Quattro Boosters

Quattro’s 90-day Challenge – Day 90 – We are through!

Wow, it’s finally Day 90. What a challenge it has been to get to this point without missing a day, but we DID IT!!! Both Dennis and I learned things along the way we didn’t expect we would, and often we weren’t sure where we were going during the journey.

We learned discipline – had to to get the video and blog up every night. We can apply this in future projects and be sure now that it is possible for us to give it our all and see it through, despite the outcome.

We learned perseverence – there were many nights I wanted to say, “screw it” and skip a night. I have to thank my husband Dennis for talking me out of my lethargy and continuing on. He was an inspiration to even just sit back and watch. He got videos up despite relatives going to the hospital, despite getting all his teeth removed and the terrible pain and discomfort he endured up until a week or two ago (yes, he was in some form of pain or another THIS ENTIRE TIME SINCE THE SURGERY) AND despite having a miserable cold after the surgery. I don’t know another human with so much determination to see something through to the end.

I learned flexibility, more creativity than I thought I had (and I thought I had a lot before!) and that you learn more and different things than you set out to when you embark on a self-improvement journey. A lot of people are, to put it bluntly, too chicken, too lazy or make excuses that they are too busy to even start on one. It is those people I pity because they will NEVER BE MORE THAN THEY ARE RIGHT NOW. And really, how lame are those excuses when we only have one shot at life? Think about what you are doing with your life RIGHT NOW. Are you happy? Are you fulfilled? Does your life have meaning and purpose? Mine does and so can yours. The only one holding you back IS YOU.

I said in my YouTube video tonight I would go over my goals here tonight in my blog, but I am going to save that for tomorrow. It’s getting late and this wrap-up is all that is needed to be said tonight about the fact that…

I FINISHED THE 90-DAY CHALLENGE…What is your challenge? What will you do to change your life?

Quattro University – Day 77 – A New Direction for the Both of Us

How powerful is Sensei Ron Thomas’s course? So powerful it has changed everyone in this house – and I am the only one taking it. Is it because I am sharing the information with them? No, it isn’t. It is because of what I said in last night’s blog, “You change your outside world by first changing the inside world.” Now an evolution in Dennis has been triggered as well. He has decided to do what he loves, which is script writing. How awesome is that.

Quattro University – Day 76 – A Hard Road Ahead

“Nothing happens TO us. We create it. Nothing in life happens TO you. Everything happens THROUGH you.”

Lesson for the day. Sensei Ron asks us if we believe this. Do we believe in chance? In luck?

Life happening through us, I believe it. I have been wanting more time to bead for a long time - even before starting this course. It was a strong enough desire that the Universe handed it to me on a silver platter since I wasn’t making it by being proactive. A client goes with someone else…then another…and I had already decided to let go a weekly networking luncheon that was non-productive and was costing me more than I was seeing from it.

Three things down…can you work with that; I get the feeling the Universe would ask me if it could talk directly. Want more?

No, that’s okay. Lemme see what I can do with that right now. Thanks.

“What you believe becomes your world,” a quote I am extremely fond of from the movie, “Somewhere in Time”. A desire so overpowering it draws a man back 70 years into the past to find the woman he loves. An amazing story and a great lesson for us about the power of belief. Is it any less amazing than a person nearly killed in a plane crash that has no hope of getting off a respirator or life support system, tells doubting doctors he will walk by Christmas? They don’t believe it, but it isn’t their belief that is needed. With nothing else to do while laying there paralyzed, a real-life man in a real case history literally wills his life and body to put itself back together so that he does indeed walk out of that hospital without a respirator or life support help.

So yes, I did ask for this to happen in a way. It would have been nice if it had happened a little gentler than it did, but I forgot to include that part in my request.

I am actually kind of excited. I have wanted a Celtic harp for forever now. There is no way I can afford one, but somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd week of the course, I realized I haven’t gotten one before now because I wasn’t making time in my life to play it, even if I had one. Now time is freeing up, now we’ll see. I have to be careful because now I know the Universe is listening. Ron said about 3 weeks ago that I wasn’t making much of a vibration in the universe to be noticed. Guess that problem’s solved. Man, I better watch it now.

Quattro University – Day 74 – Oh no! She’s at it AGAIN.

I finshed up the bottle I was working on. I’m tenatively calling it the “lilac bottle” since the focal bead on it’s surface is a lilac. It turn out so pretty, I was amazed. Everyone in the house loves it, too.

I consulted my artistic border about what colors to use in the strap. After looking over quite a few bead magazines and finding only one or two possibilities that inspired me for the strap, I remembered I have some silk ribbon cord in my studio. The colors are very unique in this bottle…rose, a carribbean blue and a muted, kermit green. I pulled what I had – two forest green ribbons with a stripe of dark rose running down the middle, the rose being very slightly different shades between the two candidates. The only other ribbon remotely near the colors was a slightly brighter than my beads kermit green.

Our roomie has an amazing eye for color and she said all three could work. Putting them together and wrapping them loosely around each other, I could see she was right, and proceeded to braid them. The two muted ones let only a hint of too-green color show, which tones it down and looks awesome. The braiding is done, tacking it in place with some hand sewing is done, too. Now all I have to do to finish it and the bottle completely is attach the cord, sew on coordinating beads and it’s ready for the art show.

Quattro University – Day 73 – Okay…so I’m not THAT doomed

After a day of getting used to the new tasks, assignments & rewriting my goals, a clarifying email from Sensei Ron and some time to meditate on things, I have more confidence now that this won’t be as impossible as I originally thought it would. In fact, I am glad for the opportunity of it because I want, know and need to do this. I have gone through file purging of my desk often in the past (especially during a Mercury Retrograde), but not after I went through as major a mental purging as the Foundation I course left me with.

I am starting out “small”…clean the files off the desk, clean the family room in the house and we’ll see what that leaves me feeling. If I notice a similarity to the feeling I get when we are on vacation and in a hotel room, I will know it is working. Why do I say this? Because when I am in a hotel room, it is very sparse and uncluttered and I feel a great, mental “relief” in the spartan purity of such an environment.

I will let you know tomorrow night what this does for me, even though I gave myself a deadline of finishing this project by Sunday, I want to do it as quickly as possible and keep on the track of my evolution and advancement…maybe I’ll even reward myself tomorrow if I get done early enough. I haven’t sat down with a good book since the beginning two weeks of this course…

Signing off and Good Night all.

Review of “The Peaceful Warrior”

The Peaceful Warrior

A fellow networker and I are going to review the movie “The Peaceful Warrior” later this morning. Have you seen this inspiring movie? How has it changed your life?

After watching “The Peaceful Warrior”, I read all the comments about it on a discussion board set up for my Sensei Ron Thomas “Black Belt in Excellence” course and am a little bewildered that I can have as selfish a reaction as I did to it.

Yes, I get and agree with all the comments everyone had about it…moving, inspiring and powerful. Without a doubt it is. But none of that evoked as powerful an emotion out of me as an hour into the film when the main charcter sat in the car crying, saying he didn’t know what to do. All of the sudden my chest tightened up and I started crying myself. I guess I must have been at that point in my life as well when I saw the movie.

If everything has a purpose in this Universe, it must be why I got so upset – at the time I had not found or recognized that purpose yet. I knew that going into Ron’s BBE course. That this film could bring that out so powerfully in me is a testament to its value to humanity.

I have since acknowledged my purpose, but could not have had the courage to either acknowledge or puruse it without the inspiration this movie gave me.

Quattro University – Day 62 – Green Belt Graduate & The Rubber Band

Yesterday was the last call in the Black Belt in Excellence Sensei Ron Thomas course. We have offically been promoted to “Green Belt” rank, which is halfway between a White Belt and Black Belt. It wasn’t without pain we made the journey…many days I cried, felt weird, sometimes empty – like I was waiting for something else to replace the pain, anger and frustration I have lived with for 40 years. This last call someone else mirrored this sentiment, saying he was “up and down” with how he felt, and Ron said that is exactly what we were supposed to be feeling.

Many times, in fact, I was making such strides in the course I would already be behaving in a new way before Sensei Ron even pointed out we might be feeling such things at that point in the learning. This to me was a very good sign and kept me encouraged.

It is strange to no longer be plagued by nightmares, flashes of anger at other drivers, myself for the littlest mistake I make, and to not consistently, subconsciously punishment and sabotage myself in attempts to get my conscious mind’s attention. It’s strange, but good.

During one week’s assignments, I took a portion of the day out to “treat and pamper myself”. I made a promise to myself I would sit and bead one afternoon and not go near the computer. I can’t tell you how many times before I had made the promise and not kept it. This time I kept it and the results were quite profound. Now I spend more time beading (one of my goals) and I no longer get frustrated that I have to spend time at the computer instead of in my design studio…I know I will get back to beading (because I DO now), and that is enough for me. Being at peace with myself, understanding my inner needs, empathizing with them and taking time out for myself have had an amazing effect on my life – it’s given me BACK my life.

Namaste.

Quattro University – Day 56 – Down on the Farm in FarmVille

After a hard day of working on jewelry and websites, I like to get to work on my farm. Sound crazy? Not when it doesn’t require any actual, physical work. That’s what FarmVille is all about.

It is a virtual farm game that is a lot of fun. You can plow, plant, buy decorations, houses, expand your domain, etc. This really appeals to me because I can’t stand those shoot-em-up and kill them games. The violence really bothers me. This is a perfect solution.

Quattro University – Day 53 – The Zone of Discomfort

(I did this exercise for my Sensei Ron Thomas Black Belt in Excellence Course. The idea is to get out of your comfort zone and done something uncomfortable.)
I went to one of my favorite restaurants and went to the salad bar and picked up bits of stuff I hate or have never wanted to try – broccoli and beets. I sat down and stared at them like it was me or them and we were each on opposite sides of a battlefield. I didn’t want to do this, have been dreading it since I decided it would be my personal challenge to do something “uncomfortable”. My dad was the pickiest eater on the planet…the only vegetable or fruit I ever saw him eat in the 14 years he was alive and with us, was peas. Since I respected him more than my mother, I must have picked up the belief from that observation that it was okay to be that way about food.

It was actually easy for me to lean on my attributes to get me to open my mouth and try these two offenders on my plate. Since my list comprises Strength, Directness, Patience, Creativity and Humor, I ran through my mind the following thoughts:

1. I will rely on my strength to go ahead and do this, be direct and to the task and just put the fork in my mouth without over-thinking it.

2. I will be patient with my loathing of eating things I have been avoiding all my life, because it HAS been something I have been avoiding all my life and bad habits and fears are hard to break and sometimes take time and yes, there is that “patience” word again.

3. My creativity saw the humor in how silly the whole drama over this food thing sounded to me, but I wasn’t laughing at myself for my loathing, I was laughing with myself.

Final judgment on beets and broccoli – they didn’t kill me, they don’t taste horrible. I’m not crazy about them, but I would eat them if they would help me tone up and get healthy. And my world didn’t come to an end, I didn’t traumatize myself and I WON THE BATTLE AGAINST MY LOATHING AND LIMITATIONS, WHOOOO HOOOO!

Quattro University – Day 52 – Back to Beadwork

When the lines of communication are opened up with your soul, when you actually stop to listen to what it wants to do, you would be surprised at how non-career oriented it is. I have known for a couple of years now that the jewelry and cell phone purses I was doing didn’t make me enough money to hold up my end of the financial responsibility in our house, so, reluctantly, I got into other careers that would bring in more income. Now beads are calling me again.

I have tried to reason with that part of me, telling it I am not making enough to continue it as a sole source of income. And while it is the truth, when you heart wants you to do something you were born to do, sometimes you can evolve yourself and become good enough that one day it makes more than you think it can.

I am going to give it another try, but this time be smarter business-wise about it. Whether it makes enough to replace what I am currently doing in my other ventures, my soul doesn’t care…it just wants to bead. I won’t give up website design, social networking tutoring or the odd computer troubleshooting/program tutoring job just yet, but I will find a way to balance both and for now at least get beadwork back into my life.

This I swear.