Inspiration

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What and who you surround yourself with greatly effects how you feel which will greatly effect what you attract into your life.

So how are you living?  When you walk up to your home/car/office, do you hear the theme song to Superman or the theme song to Sanford and Son?  (Am I dating myself?  If you’re under 40 or have no idea what Sanford and Son is, think junkyards, cars up on blocks, old fools, big dummies, simulated heart-attacks alongside drunken yelling up to dead wives in the sky – “Elizabeth!  I’ma comin’ to join you!”)

Today’s video gives some helpful insights on the fact that how you’re hanging effects how you’re living and some tips for upping your game:

 

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I ruined the curve, sucker!

If  you’ve got a ten ton financial gorilla sitting on your chest or you cry uncontrollably every time you go bathing suit shopping but can’t seem to stop shoving Fiddle Faddles in your mouth or you’re so sick of showing up at Thanksgiving dinner alone or you have a gag reflex to your job, your partner, your bank account, your own face….

I have bad news.

You create your own reality.

Ep ep ep ep – I don’t want to hear how your whole family has a slow metabolism or how the economy sucks right now or how your parents told you you were a piece of crap your whole life…

Ray Charles was a broke, blind, minority who was orphaned by the age of 15 and raised in the middle of nowhere and look what he pulled off.

But fear not, I also have good news.

You create your own reality.

And you got where you are right now by doing and thinking whatever it is that you’re doing or thinking.

So, if you want to change your life, you need to change your life.

If you’re in a ditch and you’re looking down, you can see where you’re going but you can’t see the way out.

If you’re in a ditch and you look up, you may trip and stumble, but the way out is all around you.

Stop looking down, going the same old route, deciding that you’re a victim to your present reality.

Start looking up, staying open to options, feeling positive about your situation whateverthehellitisIdon’twanttohearhowmuchworseyou’vegotitthaneverybodyelse and stick with it until things start to shift.

Change your attitude, change your life.

And while you’re at it, read my article all about how to get out of your rut on the Huffington Post where I give you some practical tips on how to turn it all around.

You can dooooooooo eeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

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If the bad news is that you feel like you’re stuck, the good news is the solution to getting unstuck is pretty frikken easy.  Broadcasting live, from my own, private, intensive care unit, I will enlighten you on the root cause of your stuckness and how to overcome it via a sorry tale of getting my ass kicked on a 12 mile hike that I was more than a tad unprepared for.

 

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Okay, so here’s a REAL stupid one, however, it is also the most transformative/profound one.  It’s sort of the idiot savant of life changers and I promise you, if you heed my words, it will rock your world.  Instantly.  You don’t even have to get off the couch to do it either.

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When I lived in New York City and my mother would drive in to visit me, she’d wait outside my place and make me get in the car with her because I’d always find her an awesome parking spot.

It’s my most consistent superhero power – I don’t care if it’s the curb outside the Pope’s house on Easter morning, I will get a spot, up front, every single time.  I may have to drive around and work for it a bit, but if you’re lazy and hate to walk, you’ll be wantin to ride with me.

I have excellent parking mojo.

I know this to be true.

And so it is.

It occurred to me a few days ago that this is the same mojo I’ve been working when it comes to parking my body during my travels, and that it’s why I’ve been getting the best spots, every single time.

Take last week for instance.

I was in LA for a meeting and was thinking about where I should head to next.  I wanted to hunker down for 2 weeks and work on a writing project, but needed the perfect quiet, but not too quiet, place to do it.

I decided that I’d hop on a plane to visit my friend E..J. in San Francisco who I was long overdue in seeing and figure it out at his place.

E.J. and I at a very San Franciscoesque street fair this past Sunday. Guess which one? Here's a hint:

I also decided that I wouldn’t worry about it.

I decided that I would trust the universe.

I decided that the perfect place would reveal itself.

I decided that it had already been decided.

And so it was.

Because as I was walking up to E.J’s house, straight from the airport, dragging my suitcase behind me, I bumped into an old friend from college, Lisa, who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years.  We had an incredible conversation and before I knew it, she informed me that she was leaving town for 2 weeks the next morning and handed me the keys to her gorgeous, sunny, quiet home, full of her incredible artwork, in a neighborhood that’s rife with coffee shops and is three blocks from E.J’s.

So.

It’s time to take this into consideration with EVERYTHING we desire.

Here’s how it works:

Wanting something comes from a place of not having.  A place of lack.  A place of needing to create something that is not yet there.

Because you are ridiculously powerful and really do create your own reality, when you decide that you do not already have something, that there is lack, you create lack.

Meanwhile, if you understand that everything you desire is already here, you send that energy of abundance out into the universe and that is the energy that comes back to you.

You still have to work to make it happen – you don’t get to just meditate, think “dude, it’s here, bring it!” and have your heart’s desires magically appear next to you on the couch – they key is to work at it while focusing on manifesting that which already exists rather than struggling to create that which does not.

As my absent hostess, Lisa, whose couch I’m typing this from, so brilliantly put it:

Life is a combo of what you want and what you get.  And what you get is who you are.

Become someone who has it all and you will have it all.  Every single time.

Office #10: Lisa's sitting room, the Mission, San Francisco

 

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If you’ve got a teetering pile of self help books by your bed, have been talking the talk, thinking the power thoughts, going to seminars and have rubbed your glue stick down to a tiny nub making vision board after vision board…

if you’ve done all this but are still broke as a joke, confused, single, overweight, or feeling like you’re being a total weenie when you know you could be huge, here’s the missing piece you may be looking for:

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lady luggage tag
How does that saying go again?  The one about the best way to make God laugh is to make plans?  Well it must be a constant pantwetter up there because I have never realized just how obsessively planny we all are until now.

Here’s how the conversation goes when I tell someone I’m in town:

Them:  How long you here for?

Me: Until I decide to leave.

Them: But, so, where are you going next?

Me: Excellent question.

They look at me like I’ve sprouted a unicorn horn.

Them:  So you really don’t know?

Me:  I have lots of ideas but I’m just going with the flow right now.

At this point they usually become irritated with me.  Like I’m withholding information or being unnecessarily mysterious or wisenheimery.  Then they ask me how long I’ll be in town again (I swear, everyone asks me twice) before they get it.

It’s taken a while to sink into my own brain, and it’s still sinking, actually.

It’s like when you first hear that someone’s died or you walk into a room full of balloons and people screaming “surprise!” in your face or you realize you’ve locked your keys in your car…it takes a second to register.  It’s not the reality you’ve been working with up until that very moment and, er, it does not compute. Not right away anyhow.

Most of us are completely oblivious that we’re working with a reality at all, but we are.  We’re working with it hard, gripping it tight with white knuckles, defending it with our lives and those few times we let go can literally be like slipping into a dream.

And, as we all know, anything goes when it comes to dreams, which is why we tend to use the aformentioned white knuckled approach to life.

Due to the fact that I officially have no address and a business that I can run from anywhere in the world, I have been handed the ultimate opportunity to truly let it all go and see what the hallowed NOW has in store (I’ll let you know if it’s everything it’s cracked up to be).

Yes, I have things on the calendar – calls with clients, speaking engagements, writing deadlines, etc. – but because place and time are so fluid, it’s allowed me to exist in a sort of suspended reality, where it all could, or couldn’t, change on a dime.

I buy one-way plane tickets, pack hiking boots and heels, refuse to make plans with anyone who gets crabby if I need to change them and, most importantly, immediately squelch my blathering inner-hysteric whenever she attempts a bout of seriouslyholycrapwhatthehellamIdoingwhereamIgoingshouldIdoChristmasinNYthisyear and stay in the zone.

Which is something you can do too, even if you still have an address.

The perfect possibilities and suggestions and invitations are constantly presenting themselves to us, but we’re often so caught up in our planned out lives that we don’t see them.  We’ve been so conditioned to be in control, to keep things orderly, to stick close to the familiar, that we’ve cut ourselves off from the almighty flow which is where the real fun ride is.

When I really truly am in the zone, new clients appear out of nowhere, free apartments in foreign cities are offered up, international speaking engagements happen, dear friends are randomly bumped into on the street and I catch not 1, not 2, but 3 express trains right in a row, getting me from Westchester to Brooklyn in record time.

Here are 5 simple tips to surfing your own tasty wave:

Breathe.  Deeply.

Listen to your inner voice.

Do exactly what it says.

Say thank you.  A lot.

Don’t worry, be happy.

 

 

 

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We just got back from a delicious dinner where Jason and I, the only Americans at the table, found ourselves proudly tracing our ancestry back to the Mayflower.

Don’t ask. I really have no idea.

America, numba 1!

Us

Cyphillus spreading Europeans

Them

We were out numbered by Europeans, and our self-satisfied Mayflowerian pontifications did not impress as we’d hoped, but rather inspired our table mates to spit up their drinks, roar with laughter and fall all over the place because, according to them, the Mayflower was packed to the brim with whores, murderers, morons and thieves.

“Look at you idiots! So proud! It’s a known fact that everybody on the Mayflower had cyphillus.”

That’s what they were honestly taught in school! All of them, and they all went to different schools in different countries!

:-/

They learned nothing about the few, the proud, the brave, risking their lives on a noble quest for freedom. Their Mayflower was all about dumping Europe’s unwanted stinky trash on the American Indians.

I mean yes, duh, of course, but it honestly never occurred to me before.

Relentless ridiculing ensued, but Jason and I fought back like our mighty forefathers, all of us eventually unraveling in howling hysterics. If we’d been anywhere but Spain, we’d have been asked to leave the restaurant (a recent survey apparently rated Spain the second loudest country after India).

It made me think:

Ah, the convenience of history.
The fluidity of perspective.
The seriousness of nothing.

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I’m presently in a remote area of Spain outside a teensy, and I mean teensy, town made of stone called Calabuig, down a very long dirt road on a horse farm.

And it’s one of the most happenin places I’ve ever been.

Whassamatta you?

Frontier Appaloosa

Serge Castella Kitchen

Serge Castella Living Room

Serge Castella Office

Poppies Bascara, Spain

Fancypants people from all over the world haul themselves and their many languages all the way out to this unapologetically inconvenient place to buy furniture and art and the occasional horse.

Alex Katz

German collector bubble wrapping his new Alex Katz before strapping it to his car and driving it 15 hours to Munich

Meanwhile, most of these people live within spitting distance of some of the most hallowed designers and art galleries in the world, but yet they come in throngs, risking flat tires and hay fever and getting lost amongst the poppy fields.

How come?

Cuz my friends who own the place are so excellent I can hardly stand it.

Behold Serge Castella and Jason Flinn, Lifestyle Experts Extraordinaire:

The mighty Serge Castella, being photographed beside his business card and against his will at a fish restaurant in Barcelona

The eternally-sunny Jason Flinn

Not only does Serge have impeccable taste in antiques and decor and boyfriends and houseguests, and not only is Jason the most revered horse whisperer/breeder/rider in all of Europe, but…

They are the most generous hosts you’ll ever meet

They are a hoot

They inspire all who darken their doorway by proving that a beautiful, purposeful, interesting, abundant and fun life is available to those who decide to get off their asses and create one.

Which, along with the 70′s white leather porno couch they just put up for sale, keeps people flocking back for more.

Porno couch

Do what you love.
And do it with flair.
It’s the best branding tool in the world.

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I just did some math and realized that today marks exactly 2 weeks since I found myself flying over the Atlantic Ocean, drinking orange juice out of a plastic cup and watching Burlesque (Cher and Christina Aguilera’s horribly awesome perfect plane movie) on my way to stuff my face beside my beloved family in Tuscany before traveling indefinitely around the world.

The Sincero's in Tuscany, pushing the limits of what's possible for human food consumption.

Making such an intense and radical change with zero notice has pretty much dredged up all my issues around being self-sufficient, being too self-sufficient, making money, spending money, fear of the unknown, fear of the known, loneliness, indecision, getting lost, getting sick and spending too much on an Italian leather jacket because I couldn’t wrap my brain around how many dollars I’d just spent in Euros.

Up until now I’ve been rather proud of myself for staying comfortable in the discomfort, focusing on my excitement and staying in the moment in regards to my big life changearoo.

Then yesterday, for some reason, the shit hit the fan. I don’t know if it was my 2 week anniversary present to myself or the fact that I’m no longer too jet lagged to think straight, but I was suddenly seized by fear.

Specifically the fear of being alone.

The thought of moving to some strange country where I don’t speak the language and don’t know anyone while spending my time writing and internet marketing in solitude in front of my computer made me want to give Mom a call and tell her to get the spare bedroom ready.

I suddenly thought:
I’m too old for this crap.
I’m too tired for this crap.
What am I trying to prove anyway?

Then I threw myself a rather impressive pity party that included a hearty sob session, teary skype chats with friends and several creative worst case scenario fantasies, only to wake up today feeling ready to kick some major foreign ass.

The transformation was so clean and sudden that, after I checked my calendar to confirm it couldn’t be blamed on PMS, I realized that my freak out was more about mourning than fear.

We all have to let go of certain parts of ourselves in order to grow, and it’s literally like killing off an old friend. This is why we cling to things and habits that no longer serve us – we love them and have become so comfortable with them that we don’t want to trade them in for something unknown, even if it’s potentially better (I mean, just go take a look at all the lame shit you never wear that’s festering away in your closet).

I’ve traveled all over the world, most often alone, and have had every kind of experience imaginable. But I’ve never done it as who I am now, which is someone who’s able to manifest, and manifest quickly, the things the old me thought were out of reach (money, big fat clients, a rockin business, expensive Italian leather jackets, etc.)

I attribute my little meltdown to not wanting to give the old me the heave ho. And to rebelling against growing up, admitting that I am large and in charge, and trusting that I will continue to create that which I haven’t created yet.

When we travel to new places we’re also forced to travel to new places within ourselves. All sorts of crazy stuff is thrown at us, and we have to deal with things that never even entered our consciousness before.

It’s intense. It brings up a lot of stuff. It forces you to build new muscles.

And in order to build new muscles, you must stop relying on the old ones.

The key is to trust that you can not only handle it, but that you can knock it out of the park. Any great leap into the unknown is an opportunity to trust that you live in an abundant universe, to trust that the unknown is your friend, and to trust that you are a giant badass.

So next time you find yourself having a hissy fit, let it rip, go all the way into it, scream like a baby with a diaper full of sand and then take a big fat nap. Because you’re going to need all the energy you’ve got for the gigantic heap of life waiting for you around the corner.

To be continued…..

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