I can dig this.

Dan Millman, author of “Everyday Enlightenment” said, “No one feels the same way all the time. Even if you are angry, depressed, crazy, afraid, or grieving, you’ll have moments when you are distracted. There are no enlightened people, no nice, bad, smart, neurotic, or stupid people, either–only people with more (or less) enlightened, nice, bad, smart, neurotic, or stupid moments.”

The more I study today’s self-development literature, and I DO read it all for my job as Life Coach  the more I realize there’s TOO MUCH. If you see someone walking around Toronto with glazed eyes and muttering, “you’ve got to be kidding?” that would be me having another talk with the Universe; the all knowing, all seeing source of our incredibly too complicated existences.

All the do’s and don’t’s; all the should’s and shouldn’t’s; all the must’s and mustn’t’s. You start to feel a little inadequate if you don’t start to see the results of your concerted efforts; if you don’t feel lighter of spirit; or if you manage to take a step forward and then get knocked 15 steps backwards by unexpected circumstances.

You can have done all the right things according to the 3, 7, 10 or 12 step plan dejour and still have little to show for your efforts.

And that’s when they come back, as Millman said, “….the angry, depressed, crazy, afraid or grieving moments…” 

And it’s ok.  So wipe the beatific smile off your face and give yourself a break.  The thoughts we all engage in while pretending we don’t are normal.  They are the expression of the frustration and inadequacy that can arise while taking the “road less traveled”. You wanna be a star in whatever you do; whether it’s as an entrepreneur, a parent or a spouse. You want to matter. You want to be valued.  You want to do whatever it takes to live an extraordinary life. But some days no matter how hard you try you devolve into those thoughts you think you shouldn’t be having. The non-productive ones….the “unenlightened” ones….the petty ones.

To help you deal with these “moments” that keep cropping up even after laying out a few thousand bucks for a weekend intensive or $29.50 for the latest self-help how to; I’m going to suggest an alternative.

Instead of trying to repress your base instincts, get to know them. In my article “Mind Tricks” I introduce a few books that teach you the “why”. Once you know why you think what you think it becomes easier to navigate those moments that can blow the lid off of our composure and confidence.  

(for more info visit lindakaban.com)

I winced as I read this.

“If you look around you at those who are most unhappy you’ll often find that they are the people who have a “starved” feeling in some way, and are therefore taking a very grasping posture towards life. They feel that life in general and other people in particular are not giving them what they need. It is as if they have a stranglehold on life, trying desperately to wring out the love and satisfaction they crave, yet actually choking off the supply. And many of us have a little of this tendency.”

YIKES!!!!

That was from Shakti Gawain’s amazing book “Creative Visualization”.

I gulped, maybe turned a little red in the face when I read that, because I know I’ve done that.

I remember 7 years ago when I was taking my second yoga certification at the Yoga Sanctuary in Toronto. Met a really cool group of people and struck up an instant friendship with one woman. We shared a kooky sense of humour, a pure love of yoga and yah, we were the only two smokers in the crowd.

After just meeting the guy who was to later become the love of my life (and still is), I was full of the womanly urge to SHARE; every single detail of what he said or did. And really, back then, I was having a hard time dealing with every thing he said or did. Middle aged romance is fraught with twists and turns of the sort that young lovers don’t experience. After a marriage or two, that’s when it all begins. When a guy or gal in their 40’s or 50’s walks up to your door  and they’re lurching a little to the left, it’s usually because of all the baggage they’ve accumulated along the way.  And I’m not talking Samsonite.

So here I was pouring out my hopes and tears to this new friend, because she was like a new sponge. It was exciting talking to someone new about old stories. She was soaking up all my trauma and drama. Until the day she had to squeeze herself out. It was too much. I was too much. And she basically walked away from me to save herself.

With the luxury of hindsight I can see what I was doing. My fella was driving me insane with his antics and I NEEDED a sounding board; I needed my new friend to tell me what I wanted to hear. I needed her sympathy. I needed her validation that I was a good woman and he was an insensitive man. I needed to get the despair out of me and onto someone else before I died from it. Or that’s what it felt like at the time.

God I feel so ashamed when I think of it now. You know how good this woman was? During the Northeast Blackout of 2003, she was the only person who was worried enough about me to do something about it. My parents and best friend were out of town; but none of my other friends, relatives or even the “guy” came to see how I was faring. She came down to Toronto to get me, so at least I could have a cool place to stay and something to eat while they worked on getting the hydro back. 

It wasn’t until a few years ago when my best friend did me the biggest favour in the world. She too had had enough of my whining and what if’s. Unlike my yoga friend, this girl had had to listen to me drone on about the guy for far longer. I rationalized it by making sure I always asked about her day first before exploding with my problems. I was always the first to call on birthdays; the first to knock at the door when she was sick so I could help; but the negative influence of my insatiable need to “share” was beginning to outweigh the positive aspects of my nature. She sat me down and forbade me to talk to her about him ever again. It was draining her.

That was the day two things happened. I learned: a) to talk to him about what was bothering me instead, and b) to accept him and love him just the way he was. What a world of difference that made; for me and for him. All that time I wasted on getting feedback from gal pals could have been spent nurturing my relationship.

I’m very lucky I have such a wise and forgiving friend. If she hadn’t had the courage to stand up for her peace of mind, if she hadn’t trusted me to learn from this experience, I might have lost her too. She taught me, as I now teach others, to “feed” myself instead of always starving for attention and sympathy.

And when you think about it, no one, absolutely no one can tell you how to live or love better than you. Friendship is not only an arrangement between two like-minded souls to spend time together having fun and supporting each other through “real” crises; but it’s also a beautiful gift that you can never afford to take for granted. Also, it is through the loving of a friend, that you learn to give back as much as you’ve been given. There will be no more “choking off the supply” of love and satisfaction as Shakti Gawain concludes, ” When we find that place within ourselves that is giving, we begin to reverse the flow.”

(for more info visit lindakaban.com)

I was at a friend’s place on the weekend for a party.

We were too busy, and really with the amount of food to look forward to later in the day, we skimped on lunch. My friend’s husband brought out some crackers and Cheese Whiz to tide us over.

Now, I have this annoying little habit; annoying to other people that is, but a life saver for me. I’m highly allergic to nuts. Cashews, almonds, pistachios, walnuts, etc….but the biggest one is coconut. So I have to read the package of every food I eat to make sure it’s safe. I either have to ask people ahead of time to read me the ingredients of what they’re making before I get to their house; or go fish around in their recycling bins to read them myself. I cannot tell you how many birthday cakes I couldn’t share in; how scary it is to eat out; how tiring it is to always be on alert.

So on Saturday I picked up the cracker box, skipped right to the end and saw the disclaimer, “Made in a Nut/Peanut Free Facility.” Before I got too excited, I went back up to the top of the list of ingredients and scoured them individually. When I got to coconut oil, I dropped the box in disappointment back on the table.

To be fair, some people/companies are not sure what constitutes a nut. Most people think peanuts are nuts. Uh uh. They’re legumes.

Just for fun I googled tree nuts. Coconut does not fall under the general definition, although US law requires disclosure of the addition of coconut in food products as it is recognized as an allergen of some sort.

Made me think of the other areas in our lives in which being on constant alert is par for the course. In love for sure. In business, certainly and always.

We have to become experts at reading the ingredients of whatever we’re cooking up in our lives.

I remember when I was interviewed last summer on Liquid Lunch, a show produced by www.thatchannel.com

It was such an easy atmosphere, and such a wonderful platform for entrepreneurs to get “introduced” to Toronto and beyond, I started thinking afterwards that I could do this. Have my own show. Put my marketing dollars to use. And so after a talk with the founder/owner of the radio station, I created, produced and hosted my own weekly show which I called Dare to Dream. Man it was a hoot and surprisingly (to me), I was good at it. I got to invite my friends, up and coming solo-preneurs, to showcase their “stuff.” And when the studio manager took over procuring my guests, I was privileged to meet some great and inspiring folks. 

But even when we switched from radio mode to TV, and I got my hopes up that the exposure would drive traffic my way, I began to realize that the show was doing more for my guests than it was for me. Instead of being Toronto’s most daring, innovative and highly exposed Life Coach, I was relegated to being simply the chick in the interviewer’s seat. Granted I did get a call from Canada’s premier TV station CBC on New Year’s Eve to be interviewed for their piece on resolutions from a Life Coach’s point of view; but that kind of recognition was rare. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars I was spending per month to the station for my show.

At the end of April I informed the owners of the station I would be taking a month long hiatus to try and secure sponsors. Since this was still the height of recession fever I had no luck in finding folks willing to take a risk of that magnitude. So with some regret I informed the owners of the station I would not be able to continue my show.

Unlike a box of crackers, the ingredients that constitute our attempts to create juicy, flavourful, rewarding ventures are not that easy to read. Even with the disclaimer “There is No Guarantee This is Going to Work”, we still plow hopefully forward, confidant of our abilities to ride the twists and turns and bumps in the road. As humans we’re just that way. It’s that tenacity that got us fire. And the wheel, and the lightbulb…..

But there’s one ingredient that most people fail to take into account; and that’s other people. In one blog, “Wait Not, Want Not” on lindakaban.com  I explained that your destiny and your expectations most often rely on the cooperation of other people. The trouble with that is, their agenda or vision may not coincide with the needs of your time line. 

Just make sure when you’re writing out your list of ingredients, you leave room for the unexpected “allergen”. Double or even triple space your list. I do not believe it is self-defeating  or even a negative to take into account all the ways you could take a wrong path, along with all of the ways you could succeed.  It will save you time and money and will help you learn to create value out of every experience and challenge you encounter.

“Do you want to be the statue or the bird?”

I read that neat little piece of sophistry the other day and my inclination is to say the statue only because I don’t like the idea of pooping my way to glory. When I land on someone I hope to leave them smelling a little sweeter for my having been there. Being a statue however keeps you steady, standing, still.

What’s to choose from?

I signed up for an ecourse entitled, “The Pathway to Prosperity”. A man named F.W Sears wrote a book in 1914 called “How to Attract Success”. Here’s a bit of his philosophy……”the true law of success is….the law of harmonious attraction. Under this law, things come to us because they want to come and not because we make them come; they remain with us because they want to do so. Instead of working to control the other fellow, we learn to control ourselves and become so strong, powerful and harmonious in our attractive power that the things we want will want us so much that they cannot stay away.”

Way to be a statue F.W.

So let’s say I’m a statue, and because this is my fantasy I can make myself breathtakingly beautiful with a sweet and compelling smile etched onto my features. My hands are carved open and in a beseeching gesture; gold leaf covers me from head to toe and buffed to a brilliant shine. I stand there in all my attractiveness, but I don’t believe it was success that plopped onto my head; I believe it was last night’s dinner deposited by that go-getter dude with wings.

So now I’m the bird. I’m a hawk. My wings cut through the air and far below I spot….dinner. For the sake of my analogy, dinner is a mouse. My eyes never leave my prey and with a powerful and single-minded thrust I slam to the earth and that hapless mouse is mine. I tear him apart with beak and talon. Satiated and full of myself, I take off for a post dinner turn in the park and crap on the shiny golden statue standing there.

I know people like the statue and people like the bird. The statues are never going to get what they want out of life. The birds might, but then there’s another law as old as the one of harmonious attraction; the law of karma.

No wonder sophistry was condemned by Plato. You can’t answer the question without going a little crazy.

(for more info visit lindakaban.com)

Yesterday at 9:17a.m. I laid out my yoga mat and started with a series of Sun Salutations. I know a couple of you are going to snicker at the preciseness. I don’t blame you. It seems a little rigid, timing such a graceful, meditative practice. But I do that with all my exercise. I put on ABBA at 4:11 in the afternoon and danced for precisely 30 minutes. And last night I lifted weights for 27 minutes. Why do I do this? Because I keep a log. A log of the type and duration of my exercise. I found many years ago I respond best to this type of discipline and it has served me well.

As I was flipping up and down and breathing in and out, I was listening to Robin Sharma’s CD, “Extraordinary Leadership.” He talked about discipline and I felt a little tug of pride that I was performing at an elite level. But as the CD continued, I felt a little tug of alarm as well.

He was telling the story of his visit to a restaurant that had reached the height of its success, and seemed to be sliding in the customer service department. When Robin shared his experience with a business leader, the man explained to Robin that nothing “fails like success.” In other words, when success is achieved, complacency sets in and the downward spiral begins.

I began to think about that in terms of everyday life. You see, the reason for all the flipping around on the yoga mat and the weights and the cardio is because I’ve let complacency take the place of discipline and I’ve gained a whopping 8 pounds. More snickering I know. But 8 pounds to me might as well be 50. In 1995 I was over-weight and it took me a year, but I shed 40 pounds and managed to keep it off for 14 years with a lot of hard work and even more will power.

During the past year I have endured more stress and been more sedentary than ever before in my life. Exercise has been intermittent and every time I get up the steam to start over, I hit a snag; whether it be another job challenge or personal drama. Instead of working off stress in my sneakers or on the mat, I grab the (low fat) comfort food and moan on my couch. And don’t get me started about cortisol; that fat hoarding hormone which doesn’t know the difference between my stressing about money and an attacking sabre tooth tiger. It thinks it’s doing me a favour by storing the extra weight in case I need to draw on the reserves.

So I’m starting again. I expect better of myself and frankly I deserve the best. We all do.

Complacency is a tricky and potentially devastating state. How often do we take ourselves for granted? We go about our business day in, day out, doing the same things, saying the same things, eating the same things, watching the same shows…and another day goes by in a very short life. How often do we take the people we know or love for granted? As we all sneak little looks around the room, I’d say it was the majority of us. You know someone for years. You know their habits, likes, dislikes, thoughts and idiosyncrasies. You know what they like to eat, where they like to go, what they like to do. There’s no mystery, no surprises….or so you think.

I want you to try something. Look at your spouse, your kid, your friend, your lover or look at yourself in the mirror and say something totally unexpected. Something they wouldn’t expect you to say in a hundred years. Say something that you’ve kept deep inside you. Pry off the outer mask and let your bare face show. Why do you want to do this? Because within each one of us lives a soul that rarely dares to show itself. It’s the soul that loves and hopes so deeply that should you say the words you are longing to speak, you would double over with the pain of their release. We keep our desires, our hopes and our dreams bottled up so tightly, that to speak them would find us floundering in a whole new world. How could we stand to expose ourselves like that? Someone might judge us or laugh at us. How could we live with THAT?

Well, easily. I threw my mask away many years ago. I’m still here. I’m still loved. I’m still respected and honoured. I speak my love, I share what’s inside the deepest part of my soul and I’m not afraid of any of it. Complacency was very much a part of the first half of my life. I can look back and see where I could have stepped up or spoken out. I can see where I used silence, when all the while I was longing share my heart song.

Take a leap of faith today…do one thing or say one thought that frightens you to death…and leave complacency behind you. Life gets very interesting when you dare.

I was in a cab a while ago laden with goodies from a trip to my parents’. The driver was a nice looking middle-aged man. Very polite. He took a call on his cell  and after he hung up I asked what language he was speaking as it had been musical and not one I recognized. He told me it was Farsi….the official language of Iran. And after spending 17 years studying and working in Italy, he was fluent in Italian as well. I discovered that I was in the cab with a highly trained architect.

I asked what on earth made him leave a good life and a career he loved to come to Canada. He explained he wanted to give his daughters a better chance at a better life. Their accomplishments since moving here, which he proudly cited, have made him very happy. But I heard a deep sadness in his voice as well; because how many opportunities are there for Iranian, Italian speaking, middle-aged architects in a new country?

As we approached my house my eyes were already welling up with tears. I paid him quickly, way over-tipped, wished him good luck, threw my bags out of the car and before I was ten steps away started sobbing. From there to the door I repeated the same litany over and over….broken dreams, broken dreams, broken dreams. Walking down the hall to my kitchen, it changed to “No more!!!”

I was crying for him. I was crying for myself. I was crying for everyone I know who has lost a dream to circumstance or tragedy.

When I’m asked why I want to take on the task of helping people strive for their heart’s desire, it’s because too many tears have been shed….too many hearts have been broken….too many spirits have wilted. Too many architects and artists and dancers and writers and healers and teachers have given up on their dreams. Your dreams don’t give up on you. SO WHY SHOULD YOU GIVE UP ON THEM? Why do working to survive and working towards a dream have to be mutually exclusive?

Next time you walk by a stranger or even someone you’ve known a lifetime, listen carefully. That music you hear is their song.

As I declared in the manifesto on my first website (see image below), I wanted to start a network of people helping people achieve their dreams. And that’s what Donna Marie Antoniadis is doing on shesconnected.com as well. And that’s what the sponsors of the Yoga Meltdown yesterday at Queen’s Quay were doing. I witnessed a community of people gather together to support and uplift each other in their dream to create a physically strong and mentally harmonious life.

Well you can help too. If you know someone who longs to sing their song and you know of ANYTHING that might help them take that first step, I urge you to make that effort.

(visit lindakaban.com)

I was thinking about excellence and what it means.

I was once interviewed by a young reporter from NOW magazine. She was writing an article on chronic worry. I was concerned after reading the article. There was a HUGE omission in my quote. I was giving her my thoughts on how we all give too much mind space to worrying. I’m guilty of that. You know that small problem that starts as a twitch in your stomach and after you’ve dissected it and looked at it a hundred different ways, that twitch has turned into full blown anxiety accompanied in different degrees by shallow breathing, stabbing fingers of stress along your shoulder blades and maybe even a migraine.

What I DID say to the reporter and wanted to emphasize is, that worrying is useful in one respect. It makes you AWARE that a problem exists. Once you acknowledge that it exists, turn off the worry and turn your efforts to finding a solution. I know I can’t think straight when I’m gnawing on a problem. I’m thinking of the “what if’s” instead of the “what can I do’s.”

That article was read by a LOT of people. That one important omission by the writer could have affected people adversely. 

………………………………………………………………………….

Another day, I went to work out at a local YMCA. After tread milling for 30 minutes, I joined a yoga class. If my jaw could have dropped to the ground while holding my leg in the air at the same time, it would have. I was appalled at the total lack of professional ethics demonstrated by the teacher. She had 30 people in the class, of all shapes and sizes. A lot of the women and one man were either well into their senior years or infirm. The instructor had us do poses that it would be difficult for the very young and fit to accomplish. I was ok, firstly because I’ve practiced yoga for 36 years and am a certified yoga teacher as well, but I also know my body and what is and is not good for it. A lot of people lack that awareness. They want to look cool, or “in the know.” They don’t want to stand out in the class as the one who couldn’t do a pose. She let people twist their bodies into poses without any concern for the proper alignment. She never stressed the importance of linking inhaling and exhaling to certain movements. When she said, “We’re going to do some rock and rolls and then roll right into shoulder stand”, was when I got up and walked out of the class. Shoulder stand MUST be done properly because of the very great risk to the vertebrae in your neck. One small wrong movement could mean a lifetime of paralysis….and this woman had the class THROW themselves up onto their shoulders. I was horrified.

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And again this past weekend. I joined a Yoga Group through Meet Up.

(in an aside, if you have a hobby, passion or a desire to try anything from Rock Climbing to Bonsai, check out the Meet Up groups near you.)

I went through Meet Up because even though I have a devoted home practice I like to meet new people and value any opportunity to do so.

The idea was to meet at The Beaches on the shore of Lake Ontario in Toronto. After conducting a workshop on an island retreat last summer where we practiced yoga on the beach every morning as the sun rose, I was drawn to this particular Meet Up.

So we met at the designated location and were nervously joking about the looming black clouds over the CN Tower which we kept turning to watch over our shoulders as we headed east down the beach. The teacher found a spot under some trees, which had a few of us cocking our heads, since the black clouds were now issuing some pretty serious thunder.

Luckily, about the only structure on the beach, a sort of humungous car port was right beside us. As the first drops of rain fell we scurried inside and laid down our mats a few feet away from a Boot Camp Fitness group who were also seeking shelter.

The storm that came was not your garden variety sun shower, but a real monster. To us, under the eaves of our makeshift shelter, it just added ambiance. My blissed out state didn’t last long. Once again, I was faced with being taught by a very lovely, but inexperienced yogini. As I covertly watched the other folks in the class, I was in utter disbelief as they contorted into poses they were not meant to do at their stage of development, nor were their limbs in alignment and nor was the teacher even aware that her students’ underlying skeletons and over-laying musculature were being compromised.

It took everything I had to keep my mouth shut. When they suggested a walk along the beach after class, I begged off saying I had an appointment. I did not. Even this morning I am struggling with the decision whether or not to write to that gentle teacher and somehow, very respectfully, offer feedback without it sounding accusatory. I was classically and correctly trained by some yoga big shots whose first order of the day is to teach safety and correct alignment. So do I destroy a young woman’s faith in herself or let her continue unaware, and possibly seriously injure one of her students?

Regardless of my decision, I’m thinking that it’s not a long walk from giving something the short shrift to giving it your all. The sense of accomplishment and pride is only the first reward.

I guarantee you that committing to excellence is not that hard. Colin Powell said, “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”

Do one thing excellently today and see how you feel. See how it affects the people around you.

If you don’t proceed with excellence it can compromise not only your own quality of life, but other’s as well.

Be excellent!!

(visit lindakaban.com for more articles)

I receive an email every day from a guy I really admire, Brian Johnson. He’s the creator of Philosopher’s Notes. Well worth taking a boo at his website,  http://philosophersnotes.com/

It’s plain and simple, no frills, but the content, holy smokes!! Brian reads the books we all swear we’re going to make time for and he basically writes a Coles (Cliff) Notes version. Philosophy-to-go, because you can also download the MP3 version of each synopsis as well. Condensed knowledge, with Brian’s sense of humour and own depth of thought rounding out the experience.

So this morning I woke up to receive the quickie version of a Philosopher’s Note, called Big Ideas, of his latest read “Harmonic Wealth”.  James Arthur Ray was quoted by Brian as saying, “I’m a great believer in harmony, but balance is bogus. Many teachers talk about balance, and guess what? Not one of them is balanced.  I know, I used to be one of them. Balance in this world cannot be achieved so get over it. Think of a scale. In perfect balance, nothing’s happening. There’s no dynamism, no life, or vibrancy. Now think of a jazz band-the life and vibrancy are palpable aren’t they? The performers in this band have less to do with playing the melody as written and more to do with improvising. They give life to nuance and the music takes shape in the moment. Now that’s harmony.”

Now that is very interesting. I gotta give it to Brian. He has more than once shaken up my world view, and for the better. Another time I’ll talk about his devotion to “declarations” instead of “affirmations”; but for today I’m going to stick with balance.

I had was what undoubtedly one of the crappiest weekends in years. I got some news on Friday afternoon from someone I’m very close to that’s going to tear her world apart. During the conversation I called on every ounce of coaching lore I could remember so as to give this person not only a safe place to fall apart, but also a bedrock of strength to hold onto. It went well I think. Yep. She left the phone with an action plan she could hold onto as the one bit of sanity in an insane situation; and I even managed to get her laughing for a bit.

But when I hung up, I doubled over with the pain of what I knew was coming for her and her family. And that’s the way I felt well into Sunday. By that time I couldn’t take it anymore, so attempted to shut down the welling of emotion, by settling for just plain grim. I was trying to find a balance for myself, so that I could function without crying or lamenting, and maybe enjoy a little of the beautiful day that Sunday was.

By this morning I was exhausted, and it wasn’t until my Blackberry beeped with a text from my sweetheart, that I could see a little light creep into the dark corners of my despair. And then when he walked in with a goofy grin and a smacking kiss, I let go completely. I could have dragged him into it. He knows the person who called me in trouble. But I decided that talk could wait for another time, and I let myself get silly and giggly, and spent 3 glorious hours on the opposite side of despair.

James Arthur Ray may have something. Balance is not all the pundits crack it up to be.

Ours is a dualistic world. There is a heaven and an earth; female and male; sorrow and joy.

If we spend all our energy trying to walk the tightrope for fear of falling into a pit of sorrow let’s say; then when would take the chance of leaping off for joy’s sake?

(for more articles visit lindakaban.com)

I was drawn to a quote that said, “People who achieve their dreams have these qualities in common: They have confidence in themselves and a very strong sense of purpose. They never have excuses for not doing something and always try their hardest for perfection. They never consider the idea of failing and they work extremely hard towards their goals. They know who they are and they understand their weaknesses as well as their strong points. They can accept and benefit from criticism and they know when to defend what they are doing. They are creative people who are not afraid to be a little different.”

I agree. They DO have all those things in common. But guess what? So do those people who valiantly TRY armed with all those strengths and fail.

Don’t be shocked that I’m using the word fail. The only time the word fail has monumental overtones is when you’re trying to get the warp core back online before the Klingons attack. If you fail, you’re cosmic dust. I’m using a silly example to introduce the notion that failure is not the END. Not the end of a dream. Failure is just another word for opportunity.

That was the theme of one of my shows on www.thatchannel.com. I called the show Dare to Dream. I could just have easily called it Dare to Dream and When Things Don’t Work Out Despite Your Best Efforts Then Fail Spectacularly, Pick Yourself Up and Try Again.

Instead of using arbitrary examples I listed MY failures to make a dream a reality, despite my best efforts. I felt a little nervous exposing my life. When you’re courting a coach you want to know that the person in whom you’ve placed your trust is a winner. You want to believe that they wear the mantle of success you’re trying so desperately to achieve yourself. You want them to be infallible and all-knowing. Wise and compassionate. You want to cry in their arms and have them tell you everything will be ok. You want a Buddha, a Christ, a Mother Teresa.

Respectfully I’m going to suggest that you don’t.

You want someone who has been in the trenches. Someone who has taken a walk through the fire and has come out the other side intact, whole, still laughing, still fighting, still achieving and most importantly who still BELIEVES.

You want someone who believes in YOU. Someone who’ll have your back. Someone who can steer you away from unproductive exercises and shortcut you to the essence of what it is you want to achieve. You want someone who is strong and not afraid to say no to you. You want someone who will never, never, never give up on you, on themselves or on dreams.

If you listen to the podcast of that show, listen with both ears. In one I’m telling you that I have failed many times. But hear what is being whispered in your other ear. I AM a Coach. I AM a Yoga Teacher. I AM a published writer. These were dearly beloved dreams I pursued relentlessly until I achieved them.

What I was suggesting is that along the way to achievement life is happening simultaneously. Challenges that you could never have prepared for are going to drop in front of you or sometimes on you like a ton of bricks. And if one of those bricks happens to fall on your head, it’s most likely that’s the moment that you’ll give in, give up and throw away the dream.

Or you can do what I do. Kick at those bricks for a while; swear a little. Rant at the unfairness. Then pick them up one by one and start making a path out of them, or a staircase or a new door you can walk through. Use these opportunities to see what you’re really made of. Let your strength of purpose and courage out for a little walk around the disaster site and watch them bare their teeth in a fierce grin. Eat those bricks for breakfast.

As I said in my show, for every one person who’s had a dozen or a hundred failures, there are millions of people who have never had the courage to even try. Don’t be ashamed of failing at something. Because what you’ll get out of it is a hundred times more valuable. The perks of success revolve around money. Let’s be honest. The perks of failure are infinitesimally more valuable than hordes of cash. Stock markets crash. Recessions happen. Divorce sucks your bank account dry. However, the value of failure can’t be stuffed in a wallet. You wear it like a shining armour. Guts, pride, patience, resolve, valour and self-esteem are all yours to keep if you take them as the gifts of failure that they are. No one can take them from you. They can never be devalued. They are priceless. They are the tools that will move a mountain of bricks.

Martin Luther King said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

So speak your dreams, honour your failures as teachers and carry on. The world needs you.

(for more info visit lindakaban.com)

Phil Keoghan is the host of that “amazing” reality series, “The Amazing Race.”

The native New Zealander more than walks his talk. In his book “NOW-No Opportunity Wasted”, he lets us visit his notion that none of us have to live SMALL lives.

He’s a bungee jumping, mountain climbing, parasailing, termite/slug eating, cobra blood drinking, iron man triathlon participant, husband, father and dreamer.

It all started the way most wake up calls come….when you’re about to lose something; in his case, his life. He was 19, scuba diving, cut off from his crew and running out of air. Imagine!!! 19 years old with all of it ahead of you and moments from death. Whatever deal he made with the devil or whatever solemn vow he made to God worked because he lived to see another day. And boy has he lived.

Ok. Not all of us are Phil Keoghans. Most of us don’t get the opportunity to kiss death on the cheek well before “our time” in our 70’s or 80’s.  Not all of us take even the threat of loss to shake us up. What? You’re losing someone you care about? To inattention or indifference….or most heart breakingly, to death. So what? There’s always someone else to fill the void. Isn’t there?

I’ve talked about our “throw away” world before and at first glance it seems that someone like Phil and other extreme adventure seekers are jumping from thrill to thrill in an effort to “escape”….because what they’ve got isn’t satisfying enough….because they can’t hang on to an experience long enough to savour the richness of it. People like this can come across as flaky and scattered. I don’t believe it for a minute. In the acknowledgement portion of his book, Keoghan first and foremost thanks Louise, his “best friend, fellow adventurer, business partner and wife.” He thanked his “beautiful and fearless daughter” for inspiring him every day.

This is not a man running away from life and responsibilities. This is a man INVOLVING himself in life in every way. From the heart opening adventures of committed love to life embracing adventures all over the planet.

I’m drawn to people like this amazing man. I’ve never done a bungee jump or sat down with a tribe of natives in the rainforest or eaten piranha soup (teeth and all), but I’d like to think I’m not afraid of the possibilities of attempting my own version of life enhancing adventures.

I want to take a long motorcycle trip through the mountains, never knowing what’s around the next bend in the road, until I gasp with the pleasure of seeing it.

Although skydiving’s never off the table, a hot air balloon ride would satisfy my immediate need to float high above the earth.

I’m not a runner but I want to compete in a walking marathon.

I want to perform “Patricia the Stripper” from Chris De Burgh’s Spanish Train album on stage, in front of a very large audience.

I’m not into sharks but would love to swim with dolphins.

I want to back pack across Tibet.

I want to give a speech on the same stage as my heroes, Deepak Chopra and Robin Sharma.

I want to go zip lining through the Costa Rican rain forest.

I want to go to the Adult Space Academy in Alabama.

Those are just a few. None of them death defying. I don’t need that to FEEL alive.

What I do to honour my life is to always have my foot hovering to take that LEAP OF FAITH. Because that’s what adventure and love need. You never know what’s going to happen if you take that leap; but you never know what’s going to happen if you don’t.

(visit lindakaban.com)