal growth. And given that that was my prime focus, the music was pure expression and therefore it was all just easy and flowed.

The real work has been in TRUSTING enough to let it be easy.

You’re a man of words AND actions. Whose words/actions do you admire?

Barack Obama’s actions and words in a fear-based society is pretty inspiring. There’s a kind of superglue regarding the amount of people stuck to keep things the way they are. But he’s putting in a lot of energy to change that. It will take time to manifest his vision.

Is there fear in creating the in-the-moment work?

Sure…my ego says this may be tough, but luckily that’s only one voice in the choir…before it used to be the director of the choir.

What is one word that governs all that you do?

JUST ONE WORD? Naw…I need more!

Okay, 5

Peace, love, ease, power and joy.

And out came the guitar. I was treated to the Scott Special: an in-the-moment creation centered around the words peace, love, ease, power and joy. It was magical to behold. This guy is seriously skillish and I was completely sold by song’s end. It was poignant, soulful, resonant and pure loveliness. I wish I had have recorded the call.

I get why he would rather sing than be interviewed.

What would you like the world to receive from you?

I’d love to know that I’ve helped people to have fun, find joy, refuse to give in to fear and to see how easy life can really be. It can flowing down the river rather than furiously paddling upstream.

I’d also like people to stop searching for the next thing. Make fun with right NOW your priority, because there will always be something else on the list.

Have fun today…it may well be your last day.

I am disappointed that I’ll miss the Toronto concert (I’ll be at Coach Buffet in Montreal) but if you are in Toronto on the 13^th, you may want to check him out. It will be a unique experience…there will be laughter, love and motion…just like Julie experienced 10 years ago.

She introduced herself as a “self-employed consultant” and at the time, I didn’t realize that this was a big shift for her to introduce herself in that way. Over the past months, I have reveled in her progress, her success and her friendship. She is a woman to watch. Here’s why:

• She is the wisest 29 year old I’ve ever met.
• She just earned her MBA.
• She just launched a book called “Will it Fly: And Idea Tester” which is an important read for anyone with a vision and an uncertainty about its viability (and invited me to speak at the launch party…told you she was cool).
• She is hilarious.
• She has a consulting business called Make it Fly that is simply bursting at the seams.
• This month she launches a new site called: smallbusinesssolver.com which was created for small business owners who may not be able to afford a business consultant’s wages. It was also borne out of her connection with herself and her values. Smart, smart woman. She knew that as successful (and here, I mean bucks) as she will continue to be as a business advisor, that she was likely not going to be satisfied in the long term helping people with the same problems and the same answers. She likes greater variety and wanted a product that could reach everyone…not just those who can pay top dollar. The Small Business Solver is a program that represents tons of research and interviews with small business owners (yours truly included) to tap into what their needs are…and the solutions. Do check it out…even if you don’t sign up, you will learn some aspects about your business that you may not have considered.  She’s very very very generous that way.
• She has great shoes.
• She is a world traveler.
• She is a natural and giving connector and if you ever get the chance to sit down with her and talk about life, love, success and all things glorious, you’ll feel grateful to have her at your table.

I wanted to write about her because you know how I love to talk about people who step into their greatness. I also like to write about people who are tapped into their values. And I wanted to post about her today (September 30, 2009) for two reason:

1. I believe in helping to build the businesses of those I dig and smallbusinesssolver.com launches this month (October 15^th, 2009). Yahoo!!!
2. On this day last year, she almost died en route to Tibet…elevation sickness. Twelve hours away from a hospital, she went into a coma for 5 hours and when she awoke, the only person who spoke English told her that they didn’t think she’d walk for at least three days…what with her temperature of 106 degree temperature and all. Call me sentimental, but I thought that story bore telling.

Here’s some insight that she shared about herself in an e-terview.

You are someone that I admire…who do you admire and why?

I admire my best friend. She is a rock.  She is one of those people who knows herself, knows what she stands for, and lives up to it every single time.  She believes in being good.  She is rather quiet, but she shines because she is comfortable with herself and is extremely happy because of this. I think that it is probably easier to be happy when you are being true to who you are – and she pulls it off better than anyone.

You are an idea tester. What is the greatest idea that you’ve come across (perhaps one that you wish you had have come up with) and what might you have done differently?

The greatest idea?  It is so tough to judge as it depends on the criteria of a great idea. I generally judge ideas on how they fit the people who want to push them forward. Often an idea doesn’t fit a person’s salary expectations, the number of hours they want to work, or their own strengths.

But to just judge an idea on its own, you have to know what the criteria of best is.  If the criteria is money (which is the traditional view of a “good” idea), I would say that casinos are great. I wanted to own one since I was 10. How would I do it differently?  My casino would go after a different niche – women.  All of the men serving drinks would wear revealing clothing, and the night entertainment would be significantly different. Instead of free cigars, maybe free manicures.  I haven’t narrowed in on a name, but maybe Cougar’s Palace. If the criteria is giving back, a neat concept, cool technology, or promoting sustainability, the best idea would be completely different.  I think that to figure out what is the “best idea”, people need to start with what is important to them. (ed note: DING DING DING!!!!!)

Was there a moment in your life that you can say “turned it around” for you (life, business or otherwise?)

No. There are many. I think that life is full of paradigm shifts.  The key is that each one should bring you to a new (and better) viewpoint.  Not to say that you can’t take a step back every once and again.  I took a step back last week. But the key is to keep striving for the next viewpoint and turning bad times into learning points.  Everyone has good and bad moments, that’s the charming part of life.

One paradigm shift that sticks out in my mind was when I first met you.  Everyone at the networking event didn’t seem that interested in speaking to an unemployed graduate student.  I kept having playbacks in my mind of headhunters telling me how many companies were on hiring freezes and the job offers I was getting were 50% below the offers given before the economic downturn.  And the shift hit me.  I had been in sales, I believed in the product which was me, why not sell that and become self-employed? That’s the exact moment you walked up to me and introduced yourself.  I responded, “I’m Carla, and I’m a self-employed consultant”.

What is the one word that guides all that you do?

“Fun” was my first reaction.  I basically live each moment, and fully enjoy each moment.  I figure I only live once – and if that is the case, I should have no regrets.  But you really can’t have fun, or at least appreciate it, without the other – connection with other people.  And I think the strongest connector is giving to others and caring about others. So I try to make sure that that is central in things I do.

What are you always giving away and what does that give you?

Anything I can really.  I make it a priority to do one good turn a day.  This can be as simple as smiling at a stranger, telling a woman on the street that she has excellent shoes, or something more involved such as pushing someone to a homeless shelter in a wheelchair for 2kms. I find that I give 30% of my time away to people.  In the end, most of my clients are a result of having done a good turn somewhere else in my life.  I think the important thing is not expecting that or taking it for granted.

Beyond the launch of smallbusinesssolver.com this month, what’s next for Carla Langhorst?

I wonder that myself. I do have a dream to write a second book during a 3 month backpack tour of South America.  But that is 2 1/2 years out from now.  Right now I want to focus on smallbusinesssolver.com.  I want people to know about it as I think that it is going to help a lot of people out there, but I also want to make it better. I know that there is a ton of potential for this tool, and I want to get it there. Imagine if the percentage of small businesses that fail was reduced to 25% – how much more creative and competitive would Canada be?  How much better would the world be if a country with so much potential could flex its creativity muscles?  I think that I’m going to keep coming up with ways to do that.  Why not have a dream?

On her first day of MBA classes, the professor said: “Live like you’ll die tomorrow and learn like you’ll live forever”. Carla was listening…and so should we.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

For my birthday, I ask that you be kind to yourself too…and know that it’s okay to come up short time and time again.

Off to feast on oysters for lunch now. Yup, it’s a good day to be me.

Our ten-year wedding anniversary is coming up on Friday. It has been a beautiful marriage with lots of laughter and love on the one hand and some pain AND growth on the other.  There is so very much to celebrate and as life would have it, for lots of reasons, we aren’t able to celebrate it in the way we’d like to…we WILL make the space and time to do it up right, it just won’t be next weekend.

So it was with a LITTLE bit of a heavy heart that I went back to the scene of the wedding reception. You see, Coach Buffet Toronto is coming up on November 17^th and we need just the right place for our unique venue needs: three distinct spaces for the one-on-one coaching, workshops, and mingling to happen.  I had not as yet found the perfect spot.

I walked in the room with a slight bit of uncertainty…I didn’t really know what to expect. Would I be greeted by the happy ghosts from 10 years ago…the jazz trio’s music wafting through the halls, the laughter and excitement that only a happy occasion like a wedding brings and the air of expectations for a perfect life?

In a way, I guess I was kind of afraid to go back…because I don’t ever want to live in the past. And as I walked through the virtually unchanged space, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror that I fixed my complicated ‘do in 10 years earlier. I am no longer that young bride filled with dreams of how happily ever afters work. And that’s good. What I saw in my reflection was a different woman…still confident in the inherent goodness of the world, a steadfast believer in the power of positivity, and filled with a different brand of dream, but slightly more pragmatic, slightly more wrinkled and a hell of a lot more empowered. And that is even better.

Our wedding day was a beautiful day. As is today. As will tomorrow be. There is no need to go back to capture that beauty.

So, I am happy, nay, thrilled to announce that Coach Buffet Toronto will be held at University of Toronto’s Faculty Club. A beautiful space with neither too much pomp, nor circumstance, but with the right peppering of Group of Seven paintings and a cool academic vibe.

Moreover, I am thrilled that 10 years later, my husband will be there with me, by my side. We are different now, and that’s good.

And for you hard core Melrose Place aficionados, that lousy smug Michael may not be back, but enjoy the new and different show.

No truer words have ever been spoken. For real.

So, given that we know the above to be the truth, why do you figure that you aren’t achieving the results in your life that you seek (and results here can mean bucks, acknowledgment, mojo, enlightenment, peace, flow, joy, a grammy, tranquility or whatever your guiding force may be)?

Upon completion of all of my Board of Your Life programs and at the end of a coaching relationship (when the birds fly from my loving nest to soar…sniff), I ask for feedback. Why? Quite simply, I like to hear what rocked my clients (so I can continue to do the same for others…AND because it sounds so nice). I also *want* to learn what wasn’t so impactful. And that part is hard…no matter how “non-attached” and zen-like I intend to be.

I was introduced some time ago to the simple method of gleaning feedback: “Start, continue and stop”. What should I start doing? What should I continue doing? What should I (…inhale deeply…) stop doing?

Peter Drucker once said, “Half the leaders I have met do not need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.” Yup.

Starting’s easy when you have a good reason to get going. Continuing is dead simple if you’ve got momentum working for you. It’s the stopping that is terrifying. What happens when you stop doing something? The fear of having to start something new to replace the stopped something can be brutally scary. Few people like change…and fewer still like to change.

To get where you know you want to go, what do you need to start doing, to continue doing and to STOP doing? (And, here’s the trick..you can do it all and still be your glorious you.)

The joy was in the collaboration, the excitement of trying something new and the anticipation of the results.

And so, I am thrilled to be in the kitchen (so to speak) yet again with my dear friend and colleague, Lisa Chandler. She conceived of the idea for an innovative coaching event and asked me to help tweak it. With a dash of this and a pinch of that, Coach Buffet was created…in the most delicious way (and with a delightful logo, thanks to Stephen Caissie).

Coach Buffet is a fun, innovative event that was concocted to bring a dozen powerful life and business coaches together with participants for meaningful one-on-one coaching conversations in a social evening format.

Sampling different types of coaching styles = buffet…get it?

This event is perfect for professionals and business owners who feel stuck in some aspect of business, career or life in general and who are hungry for possibilities.

Our first ever will be in Montreal on October 15th and will be followed up in Toronto on November 17th.

For Montreal, our array of coaches is sumptuous (by mid September, you can read all their bios on the site) and our venue is exquisite. I can assure you that powerful coaching will take place and strong relationships will form. As we say at Coach Buffet:

We are serving possibility….Are you hungry??

Register now at www.coachbuffet.com. Spaces are limited!