Spirituality – Who am I to God? (MY TRUTH SERIES)

Spirituality. Religion. These aren’t things we’re supposed to talk about, right? Well I’m going there. Spirituality has been a big part of my journey “to know her” uncovering my true self in an effort to LOVE her this past year. I’m at a place in my life where TRUTH is of the utmost importance. Both in my ability to know & speak my own and help others do the same.

I share the following recap with you quite vulnerably. Continue reading “Spirituality – Who am I to God? (MY TRUTH SERIES)”

What role has WORK played in your life?

Work. Let’s chat about it.

Rather than come at you with more original thoughts, I wanted to hit you with some powerful words spoken at a service my husband and I attended over Labor Day weekend.

It began with a simple but fierce question:

What role has WORK played in your life?

 I’ll shorten the whole presentation down to the essential message that reminded me of the journey I started a year ago: Continue reading “What role has WORK played in your life?”

Career Q&A: How do I say NO to more work or ask for help?

Hey Guys!

Through August & September I decided to do a series of reader questions related to work & career! You know…that juicy part of your life that you might dedicate anywhere from 0 – 75 hours a week to. Have a question you want to submit? Email me at smschottler@gmail.com.

Today’s questions….

How do I say NO to more work when I am already drowning in workload?  

-Land of the Lakes of Workload MSP

 AND a different question but the same answer will apply….

How do you handle asking for help when you are SWAMPED?!

 -Swampland NYC

Today’s Answer:

Continue reading “Career Q&A: How do I say NO to more work or ask for help?”

Foster Daughter Inspired Coaching Offer!

You guys. My new little foster daughter has inspired me so much to reach out to all of YOU!

You see…I NEVER would have met her if I hadn’t–

  • Gotten clear on my values
  • Asked myself the tough questions about what I wanted for my life and really honed the picture in my mind and on paper
  • Got to work getting after those values & vision

As I sit here sipping my hot chocolate (why is it 52 degrees in the middle of summer?!) and listening to “Relax & Unwind” on Spotify, I got FIRED up to reach out to YOU.

WHY?!

I am totally relishing this season of my life and I want you to be too!

HOW?!

I am freakishly crystal clear on my values, the vision I hold for my life and I want YOU to be too! I take those values & vision each month and create simple but meaningful goals in line with them that leave me feeling EPICALLY satisfied day after day.

And you know what?

I want all of these feelings–total satisfaction, contentment, joy and accomplishment in all areas of your life– for you too. These feelings are not just for me. YOU DESERVE TO HAVE THEM TOO! I want you to get the same awesome sense of satisfaction I have when I look at my new-to-me little girl, work on my business helping people achieve their greatest dreams, volunteer for causes I care about, and kiss my husband realizing my life is totally in line with the things I want. And the first step to that is defining your values & vision…and then setting SUPER CLEAR goals to start GETTING AFTER IT!

So…here’s what we’re going to do to help you get there—

I’m sharing a ONE TIME OFFER to the first 10 people who want to book a values & vision specific session for just $129.

What you get—

  • One epically satisfying 90 minute 1-on-1 session with me where we—
    • Define your values
    • Clarify your “big life” vision
    • Learn a new monthly goals practice to keep your eye on the values & vision prize
    • Get REALLY specific on goals for the very next month to help you get after that vision because, well…ACTION is the best part!

The first 10 people get ’em and when they are gone they’re gone.

You can book right on my calendar here (select values & vision defining session) and I’ll send you an email shortly thereafter with more info!

GET PUMPED! This method totally changed my life and, if you open yourself up to the process and the possibility, I know it has the potential to change YOURS too.

How do I know this is for me? 

This is for you if–

  • You’re feeling a little ho-hum about life lately and you KNOW there’s more out there for you!
  • You want to go to bed each night feeling like you are living your best life
  • You’re ready to get honest and go deep into what matters to you
  • You want to dream BIG about your future and start putting pen to paper on these lovely ideas!
  • You’re ready to start living the best life on YOUR terms, not by what someone else (your parents, society, etc) is telling you it should be
  • You want decision making (big and small) to feel easy
  • You’re ready to move forward to a better future

Love & Light,

Shannon

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4 Steps to Embrace Your Beginner Status

As I reflect on the last year or so of my life, I’ve been a beginner in a lot of ways. I am a beginner entrepreneur, foster parent, non-profit strategist, surfer, rock climber…so many beginnings! And I spent a lot of that first 6 months or so beating myself up. At any given moment I was–

A. totally scared

B. embarrassed to admit I didn’t know how to do something

C. too afraid to even start

D. all of the above

 

But then it hit me. Wait a second….

Why the hell would I magically know how to run a business on day one? Or know how to parent a child who’s experienced trauma? Or what a logic model is? Or how to build out a 5-year budget model for a nonprofit?

I’ve never done any of these things before!

I’m a BEGINNER. And it’s SO ok to be a beginner!

I see a lot of people struggle with this beginner status so I thought we should talk about it here. Ready? Ok! Continue reading “4 Steps to Embrace Your Beginner Status”

If today was your last day….

Each morning (ok, let’s be honest…maybe a few times a week), I read through a list of affirmations. This is just a fancy word for phrases that I want to be true about myself and my surroundings.

This morning one of them hit me with a ton of emotional bricks–

I go to bed feeling like if this was my last day I am happy and proud of the life I lived

One year ago this was not my reality. Continue reading “If today was your last day….”

Choosing Happiness

My husband and I end each month with a budget meeting. Sexy & romantic right? But actually…it kind of is. It gives us a chance to really talk. How are things going for each of us? What are we planning for? What are we excited for? What keeps us nervous?

As we chatted this past month, I fretted again about what my future career path would be. I’ve been in exploration mode since October. This worry about my future career has been stealing a lot of my joy these past 8 months. I started to realize that a big reason I wanted to go back to work was simply because I felt we needed a contingency plan. You know…in case someone dies, becomes disabled, begins to hate their job…etc.

So my hubbie asks—

Well…what if the other shoe never drops? We’ve bought 4x more life insurance contingency planning for me to die (LOL). You’ve made an emergency fund for our emergency fund planning for it to magically disappear into thin air. You’re planning to go back to work in the Fall already assuming you will hate being a foster mom and a coach. What if NONE of those things happened? What if I live a long, healthy life?  What if I continue to make plenty of money to support both of us thoroughly enjoying my career as much as I do today? What if we are able to keep vacations every year, retire early and have money left over for our kids some day? What if you can keep getting to help whoever client or whatever cause you want to help all day long without worrying at all about the money? What if you LOVE being a foster mom?

Whoa. Talk about a game changer. The realization slammed into me—I’ve been living my whole life as one massive contingency plan attempting to protect myself from all the possible nasty demons out there. I have lived my life waiting for the other shoe to drop. Any time good things are happening to me I assume they will fall apart.

These past 8 months have been FAH-REAKING amazing (like so, so, so, so good). Which means that shoe keeps getting larger and larger in my head the more joy I experience every day. And I keep getting that itch for a contingency plan in case all of this joy goes away.

I just simmered on this until the end of our budget meeting. We end each budget (more like LIFE meeting) by asking each other “What’s one thing I can be doing better for our marriage?”

My husband usually says the same thing every time—don’t beat yourself up so much. But this time he said STOP WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE TO DROP.” And he had already made it easy for me to do this by painting a clear picture of an alternate reality I could choose to believe in. One in which nothing about our current situation has to change.

So from this point forward I’m making a conscious choice to believe that things can stay this good. I am allowed to be this happy. Right here. Right now. Trust that the future plans we’ve made will work out if they’re supposed to. And if they don’t we’ve got enough contingency plans already to cover our butts without making even more. It steals me away from the present moment when I build more contingencies for the future. And we are blessed with great family & friends who care deeply about us to support us emotionally and mentally through hard times.

It’s scary. I feel like I’m testing fate by even putting this out there. But I choose faith over fear. I choose joy over worry.

And in case this other shoe syndrome has plagued you too—I wrote this post to hopefully help others let it go and choose happiness too.

FAQ: Foster Care through the Lens of a Prospective Foster Parent

As some of you may know, my husband (Nate) and I have been on a journey to become foster parents in Hennepin County (a 7 months and counting process for us)! We have officially finished our last step and now wait for our worker to write the long home study report, send it to the state and to get our license in the mail. I quote this stat a lot, but it’s because it was SHOCKING to me:
On any given night, there are 130+ kids waiting in emergency shelters for a foster home in Hennepin County alone.  
In general, there’s a massive shortage of foster parents across the United States. Since May is National Foster Care Awareness Month and it’s Mother’s Day I thought I’d write an FAQ post for anyone interested in learning more about foster care through the lens of our experience thus far as prospective foster parents.

Continue reading “FAQ: Foster Care through the Lens of a Prospective Foster Parent”

How to Break Up With Your Mentee

Have you ever reached that awkward point in the mentoring relationship? You know that one. Your quarterly meeting with the mentee is coming up and you’re just simply dreading it. Or maybe you’re simply short on time and have more mentees than minutes in a day.

Here’s a radically simple process to address this problem. Send them an email to your mentee(s) that goes something like this— Continue reading “How to Break Up With Your Mentee”

What’s a Pivot Point and What Can It Tell You?

Today on the “find yourself” journey we examine pivot points. What are pivot points exactly?

A point in your life when you made a big decision. Where you pivoted into something different. 

You can listen to this podcast episode for more info on the inspiration behind this exercise.

THE EXERCISE: Continue reading “What’s a Pivot Point and What Can It Tell You?”