Using Your Full Frame

Adults are amazing at respecting limits that don’t really exist. 

And kids are amazing at disrespecting limits that do really exist. 

Cries, tantrums, arguments, flattery, debate, negotiation. There’s no shame to their game. 

They’ll use whatever they’ve got to see how a limit can be toppled, overturned and redesigned. 

As we get older, though, and move along in life we adapt to the limits that the world throws back at us. 

Conditioning, rules, beliefs — all of these boundaries become a part of the way we perceive the world and operate within it. 

But as our habits and expectations become more and more entrenched, we start seeing limits where they don’t exist, eventually boxing ourselves into tighter and tighter spaces. 

The truth, though, is that what’s not explicitly forbidden, is technically allowed. 

Until you prove you can’t do it, then you technically can. 

There are a zillion ways that you can play around with this logic:

• If you don’t ask for the raise, then how do you know if you can have one?

• If you don’t ask for an extension, then how do you know if the timeframe is flexible?

• If you don’t ask for feedback, then how do you know what people are thinking?

• If you don’t empower your team, then how do you know what they’re capable of?

• If you don’t start, then how do you know if you can continue?

In day-to-day conversation this comes out as: 

“Oh no, I just couldn’t ask her to recommend me for that position.”

“No one would ever want to read the stuff that I write.”

“I could never earn money selling my artwork.”

“There’s no way in hell that my boss would let me take the afternoons off on Wednesday.” 

During my discovery calls with clients I ask a question that tends to stir the pot:

“What have you already put in place to move your goal forward? 

There’s always a long pause on the other line, and then a voice that starts to list concrete actions that have been tested, or, at times, a voice that says "nothing yet."  

Those answers help you see just how far you've stretched your frame to get what you want, and where you've encountered external or internal friction along the way. 

Why is this important as a first step in moving a goal forward? 

We can become so fixated on what we’re incapable of doing, or why something wouldn’t work out, that we forget to take a stab at it. 

We feel boxed in by boundaries that haven’t been really been tested.

So tell me, if you could throw a tantrum to get what you want:

• What would that be?
   

• How is that important to you?
   

• And what limits do you need to test to get it?

When Ideas Get Under Your Skin

I had a very intimidating social studies teacher in High School named Mr Savage. 

He would walk into the classroom, silently go up to the blackboard, scribble a provocative open question, like “What is democracy?” in his chicken-scratch handwriting and then stare back at the class with his beady little eyes. (can you tell how much of a fan I was??)

He’d smile slyly with pinched lips revealing a little scar alongside his mouth. Then he’d gesture to the class to let the debate begin. 

I dreaded that moment. I was a shy and insecure adolescent and that kind of intellectual dogfighting made me shrink even further into my shell. 

Mr Savage didn’t give homework, but he did assign two big writing projects per year that were famously tough. For one project we had to propose our ideal presidential candidate and then argue and defend why we thought he or she should win.

Feeling totally overwhelmed, I asked my dad for help. He’s a school teacher and a very opinionated liberal. This kind of thing was totally his cup of tea.  

He suggested Ralph Nader. This was back in 1990 and Nader at the time was a relative unknown. It seemed like a cool, underground pick. I let me dad run with it. 

My dad wound up writing most of the paper. I was nervous handing in the assignment and felt a bit guilty about getting a great grade on something I didn’t write on my own. Then I was thrown a curveball: I got a really shitty, grade on that paper. Or rather, my dad got a really shitty grade. 

And what was the message that stuck with me after this experience? Not, “cheating is bad”, or “Ralph Nadar is a terrible presidential candidate,” or “failing with your own ideas is better than failing with someone else’s”. 

No, the one that stuck for me was:

You’re a terrible writer, Zeva. Your dad thought so, that’s why he wrote your paper.  

I lived with this belief for a long time. In college, writing assignments were torturous. I’d spend double the time as my peers on my papers. I was ashamed every time I handed something in. Even when I got positive feedback on my work I was convinced that someone was just being generous and feeling pity for me. 

The belief penetrated under my skin and became my ugly little secret:  I was a terrible writer and a fraud for getting into my school. 

Five years after graduation I moved to Paris and went on an interview at a magazine where a friend of mine had worked. Rebecca, the editor-in-chief of the magazine who interviewed me asked if I had any writing experience. I said “not outside of the writing I did in college.” She answered back,  “well, you seem smart, and if you got through Vassar I’m sure you can write.” 

She hired me on the spot. 

I was thrilled to get a job, but terrified that my ugly little secret would slowly reveal its disgusting face and she’d realize that I was a total fraud. 

But it was my job. I had no other choice. I had to write. And I started to get better and better at it. 

Over time, I got some extra freelance jobs. People started to pay me well for my words. 

I was slowly and steadily growing into the person that I was convinced I was not. A writer! Go figure. 

Where am I going with this?

I speak to a lot of people who feel like they’re not credible or capable of doing something because long ago they had a bad experience, or were told that they weren’t great at it. 

Over time, those feelings grow into beliefs and get more massive, dense and resilient until they become as real and unquestionable as the nose on your face.  

How does this happen? 

“Ideas get under your skin, simply by sticking around for long enough”  explains the neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett in her book (that I’m obsessed with), How Emotions Are Made.  “Once an idea is hard-wired, you might not be in a position to easily reject it.”

Some of these hard-wired, unshakeable beliefs could be:

I’m bad at writing 

I’m bad at relationship

I’m bad with numbers

I’m bad at business

I’m bad with conflict

I’m bad at confrontation

I’m bad at making decisions

I’m bad at making changes

I’m bad at being bad….

There is nothing concrete about these beliefs. They’re just dirty little secrets that prevent us from taking action on what we want. From seizing opportunities to igniting change. 

What dirty little secret prevents you from moving forward with meaning?

I promise, I won’t tell :) 

Get into your growth groove

It was the official rentrée, the first chaotic day of reality after a long summer break. 

We were walking among perfectly-coiffed kids with their new backpacks and outfits on their way to school when I glanced over and saw my toddler hobbling along with his heels hovering in the air. 

“Shit!” I said to my husband. “We forgot to get him new shoes.”

My son was so obsessed with his red suede Adidas we conveniently overlooked him busting out of them. 

Next day at the shoe store, we embarrassing learned he had grown, not one, but two shoe sizes! Needless to say when he put his new sneakers (Adidas, again!) he was reborn.

Ripping his beloved pacifier out of his mouth big-boy style, he started running — down the ailes, down the street, to the park, around the park. Tirelessly, enthusiastically, like he had a new set of Duracell batteries on full blast.  

It was a total and immediate energy upgrade. 

As a kid, things like new shoes are empowering evidence of your growth. Your potential. Your energy. Your strength. 

But what happens as an adult? When the changes in your body no longer signal empowering growth? What other signs define it?

Since la rentrée kicked off there’s been a common theme among the people I’ve met with. 

Growth. And the desire for more of it day-to-day. 

As a coach, when I hear someone talk about big concepts like "growth" my next move is to dig in and investigate just what it means: 

• How do you know when you’re growing? 

• What do you need to grow?

• What does it look like? 

• What does it feel like?

• What does it allow you to do?

To one woman I spoke with it means working transversally across different formats and departments and having the freedom to innovate and bring value in her own unique way.

To another it means transforming theoretical concepts into tangible actions and making a concrete impact in the word.

To another it means going super deep and developing her skills and proficiency in a specific field. 

Here’s what’s important to remember about the growth groove: it’s not a one-size-fits all concept. 

It means something different to us all. 

But it is a mindset that needs nurturing if you want to feel alive. 

Without growth, you wind up feeling dullness, stagnation, inaction, sluggishness. 

The very feelings that make you want to curl up and call in sick for a few days, or even a few weeks. 

In France insurance companies and the government are freaking the hell out. Since the beginning of 2018 there’s been a 6% increase in medical leave payments. 

The cause? No one can say for sure, but the government thinks employees are feeling more and more stressed out and crappy at work and they want companies to do something to fix that (or start paying the bills).  

Growth isn’t a blanket panacea. I'm not suggesting that it's the end-all solution to a suffering system. 

But I do believe that companies should spend more time observing and asking questions about the type of growth that each employee craves. 

It’s likely not what they think it means to their employees (moving up the ladder, getting more vacation time, or a bigger salary). It could be a lot simpler than that. 

My suggestion?

If you’re a manager and are struggling with team burn-out: 
Get to know the growth needs of each person on your team. Spend quality time on this. Look for concrete examples. Observe trends. In what context does your employee thrive? When do they limp around like a toddler in tight shoes? 

If you are thinking about making a professional change because you’re not growing:
Get crystal clear on what growth means, looks and feels like to you in your quest for self-realization. 

So tell me dear reader, what’s your new pair of Adidas like? How do they look? What do they feel like? And what do they allow you to do?  Leave a comment below or send an email to: zeva@zevabellel.com

You Should Be Talking Business With Your Besties

So it turns out that Edith Wharton didn’t care much for her female peers.

In the copy of Old New York that I borrowed from my mom, the author of the introduction, Marilyn French, says that Wharton was “stubbornly disinterested” in the successful female writers of her era. A dismissive attitude French calls “horizontal hostility.”

The term “horizontal hostility” was coined in the 1970s by lawyer/activist/feminist Florynce Kennedy to describe destructive power dynamics between women. Be it shaming, attacking, belittling or flat out denying each other’s potential and talent. 

Women have come a long way since.  

Within the last few years there’s been a boom in the number of groups and businesses created by women to support women, such as: 
 

• Networking groups like PWN and ChIPS
• Entrepreneurial associations like Led By Her and The World Association of Women Entrepreneurs
• Co-working/social clubs like The Wing and CoWomen
• Recruiting agencies like The Mom Project and Mothers & Careers
• Funding platforms like Backstage Capital and iFundWomen
• Election groups like Get Her Elected and Emily's List

But are women really all holding hands, singing "Kumbaya" and hoisting each other up to the higher echelons of the ladder? 

Let’s be honest, we’ve still got a long way to go. 

One way we can accelerate things is by taking a good, hard look at our personal beliefs and habits, especially when it comes to the women we care about and know the most: our girlfriends. 

And here's why. 


In a recent article in Forbes, author Mallun Yen, ChIPs co-founder and CEO, explains that: “Women’s friendships tend to become deeply personal and intimate very quickly. Trying to make the leap directly from intense personal relationships to business can feel abrupt and awkward to both sides. So the very thing about female friendships that is deservedly celebrated may also be holding us back from generating vital business with each other."

 

When girlfriends get together they tend to hold back sharing professional help, contacts and advice because it feels weirdly disingenuous, like a shady transaction out of a "Breaking Bad" episode. 


“Doing deals with your buddies is a time-honored way to build your book of business," continues Yen. "But women tend to struggle when it comes to mixing money and friendship, cutting themselves off from one of the most effective tactics in the constant struggle to get ahead. "


"So why is it that we’re so hesitant to do deals with our friends—the very people we know have our backs?” asks Yen.

That's a damn good question don't you think?

What prevents us from sitting down with a bestie over a bottle of rosé to swap stories about marriage squabbles and potty-training disasters, and then fifteen minutes later whip open our iPhones to make an invaluable introduction to advance each other's careers? 

 

If it’s just the antiquated belief that we can’t mix business with pleasure because we care so much about the authenticity of our friendship, then maybe we need to redefine the concept of friendship. 

So, the next time you meet with a close friend for lunch or drinks or coffee, test out some non-icky tools and techniques to kick each other's professional goals into high gear. 

And then use them on interesting women you encounter at events.

At work.

At dinner parties. 

Why not make that one of your micro-actions for the month?

Like bad ass flowing water

I reluctantly turned down a perfect margarita on the rocks at the lively Mexican restaurant we were dining at. I had to drive the whole kit and caboodle back to my mom's house in upstate NY and the roads are tricky there at night. 

It was a good thing I didn't indulge.

Fifteen minutes into our drive we had to shut off the radio, get the kids to stop fighting and seriously focus on the road because we were suddenly caught in a thunderstorm so intense it felt like an end-of-the-world action film.

I’ve never seen that much water fall that hard and that quickly. And for miles and miles and miles. I kept my calm for the kids but I was freaking the hell out. 

It reminded me how bad ass water can be. It’s super discreet until it’s totally not. And it never seems to try that hard. 

It doesn't second guess itself and wonder:

"How am I going to get around this thing?” 

“Is this too much?” 

“Am I allowed to be here?“

"Should I be doing it this way?"

Nope. It just flows. Over, through, around or in-between with a force that’s relentless, rhythmic, mesmerizing. 

I’m fascinated by the concept of “flow.” Being in it. Watching it. Seeing what comes out of it. 

My favorite part of my visualization workshop is when the group arranges their cut-out imagery on their vision boards with my R&B play list going on in the background. 

Everyone's so focused and absorbed by what they’re doing there’s this humming flow to their movements. With little time to question their moves, they just have to go with what feels right. 

Like bad ass flowing water. 

When we behave like water we learn a lot about what we naturally migrate towards. 

What we do when we are at our intuitive best. When everything feels totally in sync and easy and fluid. 

For me that happens on a few specific occasions. 

• When I cook. 
• When I converse. 
• When I walk. 
• When I coach.
• When I write. 

We so often over-complicate things. Try to force ourselves to be or become someone that we’re not. But what if there was less friction and more flow to our goals and our desires?

Try that idea on for size if you want with these questions:

• In what three situations do you intuitively know what to do?
• What's going on in those moments? 
• How does it feel to be there?
• How often do you allow yourself to go there?
• What would happen if you strengthened that flow in you?
• Where would that get you?

PS. Speaking of "flow," there’s a three-hour Life Flow exercise that I love that clarifies desires based on natural tendencies, strengths and passions. At the end of the experience you’ll know exactly what steps you need to take right now to bring your goals to life.  

I don’t usually offer Life Flow as a stand-alone coaching exercise, but it’s a great tool to get through the overwhelm of Fall in order to find your footing to move ahead with confidence during this tricky time of the year. 

Book a free discovery call to learn more about my Life Flow experience (price 340€) 

Death to perfection and the rise of the real

When I started learning about values I discovered “authenticity” was a bad mama jama value for me. 

When I meet someone I don’t want the glossy, airbrushed, everything is “GREAT!” version of life, I want it real and raw. I want the cracks in the pavement. The frays around the edges. 
 

The moment someone drops the mask and lets you in — there’s nothing else like it. 

Knowing that they trust you with their fears, doubts, or fantasies (of wanting to slowly roll out of a moving car to escape kids screaming in the back, for example). That’s the real deal. That’s connection. That’s the juicy stuff that makes life worth living. 
 

Everything else is like a canned laugh track from an 80s sitcom. You can sniff that fake nonsense from a mile away but after a while you become totally numb to it. 
 

Today, we’re so inundated with filtered, curated perfection that when someone shares authentically it explodes through the white noise of blah-ness, gives you a rush of adrenaline, and then immediately makes you feel less weird.  

If we let our masks down and started sharing more authentically it would do the world a whole lot of great. 

It would make friendships better. 

It would make marriages better. 

It would make leaders better. 

It would make businesses better.

Don't just take my word for it, though. Here are some thoughts on authenticity from some pretty awesome women leaders. 

Patty McCord, former Chief of Talent at Netflix, on Girl Boss Radio podcast "Company Culture Expert, Author and Former Chief Talent Officer of Netflix" May 9 2018

"So the most important thing to be is authentic. If you’re wandering the floor and you don’t really like people and you’re wandering the floor to see who’s fucking up. Then that’s not going to work so well for you. If you’re the person that has better conversations 1:1 and you like getting more deeply into it, then have a bunch of skip-level meetings. You might want to have a different methodology about it. What’s really important is that you are who you say you are.”

Tina Müller, CEO of Douglas, from the article “Is there still room for authenticity in our professional lives?” published July 20, 2018 on LinkedIn

“Authentic people are brave enough to question the status quo! It’s about seeing things from a very personal perspective, as well as from new perspectives and standpoints, and reasoning with enthusiasm and credibility. That’s how things change – and ultimately move forward. Conventions and shared values give a team or a business a form of consensus, a framework, and behavioural regulation. However, I realised very early on in my career that without authenticity we become like mice on a wheel. A business cannot be successful unless both pillars – convention and authenticity – are supporting it.”

Marie Forleo, on Amy Porterfield’s podcast "How to 10X Your Results in 2018 (and Beyond) with 3 Dead Simple Strategies" Feb 18, 2018

“You have no idea the level of relief that people will feel and the level of connection they start to associate with you when you show them different sides of yourself. When you allow yourself to be vulnerable. When you let them see the real you, all of you. And you dismiss this notion of trying to be perfect….I don’t care what business that you’re in. People want to do business with another human that they can relate to. Someone who shows them all of who they are. The ups, the downs, the lefts, the rights, the good, the bad, people want all of you and don’t be afraid to share it.” 

Exercise: Increase your authenticity in 6 easy steps

1. In one sentence, what does “authentic” mean to you?
2. When and where and with whom are you the most authentic?
3. How does that authenticity make you feel?
4. What does it allow you do to?
5. Where else in your world would you like to be more authentic?
6. What impact would that have on you and on others? 

I’d love to help you get more in touch with your wild, authentic side.

So comment below with your responses or email me at zeva@zevabellel.com

5 Leadership Learnings From Didier Deschamps

My favorite moment after France won the World Cup was watching the team hoist their impeccably-dressed coach Didier Deschamps up in the air while squirting him relentlessly in the face with their squeeze-water bottles. 

If that’s not leadership love, I don’t know what is. 

As a career and leadership coach, I kept my eye focused on Didier Deschamps (and Giroud and Griezmann, but for other reasons) during the entire World Cup. 

I binged on press conferences and opinion pieces, trying to piece the puzzle together of how he gets his team to perform so well while making it all look so damn easy.  I’ve became fascinated by his leadership. His calm. His serenity. His determination. His focus. His humility. 

So in honor of Deschamps, I've Developed this guide to the five 5 leadership traits that make him stand out for managers who want to raise their game: 

Five Champion Leadership Traits

1. Trust

When Deschamps announced the 23 players he was taking to Russia, there were some big names missing. Notably PSG player Adrien Rabiot who everyone (especially Rabiot) expected would make the list. Rumors swirled around why. Was it his partying habit? His lackluster performance at the previous games? His diva attitude? What did him it? Who knows for sure. But it wasn’t the first time that Deschamps sidestepped a popular player. Karim Benzema, one of France’s best attackers, also got snubbed. A few years ago Benzema was accused of blackmailing a teammate over a leaked sex-tape. What’s the common link between the two? In my opinion? It's trust.Trust has got to be one of Didier Deschamps fundamental values and it guides many of the choses he makes as a coach/leader. Trust that his players will get on with others. Trust that they'll put the collective above themselves.

Pro Leadership Tip: If you want your team to trust you, you've got to trust them. It's a two-way street.  In the recruiting process selecting people celebrated for their humanity, generosity, collaboration and grit is fundamental. That means that you may have to reject a few rock stars.  
Pro Leadership Action: Is there anyone on your team right now who you wouldn’t let babysit your kids? If so, ask yourself why. What does that say about you? What does that say about them?

2. Collectivity

While there are some big personalities on Deschamps' team (Pogba, Griezmann, Mathuidi), they know if they want to kiss the coupe, they've got to work as a group. Team unity. It’s everything.  Didier Deschamps learned that from his mentor and former coach, Aimé Jacquemart. “They both learned that a team, a group, is not a simple assemblage of talents, to preserve it you sometimes need to deprive yourself of certain individual qualities, the importance being to create a global balance,” wrote Bixente Lizarazu in L’Equipe while speaking about Jacquet and Deschamps's leadership styles. This balance is clear on the field, in the press interviews on the snapchat videos: this team is more than a group. It’s a family. Kudos to Deschamps for creating that unity, that maturity and sense of sacrifice with half of his players barely out of their teens. 

Pro Leadership Tip: The whole is greater that the sum of its parts. If your team isn’t working together, it’s not going very far. What you celebrate most is what your team will strive for most. If you celebrate individual contribution, that’s what you’ll get. If you celebrate collaboration, humility, and service, that’s what you’ll get. 

Pro Leadership Action: What training, rewards or programs do you have in place that celebrate team collaboration and unity over individual success? What can you strengthen or build?

3. Experience

Deschamps was the captain of the World Cup champion French team in 1998. There’s no doubt that he used his personal experience from that incredible journey to shape his team today. Tapping into the past. Reframing present goals using past personal stories and anecdotes can be a huge asset for any leader. The French team had the advantage of working with a coach who walked in their shoes twenty years later. Deschamps was able to motivate them by sharing their points of views and teaching them how to access the focus, calm and confidence to help them stay on target. 

Pro Leadership Tip: Your team will love whatever experience you can share with them that connects with their challenges today. Whether or not you lived through the exact same scenario, you have stories from your past that parallels theirs. 

Pro Leadership Action: What stories or experiences can you share with your team today that shows that you are as human, vulnerable and resourceful as they are?

4. Humility

No two challengers, or challenges, are the same. There are always nuances to each new situation. Having a playbook is great, but trusting it to work in every context is foolish. One of the keys to Deschamps's success was humility. The humility to trust that you don’t have all of the answers. The humility to question your own beliefs. The humility to search for better answers. The humility to turn to others for guidance at the right time. Deschamps had a team of analysts and strategists who painstakingly reviewed the performances of his upcoming rivals and he adapted his playbook each time to match his new opponent. That is humility-lead agile leadership at its best. 

Pro Leadership Tip: Don’t trust your playbook to always play nice. You’ve got to stay humble and curious and adapt your strategy all of the time to suit the context. Focus on the big picture but think of each step along the way as a separate match that warrants its own research and development. 

Pro Leadership Question: Imagine eating a big humble pie right now. What aspects of your most important strategy could benefit from a fresh set of eyes?

5. Play

The day before the final match the press marveled over how much fun the French team was having during practice, playing around like puppies in a pack. Deschamps was able to create an environment where the team could let loose, have fun, enjoy themselves, without giving up an ounce of their determination. “We get along so well. We laugh all of the time, all of the time we’ve spent together has been fabulous. It’s a one in a lifetime experience, with an exceptional group,” shared Samuel Umtiti to reporters the day before the final. 

Pro Leadership Tip: No matter what your business, play is the key to learning and growth. And I’m not just talking about babyfoot tables in your open space. It’s got to go deeper than that. Developing practices, like team building workshops, design thinking, etc, to get your team to connect with their child’s mind and each other is essential for learning, connectivity and growth.

Pro Leadership Question: How are the people on your team encouraged to connect, play and and collaborate? How are you as a leader showing them constructives ways to play?

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Ok, I hoped you enjoyed this leadership round-up. I'd love to hear from you below with any comments or questions. And if you want to take the conversation further, click below to find out more about my individual and group coaching services. I'd be thrilled to work with you to get your team to champion of the world status! 

What is lâcher prise and how can you find yours in time for summer?

I’m not someone who gets easily riled up. I have a pretty even temperament.

So when I feel my insides start to boil up and spill all over the stovetop, I try to slide my pot off the heat source, cool down, and get a sense of what’s going on. 

That's often easier said than done. For example, during my coaching certification my emotions were on a steady, rolling, boil. 

I was being pulled so far out of my comfort zone on such a regular basis that my natural defense system was desperate to get some order in the court. 
 

What specifically got me so hot and bothered?

Feeling completely and totally out of control. 

I wanted so bad to know everything about coaching, be an instant master, understand the complete history of the field, and basically be the best coach in the world. All in one week. What?? What’s so crazy about that? 

My mentor-coach, Caroline, had the uncanny ability to see through skin. One day when I was particularly vocal about my frustrations, she said, “I hear you, but what would happen if you decided to trust the process and let go?” 

My eyes started to swirl around in their sockets like in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. 
 

Trust the process? Let go? how the hell do you do that?

How do you let go when you want something so bad? How do you let go when your instincts tell you that the more you control what you want, the faster you’ll get it?

I went through the same thought-process when I was trying to have my first baby. It was taking us a very long time to conceive. Years. It was all I could think about. The subject of every conversation. The motivation behind every decision.

And everyone kept telling me to stop thinking about it. But I was like, how do you NOT think about the thing you want most? Any why should I try?

The answer has to do with how our brain budgets the distribution and flow of energy. If we focus on what we lack, what we're desperately trying to control, on all that's missing in our search for perfection, we'll fuel those thoughts until they shape our reality both emotionally and physically. 

This brings me to one of the best French inventions ever. Not wine, not cheese. But the concept of lâcher prise. 
 

Ah, "lâcher prise," just saying the word and my heart stops racing, the knots around my nerves start to relax, their grip softening until a calm wave of "whatever" starts to rise up in its place.  

In French the term literally means “release the grip.” In English we'd say "let it go."

"Prise" in French also means "electrical socket," so the image that comes to my mind when I say "lâcher prise" is of someone ripping a cord out of the wall. 

Removing an external energy source. Unplugging. 
 

Let the energy come from the inside, instead of the outside. 
 

I just did a visualization workshop and “lâcher prise” came up over and over again as a desired attitude, or mindset in order to move deep goals forward calmly, without stress or anxiety. 

"Lâcher prise" has become a metaphysical Holy Grail. There’s even a new floral elixir from Bach dedicated to lâcher prise in order to free “prisoners of fixed ideas and obsessions.”

While I’m sure the elixir is wonderful, there’s is, however, no one-size-fits-all spritz solution to cultivating "lâcher prise."

It's about identifying and letting go of fears, letting go of negative thoughts, cultivating confidence and trust (in yourself, and in others), developing your curiosity, your patience, your intuition, and your genuine belief that you will find the answers at your own pace and on your own agenda. 

So here are some questions that might help you find your personalized potion for lâcher prise:

• What are you desperately holding on to? 
   
• How is that important to you?


• What would happened if you loosened your grip on that  just a wee bit?
   
• Where would you feel that in your body?
   
• How would that softening impact you emotionally?
   
• What changes might that provoke in your life professionally and personally?
   
• What can you easily start doing today to loosen things up a bit? 
   
• What support do you need to start? 

As always, I am here for you in your "lâcher prise" journey. Hit reply or leave a comment and let me know where you could benefit from some "lâcher prise" in your life.

And it goes without saying that no matter where you are in the world, you should definitely start using that term on a regular basis. 

How I Got Over My Fear Of Cold Showers Using Visualization

Minutes after the French won their nail-biting match against Argentina during the World Cup, my husband noticed a giant water splotch the shape of Russia on our carpet. 
 

We looked at it and immediately blamed it on our 2-year old. He’s at an age where he will only drink from big cups and when he does he opens his mouth so wide that he spills 89% of the water on himself and the ground. He refuses to go with a smaller cup.  #toddlerdetermination #whyaretheylikethis

But after 30 minutes that water splotch started to brazenly conquer new land. We ran over to the hot water heater, felt the ground, and realized we had a huge problem. We had a leaky tank and it was the weekend and no repair service was open. 
 

My husband is pretty handy. He figured out how to stop the leak, shut off the electricity on the heater while keeping the cold water running in the house. So we have water, thank god, but it is cold as a cucumber. 

Now, as I said, Paris is having a heatwave so it’s not like we’re freezing our tushies off in the house. But still, a cold shower is a cold shower, and I don’t like cold. In fact I hate the cold. Hate it, hate it, hate it. HATE it! My 25% Greek genes are to blame for my extreme intolerance. 

Thinking of showering in cold water (with not even a little warm water to cheat) makes my shoulders bolt up and my chest heave in. 

I immediately think of Surprise Lake Camp in Cold Springs, NY, the summer day camp that I went to as a pre-teen. I signed up for swimming class there (like a fool) and we often had to practice early morning when the lake was super cold. I remember that horrible feeling of jumping in, my breath seizing up for a couple of seconds before I got used to the temperature. It was the worst feeling. 

Well that was what I felt again when I thought about my upcoming shower. 

My husband’s advice about my impeding shower was to just go for it. Not to dance around and delay the torture, just embrace it. 


I didn’t like that idea. So I texted my friend Lili who has been very vocal on her blog about her daily cold shower ritual. I told her my situation and asked her advice about how to do the cold shower in a more gentle and humane way. 

Her instructions were totally compelling, clear and easy to follow. 
 

• Massage your body with oil before getting in the shower
• Introduce the cold water to your feet and hands first
• Work the water up to your chest
• Breath deeply and then scream if you have to!
• Then shower your back, arm pits, arms, etc :) 
• Don’t direct water to your thighs (they have a lot of veins, and you don’t want a flush of blood there)
• Don’t let the water go above your chin
• Wash your head/hair in a sink with warm water (boiled in my case)
• Feel amazing and alive after your shower. 

So, I've been following her instructions to a T since and I have to say I feel like a million bucks afterwards. My skin is silken smooth, taught and tingly in a good way for hours . 

Why should you care about my cold shower story? Well because the whole process is a great example of how visualization works. 
 

• We often fear the unknown because the experience we predict reminds us of something we already lived through and didn’t enjoy. (e.g. swimming early morning in a cold lake at sleepaway camp)
   
• We think we can’t possible get over our fear because we are just built that way and lack the resources. (e.g. my Greek genes making me unable to like cold).
   
• By imagining someone else, someone not so different from us, even an ideal version of ourselves overcome that challenge, we start to realize that there might in fact be a way to move ahead (e.g. remembering Lili's love of showers)
   
• By projecting into the future, and then retro-planning how to get there, our brain becomes more familiar with the task (e.g. preloading Lili's step-by-step action plan)
   
• Our excitement to accomplish our end goal helps us find the motivating and energy to get us there (e.g. the excitement of feeling alive and amazing after shower)

So next time you’re confronted with a challenge that chills you to the core try to find the root of the feeling. 

And know there there is someone in the world that overcame a similar obstacle. How were they able to do it? What action steps did they take? How could you do the same? How would that feel once you overcame your fear?

What shower challenge you're working through right now?  Write a comment below or email me directly at zeva@zevebellel.com and let me know what you've got going on!