Screw Itsy-Bitsy

What would I say, if I wasn’t afraid…

I see that you’re living the normal good life, and I’m concerned…

You’d better get it looked at. Those things can be fatal!

Normal is the last thing that brings stimulation to our Soul. Good is the Enemy of Great. Living, Truly Living, means expressing and exercising your unique gifts, the You-Ness in a way that titillates. To BeLiving raises the consciousness of the world itself. It’s what we’re here for. It can be tender like a cultivation, with encouragment and sensitive awareness. Or it can be cannon fire, explosions, our guts and our failures too.

Hot or Cold is Love Baby; Lukewarm is Death.

Or maybe it’s showing someone else, the One Thing that is holding them back. Sure, that can be love, but Jesus does that best. Our little toddler egos pretend we’re world-wise, while we rip, complain and whine the weeks away, sitting in the same place as last year.

Yes, It’s YOU, I’m talking to today – Not someone else, It’s YOU I had in mind while writing these words. This is an enthusiastic call to action, created today for You.

The fork in the road exists right now.

Call Me. I Love You. Let’s have a REAL conversation. 

And YES, just in case YOU were wondering… You’re not alone. There are Some People who LOVE these conversations. There are some people who are improving the world. There are some people who want to connect with someone else, who ‘gets’ this…

Today, You can join them 🙂

I will make it easy to start, I promise, then we turn up the flame! I am running a 2 pack ($250) and a 4 pack ($400) session special right now.  These are $100 dollar conversations, but that is just so not the point… You need to finally invest in yourself. You need to commit to it. You don’t need to give up as much as I have, just to get started 🙂

The diagnosis is this – Normality is fatal. Get some medicine – Weird Medicine. Come back to LIFE, from the brink of Death… Or Don’t. The Choice is beautifully Yours 🙂

“There is always the temptation in life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for years on end. It is all so self conscience, so apparently moral…But I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous…more extravagant and bright. We are…raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.” – Annie Dillard

785-218-6134

With Enthusiasm!

(but that’s just what I would say, if I wasn’t afraid to 🙂 )

Aaron Nichols

It’s All Ya Need

My dream is about creation and loving thru service, service that shows up in many real ways, artwork painting life in brighter shades, exposing the brilliant colors we all hide behind a taupe and bland neutral normality, finally letting God’s Gifts be seen.

And usually I’m heading for that dream at 100mph or Zero.

Lately, it’s been a lot of Zero.

Why?

Because of my two-speed system. It tend to have more Zero than 100. Embarrassingly, it’s something that I’ve even been quite proud of over the course of my 33 years.

Sure many moments are All-Out, full-speed, risk-it-all and go-for-it! They’re countless actually. Some big, some small, but tons of times, where I’m committed and playing hard. Pushing maybe too hard. At Best, in-the-zone and cranking on whatever project or problem is at hand. I’m a beast at making it happen, using creativity & brains too.

That is the 100mph me.

In contrast, the other speed is Zero.

Oh Baby, can I be Mr. Zero. The moments when things aren’t going my way, I hit Zero. The times that lack direction and purpose and urgency, are not slow-mo – they’re Zero. When I feel backed into a corner, or pressured, or irritated, STOP, DIG-IN, I’M AT ZERO – NO BUDGING! If the outlook seems bleak, and I figure my efforts are now being wasted, I say ‘screw it’, I’ll just quit, and go start somewhere else, try something new, that may work out this new next time… How often, or how many times am I in this mode, this go-nowhere, or stop it, screw it, 0mph speed? Waay more often than 100mph. Dat’s for sure.

Somehow, I guess I rationalize that overall it evens out, or balances, or if I keep on keepin’ on, then someday, I will beat this thing that stops me, and I’ll more often be at top speed and really get my life moving, Right?

Truthfully, I don’t usually put that much thought into it. It is just such a natural rhythm to me that I feel good at top speed, and expect these big moments out of myself. Conversely, I also feel depressed and stinky-thinky when stuck. Has it always been this way? I don’t know that this two-speed example is perfect for all situations, but many over a lifetime.

It does point toward a belief that Results are Permanent.

Even, It is what It is. And that’s not true 🙂

BOOM!!! NOW INTRODUCING A NEW THOUGHT!!! BOOM!!! ANOTHER WAY!!!

Yeah, my kickass Coach – Megan, showed me a new trick this week. Honestly, I have to tell you that this idea and concept sounded so foreign, so new and so fresh, that I asked her to really illustrate what she meant. Sounded like gibberish at first 🙂

The bi-polar 2 speed approach that I’ve practiced for years, normally gets me two things: Awesomeness and Pure Adrenaline, or Depression and Self Loathing.

Nothing in between…

The new idea she showed me, was somewhere in the middle: It’s Renegotiation.

Wow, really, this idea is amazing to me. Renegotiation can happen at a point between 100mph or Zero. Renegotiation can happen when we’re slowing down from a super-fun and productive mood. Renegotiation can happen when we want to move just a tiny bit faster than a stand-still, but cannot reach full blast. We can negotiate the parameters again, right now, right here, from this exact point. Amazing.

It’s a fresh start. It deletes the past. It’s not clinging to a fake future. It’s a point at which we make a new agreement, from this exact perspective, given where we are at right now. We are not stuk on a track and heading only this way, or have to follow it because of a previous choice of fork in the road.

Renegotiation is a slight pause of recognition that we need one. Then it’s a calculation and inventory of our current capability, our current location. Then it’s a new agreement on the goal, maybe even a new goal, and a short and simple “what’s next” to eventually reach it.

The Renegotiation concept has a Siamese twin attached to it. Re-commitment. See, in that moment, we get to re-commit and express our intention aloud. We say YES, I really Do want this thing. Yes, even though I’m moving slow, I will do one small step today toward my goal. Or No, My commitment is to something else. My commitment was confused before, I was mistaken. Now I’m thankful that I see the truth in my own lack of progress… It showed me what I really wanted, and it wasn’t what I thought.

So there. Renegotiate/Recommit – A Priceless pair.

What parts of my life, are due for a Renegotiation? Almost all of em!!

Relationships – Career – Money – Spirituality – Physically – Friendships – Schedule – Civic – Charity… the list goes on… If I know you, personally, very well at all… It’s probably time that we Renegotiate and look again to find the best way to proceed with life together, that helps us both, and brings LIFE and LOVE back.

I’m wide open tonight – On Thanksgiving night – I’m thankful that I have a lot of opportunity for Renegotiation and Re-commitment to important people and things in my life… I love you very much.

In my formerly broken system of 100mph or Zero, I had no mechanism to handle these huge life shifts that I’ve chosen. I either wanted things to be with me 100% or Gone…

Now the only thing I want gone, is the old ways… and I ask the Almighty Father, for his help with that. This is a moment to repent, to about-face, and to overcome.

I’m thirsty for Renegotiation. I’m ready for fresh starts from right here, right now. This work can produce traction, in small ways. It’s capable of creating a movement of balance. With Renegotiation and Re-commitment, the flow can ebb, it can wax and wane, even teeter and totter, yet stay moving forward, toward Love…

And Love… well; It’s All Ya’ Need 🙂

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols

Jar Head

This week on Facebook, I saw a philosophical re-post that I’d only seen a hundred times before.

Big Surprise, I know!

Anyway, I had seen the story before, of the professor and the jar, and how he shows his class, that we can fit a lot more into our jar of life, when we put in the big stones first, then smaller, then the sand…

It’s about our true Big priorities taking precedence and leaving the ‘small stuff’ till the end.

Usually, the punchline is that he pours a beer into the jar at the end, proving that there is always room for beer in life – YAY!

Well, I really related this week, for good reason. My thoughts about my ‘jar’ were dragging me down.

And no, I didn’t pour a beer into my life, making everything better…

I did do something a couple years ago though, that has really changed the makeup of my ‘jar’ of rocks…

I dumped it out.

It made a mess.

Having your jar empty is scary. Knowing that you purposely grabbed it and shook it upside down, choosing this, brings on lots of self doubt. It wasn’t a hurricane, or a terrorist, or something outside of my control that caused this. It was me.

With an empty jar though, I also get to choose what to put back in it. I get to rebuild it. I can create as I go. Some of my new choices have been fun and good and some are painful. Totally reinventing how your jar is configured, requires more strength than I ever thought it would. I do get exhausted. At times, I am forlorn and seeing rosy memories in hindsight.

Back before the dump.

And yet, I can check in with my gut. I ask that 29 year old me, what he really wanted to do with his life. What hadn’t he yet done, that he was yearning for, and scared of, and pawing at the air for, that he would be too embarrassed or too insecurely cocky to admit.

We wanted this dump. We wanted drastic. It seemed only way to completely rebuild.

But DANG it’s HARD!

And yet, it all is perfect.

Truthfully, even before the dump, it was all perfect too… Yup, every moment has been.

That’s the irony. In my reaching and grasping, I’m right where I belong. In my pain. I’m right where I belong. In a moment in a coaching call last night, up against a wall, feeling the same ol’ same ol’ ‘Whatt’re YaGoin’ Tadoo’ question, I broke, perfectly. The answer was ‘breathe’, the answer was ‘appreciate now’, the answer was that, there is no next week to shoot for, or action plan to create, or steps to follow. All those thoughts leave me in lack. They show me I’m not there. They illustrate a gap, decorated in shades of pain…

Again, ‘Whatt’re YaGoin’ Tadoo’

Ha! The answer-pop came with a laugh. “I’ll just get into the perfectness of now. I’ll just employ the radical truth, that this breath is absolute and complete. And, if I forget and slide back out, into the rainy mucky mud, then that will be perfect too. As I forgive myself, allow grace, and clear all self-judgement, I’m back to good.”

Good is a much better place to operate from. God is the place to operate from. Close to Him, seeing and feeling no gap. Living in gratitude of his creation, which is all…

The jar is His, the rocks and pebbles and sand are His. Nothing is not.

Dumping it all out and starting over, may be his plan, may be mine, doesn’t matter. It’s all perfect, perfectly broken, not flawless or pristine. There is a breath right now, moving through… It is His, and it is all there truly is… The rest is dust.

Would it be true? That to beat fear, to live in faith, to truly love and serve, would be to keep ourselves empty? To be a vessel for His will? To constantly let go. Knowing only Him?

I’ll slow down on my ‘jar filling’ and trying so hard to create it exactly right…

I got a Jar. Lord, thank you for that, now, how would YOU use me??

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols

Why You Oughtta!!!

You are just talented… smart… skilled… even proficient…

Enough.

And that is all you Need to be.

The rest is how bad you want it…

This was wisdom from a client yesterday. He really gets it. That is truth.

And he was talking about ‘You’.

When we’re talking about ‘You’, we are packed full of answers, we’re Einstein.

And by ‘We’, I mean Me.

I have answers, lots of them. This week I worked in several true coaching conversations, working through possibility and yes, some great answers. Over and over again, I heard little moments popping and sparking for the both of us; ‘Aha Moments.’

And yet interestingly, it was appropriate several times, to take the words and wisdom of the client, and offer them as a toss or a gift back to themselves. When they take their own advice for ‘You’, their eyes got wider, they opened up and had a real decision moment…

Do I believe this enough, to live it out for myself?

I loved the airy, smoky, developing instant where it Became a truth for their life, for their application, for their current, real and tangible problem right in front of them.

A Solution Even. Born from their own mind. Their infinite wisdom.

And another beautiful realization for me. Lucky me, I get to experience and enjoy and live through all these wonderful moments and ‘Aha’s’ with them. I participate in the client’s answers, their victories, and I hear my own wisdom too, and Yes I have been convicted myself. I need this message too.

The power of yours plus the power of mine, plus an intangible spiritual force that is as almighty and electrifying, as it is silent and mysterious.

The work this week has been amazing. The collaboration, the tingly feelings, the tears, the truths, and smiles, and the broken, busted, crumbling chunks of former stoutly built Brick Walls, litter our floor… We can use them to build your Room to Grow 🙂

Possibility has blossomed, it’s vibrant and green, it’s springtime.

If we’ve worked together this week, I deeply thank you. You are a gift to my life, you are a gift to the whole of our world. You are stretching yourself, you are taking your own medicine, you are crafting your own healing. You are a – a – a – mazing!

If you’d like to do some work with me, I toss this invitation; I will gift you a session. You’ll be surprised what you bring to our table. Just bring You. You’re talented, you’re smart, you’re skilled and proficient… Enough, plenty enough. You are all you’ll ever need to be…

We’ll work on that next step then; How bad do you want it?

🙂

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols

Elementary Ain’t Enough!!

My story must not be interesting enough…

It must bore me…

Where have I defined my goals and my dreams as too small, ordinary or mundane?

Could this be a highly useful perspective?

Can I backtrack my lack of fire and laziness, instead of magic creative action, to a dull and unexciting imagined outcome that I just won’t make effort to pursue?

Today Steve Chandler wrote that we could be like Sherlock Holmes with our clients:

You can also take on a Sherlock Holmes mindset in which you only take the cases that get your blood going. If you watch the great Holmes TV series with Jeremy Brett, or read the books, you’ll notice that Holmes only takes cases that really intrigue him. He dismisses a lot of people who come to him…even people with a lot of money to offer him…because the case is not interesting enough.

BUT!

But what if I take this advice and apply it to my own desires? My wish is to serve people near and far, by building a healthy and prosperous coaching practice. And although I love every conversation I have with a client, maybe this just isn’t a dynamic enough dream for me to really want to move boldly toward.

I may find that I am already being like Sherlock Holmes, With Myself, and I don’t know it.

Ha!

I can’t be the only one with a bunch of ‘day-dreams’ my mind. These are things I WISH I had accomplished or realized or completed. But yet, I have not.

Maybe they’re too small, too boring and too mundane, to excitedly chase after?

The thought of actually achieving them doesn’t feel compelling enough to move? Maybe this is an easy way to measure my desire and passion and calling?

When I take action, when I jump-at-the-chance and create new possibility for myself, then I’m looking at a ‘case’ or a ‘dream’ that I am really intrigued by.

Where do we learn to play too small? Why does it feel ‘safer’ choose a prudent,  conservative or ‘realistic’ goal? It seems they’re not working for me. I have lots of these in my mind, and I only push toward them in a start-stop, sorta-kinda, when-I’m-inspired way.

What if we really play and create and imagine with our dreams? If we want to find a ‘case’ that would ignite the sternly-guarded curiosity and inflame the veteran expertise of Mr. Holmes, then we’d want to get outrageous!

We’d better bring a doozie!

Breathtaking, Beyond-Belief, Striking, Stunning, Dazzling, Earth-Shattering, Foundation-Rocking, Bizarre, Bewildering, Staggering, Appalling, Terrifying, Flabbergasting, Astounding and Astonishing are things that… MAY… interest the distinguished Holmes…

So, back to the drawing board… Are you Bold? Wanna Get Bold Together??

Here are three examples I love from coaches that I know and admire.

  • I Build Empires!
  • I Jump out of Planes over Hawaii with My Clients!
  • I Coach Kings!

Yeah, that’s more like it! Feel the imagination, feel the scope, the breadth and possibility!

Okay, I’m gonna freestyle here a bit… and give it a shot, to impress my inner Holmes 🙂

  • I Wake People Up!
  • I Stop the Insanity!

Whoooo… this is tougher than I thought it would be!

  • I Light Wildfires!
  • I’m a Chain Breaker!
  • I Bleed Bestsellers!
  • I Speak Limitless Possibility!

Okay… keep going…

  • I Create Miracles Everyday!

Whew!!!… that was an hour’s worth of hard work!!

I’d better keep going…

I haven’t crystallized it just yet and my inner Sherlock is READY to jump on a case.

He’s tired of playing around with dinky daydreams!!

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols