Here are my Top 4:

1. I mistook ‘Enthusiasm’ for ‘Priority’:
I know now that some great ideas HAVE to be PARKED no matter how good they are and no matter how exciting they are, to make room for more immediate and key priorities.

2. I lost my sense of humour:
I started to take everything way too seriously…including myself. Everything became a chore. I tend to do that when I feel like I am losing control.

3. I did not say ‘NO’ enough:
I got lost in the noise of it all. I tolerated way too much. My gut knew better, but I was too busy to listen. Busy, busy, busy! Everything became urgent and important and I know that this is only a representation of a massive lack of focus.

4. I lost sight of MY GAME:
Instead of doing things MY WAY like I normally do…I let myself be influenced by people and circumstances and it altered my quick decision-making abilities. I let myself get confused by other peoples’ noise and basically…bullshit.

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Well, I can say that I am grateful for 2011 because it allowed me to experience how my clients feel at times and that has already made me an even better coach and catalyst.

Leap of the Week:
What will you say no to today? This week? This month?
What will you STOP tolerating to create more peace of mind?

And talking about guts…here is a gutsy woman making a gutsy move. Mavreen (our rock-star assistant) is making a big bold change in her life. She is saying goodbye to LeapZone to invest in herself. She is taking a leap of faith by going back to school and we are very proud of her. Margarita and I have made many bold decisions in our lives and we recognize how much courage it takes to leave what is safe and familiar behind to start something that is scary and new.

Mavreen, we want you to know that you will be greatly missed by us and by the entire LeapZone Community and we wish you a fulfilling journey of discovery, learning and creativity. 2011 would not have been the same, nor have been possible without you, and we look forward to having the opportunity to collaborate, in one way or another, with you again in the future. The friendship that we have created will be forever nurtured and cherished.

Here are a few words from Mavreen:
Dearest Leapers,
The last year and a half has been an incredible learning experience. I have been challenged, moved, and inspired which has lead me onto a new path. I am thrilled to be going back to school and building upon the experiences I have been blessed with, but I will definitely miss LeapZone and all of the people with whom I have connected. A huge thank you to Isabelle & Margarita for their generosity, support, and wisdom. You ladies are beyond fabulous and I love you both! I hope to stay in touch with you all and look forward to having our paths cross again at some point in the future. Best of luck and speak soon!

Thanks Mavreen for everything that you brought to us personally and to LeapZone. We wish you the best in your new endeavors and may 2012 be all that you want it to be…and remember that it’s much easier to do it, than to dwell on it! LOL!

Note to our Leaper Community
As you know, parting with a great employee creates a lot of loose ends. Both Margarita and I are taking this opportunity to simplify…simplify…simplify…everything from our value proposition to our business processes, client touchpoints, contact management system and everything in between. Why? To force us to keep it simple and to ensure maximum value for you. Having said that, I know that we will probably drop the ball a few times in the process despite our efforts not to, and we thank you in advance for your patience.

Cheers,
Isabelle & Margarita

Hope you had a fantastic Holiday Break filled with great food and great moments with family and friends! Margarita and I are taking some focused Bubble Time this week to really work ON our lifestyle and business. It’s a great opportunity for us to get a lot done while slowly re-integrating into our schedules and daily rituals.

One key factor in preparing for a new year is to reflect and evaluate the previous one. It’s important to look into the eyes of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly to learn as much from it as we can and to recognize patterns so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

As Margarita and I are reviewing 2011 and planning for 2012…we are asking ourselves some tough but valuable questions and I thought I would share some of these questions with you, as they are powerful and important to reflect upon in order to raise the bar and move forward.

Investing 15 -20 minutes in this questionnaire will definitely prepare you for a great 2012. Here you go! Are you ready for 2012?
https://leapzone.wufoo.com/forms/w7×3k1/

P.S. By filling this out before January 7th, you are automatically entered to win one full year of MyLeapTools.com*.

*MyLeapTools™ is packed with kick-butt tools, templates, strategies and methodologies that have greatly helped us, and our clients, take their brand and business to the next level. Each item comes with a kick-ass tutorial explaining how to best use it and what it will do for you!

I look forward to continue to be a part of your “virtual team” to help you raise the bar and take your business to the next level.
Enjoy and cheers to a kick ass 2012!

Isabelle
Catalyst at LeapZone Strategies
Host of LeapTV.com

There is a commonly held belief that one becomes an entrepreneur by going into business, or going out on one’s own.

I don’t subscribe to that belief.

In fact, as you and I get to know each other better – and I trust we will over time — you’ll discover that not only don’t I subscribe to that belief, but I hold strongly to the opposing belief (with overwhelming evidence to support my position!) that to go into business, or out on one’s own, in the belief that by so doing one is an entrepreneur, will result in tragic consequences of the greatest magnitude.

In short, it’s a very, very bad idea!

So then what — writing as I am on Entrepreneur.com — is an entrepreneur?

Let me share my view with you, and then let me give you three exercises to do to awaken the entrepreneur within you to come out and begin do his or her work for you to create your new and astonishing world.

Hear me, an entrepreneur is not a person, but a personality. The personality living inside of each and every person on the face of the earth…the personality who dreams.   The entrepreneur inside of you, of me, of your children, of your husband or wife, of your father or mother, of your friends, of your relatives of every shape, size and dimension, no matter what they do for a living, no matter how bold or how shy, no matter where they live or what their education may be or not be, the entrepreneur in each and every human being is the dreamer, the dreaming soul in each and every one of us who sees life as it could be, not as it is; who sees mountains where only flat land lives;  who sees great buildings and cities and countries arising with enormous energy where as of yet no buildings or cities or countries live;  who sees the sweet juice of opportunity around every corner, in every cranny, nook and claptrap yard, in every square or rounded inch of misery, there is, to the entrepreneurial personality living in each and every human being a life larger than life, a beauty larger than beauty, a promise larger than any promise could hope to be.  The entrepreneur in each and every one of us is the inventor, the creator, a lunatic of the most profound dimensions, the inconsolable pursuer of the impossible who sees visions where others only see work.

The entrepreneur in you and in me is holy, truly holy, and not to be believed.

Which says that Walt Disney knew who his entrepreneur was, as did Sam Walton, as did Ray Kroc and Steve Jobs, as did Debby Fields and yes, even, as strange as it might seem to you, did Einstein and Chopin and Rumi and every “imagineer” (Disney’s word!) who ever dared to climb a mountain that wasn’t there, and to reach the summit, and to hold up his hands and head and scream to those who didn’t see him or her until they came into view…not even the mountain!…”I’m here!”   And there was no ‘here’ until they said it.  And there was no ‘there’ until all the others saw it.  And there was no summit until they created it.  And that’s what the magic of your entrepreneurial soul does when you invite him, when you invite her, to go climbing.

The First Exercise

Stop thinking about what you want to do.  Stop doing what you are doing.  Go to a place, any place will do, where activity ceases, where there is no itinerary, no schedule, no agenda, no responsibility, no work of any kind, no expectation, no result you have set for yourself, no goals, no objectives, no action plans whatsoever, go to such a place to empty your mind.

And that is the first exercise to awaken the entrepreneur in you…to empty your mind.  To dream and to create there needs to be both space and energy.  With nothing whatsoever you intend to do.  The entrepreneur in us wants to play with the idea of things, without constraint.  To write without purpose, to imagine without an end game, to live fully and completely in the moment of his or her experience, now.  Not in the past, nor in the future, but now.

To prepare yourself for this Exercise, try sitting down where you are, closing the door, telling everyone who might bother you, to give you ten minutes without disturbance of any kind.  Unplug the phone, turn off your computer, sit down, face a wall, close your eyes, place your hands in your lap, breath deeply, and just stay there, just like that.  You’ll see immediately what I mean, and why that is important.

You must do this First Exercise every single day!

The Second Exercise

Get a blank piece of paper.  You have nothing in mind.  Sit with the blank piece of paper and let whatever comes to mind go to the paper.  Whether it be a sentence, or just three seemingly unrelated words.  Whether it be an entire paragraph, a thought, a concern, a conclusion, let it write itself down.  The key here is to let ‘It’ speak.  To let ‘It’ speak.  To let ‘It’ say what ‘It’ wants to say.  To let ‘It’ have the room to breath.

My saxophone teacher once said to me, years ago, “Michael, you don’t make music, music finds you.” You need to let ‘It’ play its music.  That is what the entrepreneur in you wants more than anything, to play ‘It’s’ music.

You will be amazed what appears on the blank piece of paper as you do this Second Exercise.

Do it for only 10 minutes.

Do it once a day.  And save those pieces of paper, with the date on the top right hand corner.  Save them in a box, or a file folder, and know that that box or file folder is a sacred place.  Because your dreamer has created it.  Your entrepreneur has become vulnerable.  Your creator has expressed himself, herself, and you have been a witness to it.
The Third Exercise

Maintaining your entrepreneurial journal is a daily process, and I highly recommend it.  Buy yourself a Journal, preferably with leather covers, a rich looking Journal, a Journal that impresses you because it looks so rich, so permanent, so significant.   Write in that Journal what you learned that day.  Write in that Journal what you felt that day.  Write in that Journal anything that came to mind that day, as you sat with a blank piece of paper, as you sat in your chair facing the wall for ten minutes with absolutely no interruption at all, as you felt your feelings come up, your feelings of being blocked, your feelings of being ashamed, your feelings of excitement, your feelings of despair…whatever came up that day, record it, even though you may not think you are an accomplished writer, or even if you think you are, your entrepreneurial Journal is not about the writing, it’s about the recording.  This is your life, someone once said.  This is your life, and if you don’t take it seriously, who will?   This is your Third Exercise, and it will feed your First Exercise and your Second Exercise, and you will know it.

Believe me, you will know it.
Write me and tell me what you find out.

Goodbye for now.

It is an outstanding effort to help Canadian women in poverty and the Canadian Women’s Foundation has surpassed their halfway mark, with almost 1,400 women (and men) joining the Women Moving Women campaign!

The momentum of this campaign continues to grow across Canada and we are very proud to be a part of it!

If you want to learn more please visit:

Canadian Women’s Foundation – Women Moving Women
www.womenmovingwomen.ca

If you haven’t read this book filled with simple rules for success, then pick it up today! You won’t put it down ’til it’s done!

If you want to learn more about what makes a business succeed, then this read is for you!

I like to spend it outdoors, or curled up on the couch…some days I just go with my flowing thoughts, others I write things down. Me Time can be and look like whatever you need that day. That’s how I treat it, and that is why I find it so beneficial. It allows me to tune-in with myself so that I can bring the best of me forward. Everyday.

However you decide to spend your “me time” is up to you. The important thing is to do it. Even if for 15 minutes a day. Just have that time to spend with yourself. You’ll quickly find out you’re worth it!

Well, here’s my theory…every thing, place, or person as we know it is made up of molecules that vibrate at a certain frequency to create that specific thing, place, or person. Generally, either by instinct or knowledge, we tend to choose “getaway” vacation spots – naturally vibrating at a lower frequency than where we spend most of our time – to relax. Places with less people, buildings, cars…just less going on in general.

The biggest benefit of visiting one of these places is that it effectively helps to bring down our frequency from the higher level most of us tend to operate at when you combine all the activity of day-to-day life – work, chores, children, pets and play. If you think about it, the amount of time it takes for someone to “wind down” on vacation really depends on how far they need to go to get closer to the vibration or “groove” of where they are visiting.

Now, let’s say you’ve finally found the vacation “groove”, most likely two days before you have to leave as luck would have it, but regardless…you’ve found it and you are in the flow. Those few days later when you are back home and re-integrating, the process is much the same but in reverse. And I believe it is precisely this upward shift that is required to get us back to the higher vibration of our day-to-day that initially wipes us out upon our return. Thus, leaving us feeling exhausted from the get-go and with the unfulfilled feeling of needing a second vacation.

My solution to this madness is to be aware of my own personal vibration level (in a natural state) and keep it within an acceptable range of that state no matter where I am in this big world. At home or abroad. It’s not easy I’ll tell you that, but it is possible. Once you realize that everything outside of yourself is its own entity and you can only control however you are feeling or acting, in any given moment, then balancing your state of being becomes a smaller task to take on.

Try it on for size and let me know what changes in yourself, and others, you discover. You may be surprised!

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It is an excellent way to increase flexibility, presence of mind and inner strength while releasing toxins and decreasing stress.
I encourage you to find the closest studio offering Yin near you, and try it!