You can, it’s just that you won’t!

I won’t because….

In my last blog I wrote about how just when you think you can’t, you can.

And I also shared with you my experience when I went to a conference where Jack Canfield was presenting and he gave us an exercise that had us change what we said when we said “I can’t”.

He told us to replace I can’t with I won’t. Boy did that change things for most everyone in the audience.

First, when he told us to do that there was a collective gasp from about 500 people in attendance. Second, we all laughed, like “ya right, that’s not true.”

And then we did the exercise as pairs and you could hear this nervous giggling and murmuring around the room.

Because it WAS so true.

I won’t:

  • get my finances in order
  • make more money
  • pay my bills on time
  • improve my life
  • exercise
  • improve my health
  • lose weight
  • get organized
  • make my marriage better
  • make friends
  • improve my relationships

Did you come up with one that wasn’t listed? I wouldn’t be surprised if you did. There are so many!

When we change I can’t to I won’t it’s a whole different ballgame. It changes everything.

You begin to look at things in a new light. This is good. But it also is a bit of a shock too as you now need to even do something about it.

A new spin on things.

I shared in the previous blog that for some of the things that I was saying “I can’t” to really was an I won’t do.

Which is the upside of shedding the light on the “I can’ts”. It’s where you can get clarity and be able to let things go.

Here is an example. I was saying “I can’t grow my business.” And what I really meant after I said “I won’t…” was that I was finding it challenging to do all of the things that I felt I needed to do to get to where I wanted to go.

Once I shifted the statement I realized it wasn’t that I couldn’t because let’s face it we all can do the things we WANT to do, it’s do we WANT to do them that’s the question.

I realized that my I won’t grow my business really meant I won’t grow it the way I had been thinking I had to.

So this helped me look at it all differently. 

You do not have to do something you don’t want to do. (Because, spoiler alert, you won’t!)

When I did that it was freeing. It freed me to take a look at where in my life and business was I thinking I had to do something or do something a certain way when I could change it.

We get stuck when we are off our course. When we think we need to or have to do something. To do something a certain way or because someone told us to.

And when you don’t want to do something, you usually don’t do it. Then it turns into you feeling frustrated because you don’t seem to be able to get things done.

You begin to feel bad about yourself and you think “I can’t”. But it isn’t that.

So when you can say “I won’t do [insert what you won’t do], you essential give yourself the freedom to make a new choice. With the new choice, you get to say what it is you will do!

Doesn’t that feel nice?

Making success happen the easy way.

As I said in the previous blog, once I said “I won’t grow my business” it was a whole new ball game. Or, business, if you will.

The beauty of this was things became not only clearer, but easier! 

Where might you be in the same boat? Is there an area of your life that you keep saying “I can’t”?

Go ahead and change it to “I won’t” and see what happens.

Of course, you can also then ask yourself “why won’t I” because you’ll more than likely get an answer that can help enlighten you to 

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Just when you think you can’t, you can.

I can’t because….

Just when you think you can’t, you can.

How often do you hear yourself say “I can’t”… and the other word that follows is often …because…

  • I don’t have time
  • It’s too hard
  • I’m not sure I can do it
  • I can’t figure it out
  • I am afraid
  • It will take too long
  • It is too much money
  • And so many more I’m sure you can fill in the blank

I really could go on and on though you get the point, I’m sure.

We find it very easy to come up with ways to hold ourselves back, sell ourselves short and live lives that aren’t very fulfilling.

We have so many “reasons” why we can’t do something it would take days to list them all.

I once went to a conference with Jack Canfield and he said instead of saying “I can’t” say “I won’t”.

Such as:

  • I won’t improve my life
  • I won’t lose weight
  • I won’t increase my wealth
  • I won’t get organized
  • I won’t improve my relationships
  • I won’t find work I love

It takes a whole new spin on it doesn’t it. It did for me that day. And I’ve got news for you. For some of the things that I was saying “I can’t” to really was an I won’t do.

Well, well, well.

We’ll talk about that in the next blog but for now…

You are stronger, braver and wiser than you think.

And so why was that I asked myself. In fact, one was “I won’t grow my business.” I had been saying “I can’t grow my business” after a few things didn’t go as planned and I felt frustrated and thought I can’t grow my business.”

Once I said “I won’t grow my business” it was a whole new ball game. Or, business, if you will.

The “can’ts” come from lots of places. People in our past who maybe had good intentions and didn’t want us to “get hurt”, “fail” or “be disappointed” so they may have told us we can’t do something.

Yet, look at where you are today. Have there been things in your life that you thought you couldn’t do and then did?

Did you take an action even though you felt scared?

Did you emerge stronger just from taking that action?

What about making some really great decisions that lead to something even better than you imagined?

Yes, you are, as Christopher Robin says in Pooh’s Grand Aventure “You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter thank you think.”

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Is your life headed where you want it to go?

Understand that you are in the driver’s seat of your life.

Are you doing things that will get you to where you want to go in your life? Or is your life really someone else’s life?

You and you alone are the one to drive your life to where you want it to go. But have you taken the time to look at what road you want to be on? If the answer is no, you may be on a road leading to nowhere you want to be.

A client of mine was unhappy with her life. Her “whole” life as she told me in a coaching session. And please “help me”. While I’m all about help, I’m not about bailing my clients out and for a lot of people that’s what we really are looking for. Someone to “fix” things.

I’ve got news for you and you aren’t going to like it: I told her,  “you are the one causing this. No one else.”

How did I get here?

After I said that there was silence. I waited because I know she would get what I meant and when she did, she’d be on her way to fix it.

I asked her exactly what was one thing she was unhappy about right now. She said she felt defeated and depressed.

These are two very big deals and while I absolutely refer my clients to therapists if that’s what they need. I’ve worked with this woman for a year and a half, so I had an idea where to start.

I had been noticing that each session she’d come complaining and belly-aching over something someone said on Facebook. She took lots of offense to posts by her friends and family and strangers.

We looked for what was specifically causing her offense. Why did she feel offended and how was her Facebook feed feeding her offense. We delved into that. Soon she came to the conclusion that she didn’t even want or need to see it.

How do I get to where I want to be?

She had been taking offense because her values were being bumped up again. She didn’t feel the same way the other people in her life felt and she took offense that they were invading her Facebook and triggering her values.

Values are a unique thing for us and when we don’t see eye to eye or share similar values, well, a lot can happen for us.

She decided to unfollow and unfriend those that really pushed her buttons. It’s interesting to note, that when she saw her friends and family in person, she never felt offended by what they said or did. It was strictly a Facebook thing.

She did this and within two days she sent me an email to say how much better she was feeling. And that lead to her seeing that she didn’t need to “fix her whole life”. Though what she did want to focus on during our next session was ways she could uplift others in both person and on her Facebook feed.

Look at what you are putting out in life, is it what you want to get back?

She also realized that she too had posted several negative, snarky comments and posts and she was the one who brought this negativity into her life.

If you want to see where your life is and/or where it is heading, take a look at your own Facebook feed. Are you posting life giving posts or are you posting life sucking posts? Are you positive or negative? Do you get caught up in all the waaa, waaa, waaaa that people post or can you easily move on?

Maybe it sounds silly to say that your Facebook feed is a reflection on you. I do believe that it is. And is it who you really, really are? I’m going out of a limb and say that yes, it is but it isn’t who you have to continue to be if you don’t want to.

It’s all up to you. Your life, your happiness is in your hands.

It’s not really that hard

It’s too hard, but is it really?

Recently in my group fitness classes we did a plank challenge.

The challenge was to hold a plank starting one week at one minute and adding an additional 30 seconds each week.

When I first said we were going to do the plank challenge I got a lot of eye rolls and groans. Yet, I’ve got a hardy group of over 50 and beyond participants so they went along with me.

One woman said she couldn’t do it for one minute because it was too hard. So, no problem, hold it for as long as you feel you can.

Which by the way was one minute. Then she proceeded to tell me that it wasn’t really too hard.

Things are not really that hard.

If we are what we think about then what we say is even more impactful.

My fitness participant, who told me she couldn’t hold plank realized that she could and that it wasn’t that hard.

See, she had told herself and then she told me and the rest of the room what she couldn’t do.

And what I teach is to ask yourself “what can I do?” and go from there. I’m a trainer, not a torturer (though I’m sure if you asked some of the members of my group they may tell you otherwise). I set them up for success.

I knew the response I’d get when I told them about our challenge, and I also knew what would happen along the way. That they would learn that things (not only the planks) aren’t really that hard. It’s just how we think and talk about them that can make them seem hard.

What can I do?

We are always telling ourselves stories and usually they are negative. Things such as: “I can’t do that because it’s hard”. Or “I’ve never done that before so I’ll never be able to do it.”

Notice the language. All negative I can’t, it’s hard, I’ve never, I’ll never be. One of the things I know is that in order to succeed in anything, big or small is to change the story you tell yourself and others.

When setting my group up for their planks, I always tell them that this is something that we always do. I remind that they have been doing this for a long time. And I give them permission to take a break when they need to, which means they need to listen to themselves. And I remind them to ask themselves “what can I do”.

And you know what? Everything single one of my group by the end of a month’s time did a complete plank for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

The best is yet to come.

The best part of it all was when one of my ladies who can often give me the “you have got to be kidding look” said to me “That was easy”. I nearly fell over. I had to ask her to repeat it.

By the way we had already done a good back/shoulder/arm workout which I did purposely to exhaust their muscles at the beginning of the class. She was astounded that after doing the arm work she could still do the plank for the whole time.

When you challenge yourself, when you stretch outside of your comfort zone both physically and mentally you grow in ways that you couldn’t even imagine.

So in order to be the best you can be, ask yourself “what can I do” and then just do it.

Looking for more?

I’m always happy to help others who are looking for more in their lives. If that is you, set up a free session with me!

What Really Is There To Be Fearful Of?

Fear, it is said to be false evidence appearing real.

Or another way to look at it is something you have made up.

Does that feel radical to you? Pretty much everything you may be afraid of you are making up.

Stay with me. Let’s say you want to start a business but you know someone who’s business just closed and so you are fearful that your business may close too. Just because something happened to someone else, doesn’t mean it is going to happen to you.

Same story with just because something happened to you in the past, doesn’t mean it will happen to you again.

Using stories to keep us from reaching our potential.

I work with a lot of business owners who also want to have a great life. They want to have great relationships with their family, be healthy and fit  and they want to be able to do what they want in their personal lives.

Do you know that the number one thing that comes up for just about all of my clients is they are afraid that they won’t be able to reach their goals.

They tell themselves stories. Stories that end with “I won’t be able to do that because…” The because is open ended since there are many reasons (ahem, excuses) that they use.

Ultimately though, it is a story that they have created or worse, bought into that keeps them in fear and from reaching their potential.

It’s time to tell a different story.

Here is an exercise that I do with my clients. We play the “what if” game. We keep asking “what if…” questions. Questions such as “what if you were able to create the business of your dreams?” “What if you were able to live the life you want for yourself?” “What if you could have…?” By doing so, they begin to see how a different story (or looking at things differently) can help them get to where they want to go.

Look, it’s super easy for us to be negative, to take the easy way out and to make tons of excuses (showing up a “reasons”) for why we haven’t realized our dreams. Our brains are actually wired that way!

What if…

Your turn, what if you were to go through the “what if” exercise and keep asking yourself questions until you could see yourself different, your business differently? What if you were able to notice where you were holding yourself back from realizing your dreams, heck, from even beginning your dreams? Would you do it?

I challenge you to take at least 15 minutes (though it won’t take you long to realize you are beginning to think differently) and take yourself through some “what if” scenarios. You can even have someone do it with you. Have them just keep asking you “what if…”

Need help?

Would you like someone to help you with your “what if…” exercise? If yes, I’d be happy to be that someone for you.  Set up a free session with me and we’ll go through the exercise. I promise you’ll walk away seeing things differently and you’ll be on your way to realizing your dreams!

Need More Time? Get Clear On What You Are Doing.

Clarity, the quality of being clear.

Sounds pretty easy right? All you need to do is get clear on what it is you are doing. Then you can go and do it.

We say we want to do something, I want to get organized. But what exactly does that mean? And then how do we go about doing it.

Get organized sounds pretty clear, yet, get organized is an end result. Which in and of itself is great but how do you get there?

Using clarity to help you get to where you want to go.

Now that you know your end result, it’s time to work backward. You ask yourself “what is the very first thing I need to do, the second thing, third and so on”. Those become your next action steps. The clearer you are and the more specific you are, the better.

I like to recommend to my clients that they put a ballpark time of how long it will take to do it as an added benefit. This way they get super clear on the time it will take them to do that one actionable step.

There is a lot of information out there on getting organized, being organized and staying organized. And they are all great, yet until you start to write down your next specific actions on your to do list, you are just writing down your end results.

How to use time for your success.

When you have clarity of what you are going to do next and know the amount of time it may take, you can easily begin to slot those actions into the time you have available.

If you only have 10 minutes, what can you do in 10 minutes and get it done? You will know that you won’t be doing the thing that will take an hour. I read David Allen’s book Getting Things Done and while it is super helpful, I found it overwhelming at first. So I adapted it to my style as I often help my clients adapt things to their style so that they are successful.

David Allen is famous for (and others have said this too), if it is going to take you 2 minutes or less to do it, just do it. I’m all for that – but truthfully, things often take more than 2 minutes. So what I do with that is I use 10 minute blocks to do my 2 minute of less tasks – that way if something takes longer than 2 minutes, I’m still successful.

The key to more time is to get clear on what it is you are doing, how long it may take you and then to schedule it in to be done.

Your turn, where can you start? What one thing would you like to accomplish? Write it down, then list out the specific steps you will do to get it done.

Need help?

Not sure this is something you can do on your own? That’s ok, I have already solved this problem for myself and loads of my clients. I’m happy to be your solution.  Set up a free 30 minute session with me and we’ll take one of your goals and create your next thing actions list so you can get it done. Click here to be on your way. I promise you, once you learn the process and see the results, you’ll say I should have done this sooner!

A funny thing happened on the way to the beach

Ripples in the sand.

When we first got Bruin, our puppy Bernese Mountain Dog, he loved to play. We’d take him to the beach to play in the sand.

One day I had my camera and was taking photos of him playing. By the way, there is nothing more fun than to watch a puppy play.

As I was taking photos I looked down and saw these beautiful ripples in the sand. Yes, the photo above is one that I took that day.

The ripples made me pause. They were beautiful, they created a pattern of sorts and they were oh so different.

Ripples in your life.

Just like the ripples in the sand, we have ripples in our lives. Things can often get messy, out of sorts and even fall apart.

We tend to view our life ripples as something to get over or to put behind us. In my last blog post I used a quote from Henry Ward Beecher “One’s best success comes after their greatest disappointments.” You can read the blog here. And the quote holds true for today’s message. Ripples in our lives are really us living our lives. We can’t have good without knowing bad. We can’t have happy without knowing unhappy. How else would we know if we were happy?

Debbie Ford wrote a book about this. I highly recommend it to you. It will give you some amazing perspective to see how all of our emotions are valuable, yes even the negative and icky ones.

Ripples in your business.

I’m part of an amazing mastermind group. During our meeting this month we talked about confidence. Confidence specifically as it pertained to being a business owner and what to do when we weren’t feeling all that confident.

One of my colleagues said we don’t just get confidence or we aren’t confident one day and that’s it. It’s something that comes and goes. Well, kind of like the ripples in the sand. I know first hand that there are days when there are no ripples in the sand at the beach and the sand is smooth as glass. So while all days aren’t going to be rosy in our businesses, knowing they aren’t permanent helps us to be able to take steps every day toward where we want to go.

In time this too shall pass.

When my cousin had her first child, he had to stay in the hospital for about six weeks after he was born. I remember her saying (and we even say this to this day), “In time this too shall pass.”

It’s the same thing with your life and your business. Tomorrow you won’t be where you are today. You just can’t. Things change. Your mindset changes, something you have been wanting shows up, something unexpected but great shows up. An opportunity knocks. You make decisions, you take action and your roll with the punches.

It’s all about the ripples of life that make our lives what they are.

And you know what, you have the power to either get caught in the ripples or accept that ripples will happen. And by looking at your ripples in a way that is positive and enlightening you free yourself to go where it is you want to go.

Bruin 9 weeks old

And if you are like a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy, there is nothing holding you back!

Where in your life can you go with the flow rather than forcing the ripples smooth?

Sometimes it’s helpful to talk things over. If there is an area of your life or your business that you feel frustrated by, I would love to be that person to help you move forward.  Set up a free 30 minute session with me and we’ll smooth the ripples or we’ll talk about how to go with the flow better so that you can move on with your achievements faster, easier and better than before! Click here to be on your way. And if you need a little Berner love, Bruin will be happy to send some!

How To Get Over Disappointment

Disappointment sucks.

Yes, it’s true. Who likes feeling disappointed.

We spend so much time making plans, take action to make those plans come true and waiting for them to happen that when they don’t boy are we disappointed.

So yes, disappointment sucks. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t make us happy. I doesn’t make us want to continue on in some cases.

Getting over disappointment.

If we were sitting in a coffee shop, we could probably talk for hours over the disappointments that we have each experienced, endured or suffered. There are no shortage of disappointments in this world.

Yet, what if we could get over them and get over them easily? Would you say tell me how! There is a way and it’s not at all hard.

Though so many people will tell me, “I just can’t” and there in lies the problem. See for some reasons our brains like to go on and on about the negative things. And we often fail to focus on the positive ones.

In order for you to get over your disappointment: 1) acknowledge you were disappointed and 2) move on. Thinking that it couldn’t be that easy? Let’s take a look.

How to acknowledge disappointment.

First know that there are many ranges of disappointment. There are really big ones and really small ones. For our purposes today, I am going to share a personal example of what I look at as a small disappointment.

Second, know that how you view disappointment or whatever happens to you for that matter is in the eye of the beholder. It is all relevant to each individual person and how they feel about it.

I am in the middle of a move, my husband and I decided relatively quickly to put our house on the market and move. I told myself I could do both, manage the move and run my business exactly as I had been doing so. Well, much to my disappointment, I wasn’t able to do both as I had planned. And because I was focused on what I had planned to do and felt I could do when it didn’t happen, I felt disappointed.

Moving On.

At first I was beating myself up over all that I didn’t do. I didn’t blog, create any fresh content, or look at email regularly. Nor did I look for new business. There were all these “didn’ts” in my head. Then I realized wait, there were lots of things that I did do. My clients got the attention they need, bills got paid on time and  the marketing was taken care of as I do a lot of that ahead of time. So what if I didn’t do some of what I like to do regularly. It is what I DID do that I started to focus on.

When I took a step back and acknowledged that I was disappointed in what didn’t happen. I was able to acknowledge what did happen and I was able to let go of my disappointment.

Letting go of your disappointment leads to growth.

By letting go that freed up my mind and my feelings to feel better about where I was. It allowed me to think ahead. Something that we never can do when we are in a state of disappointment. It gave me freedom and peace of mind to be where I am. In transition and excited about what is next. Will I have other disappointments? Yes, and probably on the bigger scale, and that’s ok. Being disappointed is not a bad thing, it is actually a really good thing. If you never experience disappointment, how then, can you experience the thrill of accomplishment.

Your turn.

Where in your life are you feeling disappointed? Are you willing to acknowledge it, see it for what it is (which is really just information for you to grow on) and either begin over or pick up where you are?

If you are, I’d love to hear about it. Simply share your comments here or email me privately at kim@kimravida.com.

If help getting over your disappointments or acknowledging them is something you need. I can help you. Set up a free 30 minute session with me and we’ll work together so that you can move on with your achievements faster, easier and better than before! Click here to be on your way.

How to make success happen

business success

It’s not all about the To-Dos.

One of the biggest surprises for my clients to wrap their heads around is that success isn’t always about the doing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a big part of that. How else will you get things done. Right? I mean someone needs to take action on things in order to see results.

Yet it’s also about your thinking. As a business owner, how you think will have a huge impact on your success.

I love to watch the show The Profit. Marcus Lemonis is a master at creating cohesive, successful businesses. His big 3 are People, Process & Product. What’s interesting is the product usually can be improved pretty quickly. It’s the people and the process that often trips business owners up.

How business owners trip themselves up.

If you have never watched the show, Marcus comes in and takes a look at all 3 pieces. People. Process. Product. What I have come to see on the show (and working with my own clients) is that these two can often cause the business to stall or come to a complete standstill.

See, it’s usually the business owner’s mindset about the process that gets in the way.

Sometimes they don’t like what Marcus wants them to do, or they feel it’s not going to work, or they have always done something a certain way and they don’t want to change it.

I work with a lot of business owners on process improvement and systems creation and I can speak from experience that it’s not just about doing something differently.

It’s about how the business owner thinks about doing something differently that can make all the difference. You know, in the corporate world, the leaders always look for the buy-in of the employees. If they are on board, then usually a tweak or a change is easily made. If not, well…let’s just say a lot of time and money can be down the drain.

Your way of thinking is perhaps the absolute key to your success in business and in your life.

What have you been doing recently (or forever), that you know isn’t working and that if you changed it you’d begin to see changes in the direction of what you want?

How to change your thought process.

No article or blog is worth anything unless you can implement what you learned. So, below are several ways in which you can right now change your thought process.

Ask yourself:

  • On a scale of 1-10 (1 being no, 10 being yes), how effective am I in my business?
  • If you want to be more successful, ask: How can I be more successful right now?
  • What is one way (or thing) I could do that would bring me better success?
  • If I were to change how I think today, how would that change my tomorrow? (Remember, your thoughts/actions/decisions today, equal your results tomorrow)
  • I I were to improve my processes today, how would that change my business?

We often make things out to be super hard, and truly they are not. Just a few tweaks in your thinking can bring about massive success. Are you up for that? I hope you said YES! I sure am.

Let me know what you think and if you take action (see there’s the action everyone loves), let me know what you did and what your results were.

If you think that you may be the bottleneck to your success, be it your thinking or the ways you do things, I love to help people re-create simple mindset shifts and processes to help them get what they want in their lives and in their businesses. If you’d like some personalized help let me know. Set up a free 30 minute session with me and we’ll work together so that you’ll be able to reach your goals faster, easier and better than before! Click here to be on your way.

How to succeed in business by being flexible

flexible

Flexibility, do you have it?

Flexibility isn’t just for fitness enthusiasts. It’s good to have flexibility in all areas of your life. It will save you a whole lot of frustration, aggravation and disappointment.

In life and in business, one key element is to be flexible.

Let me ask you, are you someone who can easily go with the flow, change on a dime, shift in the moment? Or are you someone who struggles with change, can’t seem to keep up and often frustrated and disappointed with the results you are getting?

If you said yes to the latter, you need to bring flexibility into your world. And the sooner you can do that, the better. Trust me, having flexibility in your life and in your business will make things go so much smoother for you. And who doesn’t want things to go smooth?

The beauty of being flexible.

Who wants to go through life being irritable?  I know I don’t. And I’m going to say that neither do you.

One of the best things about being flexible is that you get unexpected results, fun surprises and fascinating outcomes. And usually more than what you initial wanted. I’m all for that, aren’t you?

I recently did a Facebook Live on exactly this subject, you can watch it here. It’s short, under 15 minutes. It will give you some great examples to maybe use for your own. Are you cracking up over the still photo of me?! I am.

How to not get caught up in frustration when things don't go your way.

Posted by Kim Ravida Coaching on Wednesday, August 8, 2018

How to have more flexibility in your life and in your business.

Let me be clear, when I say flexible, I don’t mean lie down and roll over so that everyone can walk all over you. I mean you are able to shift gears quickly and easily. You are able to think and act on your feet in the moment and get results (and often ones you don’t even anticipate) and that you are not stuck on the outcome.

Here are a few ways for you to be more flexible:

  1. Think Ahead. If you want a specific outcome, brainstorm several different ways of reaching it. Kind of like a Plan A, B & C. This will ensure that you won’t get stuck on just one outcome.
  2. Look at the Big Picture. A lot of the time we can get stuck and inflexible because we are looking at the small picture. Look a the big picture, and ask: in the long run, what is the best outcome and what is the best action I can take right now. Another great question to ask is “will this matter to me in x hours/days/months/years?” It helps you get out of your closed-minded thinking.
  3. Be Present. Stay in the present and ask yourself, “what is the best decision I can make right now that will serve me well and I’ll feel good about?”

Of course, you may have some tricks that you use. If so, I’d love to hear them. You can either comment below or send me a private email at kim@kimravida.com.

One of the things that I love to help people do is to create simple processes to help them get what they want in their lives and in their businesses. If you’d like some personalized help let me know. Set up a free 30 minute session with me and we’ll work together so that you’ll be able to reach your goals faster, easier and better than before! Click here to be on your way.