How's your anxiety?

Anxiety hits all of us at some point.  

Sometimes it’s hot, heavy and never-ending. 

Sometimes it rushes in, out of nowhere, and grabs us by the throat.

It drives us into fear. Imagining terrible outcomes.

It’s always reminding us of something awful in the past or warning us about something awful in the future.

It masquerades as “helpful.”

As if it’s going to make you extra smart or extra resourceful in order to prevent or circumvent a terrible outcome it is imagining or remembering.

Think about it though.

Is it really helpful?

Does it really help you find your most creative, best possible outcome? Does it bring you to the best version of yourself?  

No.

Our best ideas, our best problem-solving skills come out of a place of peace and love. That’s why we ask friends and family for help when we’re struggling. We know they will think of something we won’t. Because they aren’t in anxiety about the situation.

Would you like to turn down the volume on your anxiety and turn up the volume on peace and love?

Then join me for From Darkness to Light. It’s a four-week, small group, coaching program. I’m only allowing 10 people in the group. It’s for men and women. We’re going to face anxiety head-on with tools and life-hacks that will turn down that volume. You’ll move you towards the peace and love that moves you into better decisions, less stress and into a better version of yourself.

I’ve priced it at a super reasonable $99. Get all the deets here and register. It won’t be a mistake, I promise. Your anxiety might not like it, but isn’t that the point??? <3 <3

Grab a Cocktail and Let's Get REAL Together!

I love to eat and drink with people.

There’s something about gathering around a good drink and some great food that allows for a certain intimacy and openness that isn’t always easy to find.

That’s why I always have my favorite hangouts in any city I visit often or live in.

Because I’m currently living a “location independent” lifestyle, I decided to create such a space myself!

In a perfect world, I’d make your drink for you, even fix some great appetizers or dinner, but alas…that also creates a lot of logistic limitations.  

I’m creating Cocktails and Coaching as a virtual answer to my logistic limitations!

While I can’t make your drink, I’ll count on your for that, I can create an open, safe and fun environment where we can hang out, have a few laughs and open up to the things that puzzle us, bother us, that we’re stuck on, pissed off by, surprised by and delighted by!

Nothing is off-limits in Cocktails and Coaching. You bring it. We’ll talk about it. I’ll give coaching tips and tricks, life-hacks and other bits of wisdom. (The more you drink the wiser I get!)

I’m also inviting a cool co-host each week. I’m stoked about that!

Our first Cocktails and Coaching will be on Wednesday, May 15, 5:00 pm Pacific, 8 pm Eastern.

We’ll gather in my private Facebook Group, Live Lavishly: The Art of Sustainable Transformation. If you aren’t a member, use this link to join.

This is an “all guys, all gals” welcome sort of party! The FB Group is now open to men and women. I love coaching men and have always felt it unnatural to exclude them so... welcome guys!

To submit a question or topic you want us to discuss and coach around, just fill out the form on my website at www.BrendaFlorida.com/Cocktails-Coaching

My first co-host is the intuitive, gorgeous and incomparable, Jess Bubbico! Jess has a weekly radio show, Method Meets Magic and she is a genius, intuitive coach. You can find out more about Jess and her free Facebook Challenge here.

Let’s do it! Invite your friends. Submit your questions and topics. Grab your cocktail and join me, every Wednesday at 5 Pacific/8 Eastern in the Facebook Group, for Cocktails and Coaching!

I can't wait to see you at the first gathering of Cocktails and Coaching in the private FB Group, Live Lavishly, on Wednesday, May 13, 5 pm Pacific, 8 pm Eastern! 

Did you dread the start of a new week?

I hope not, but statistically speaking it happens to a lot of folks. 

It can start creeping in on Sunday. The dread of going back to work on Monday. 

The dread of a life that you aren't enjoying, slapping you in the face. 

Anxiety and despair, feeling like there's no way out. No escape. 

It's called a Dark Night of the Soul for a reason. 

Our typical ways of coping aren't working very well. 

We can't find a solution. 

The advice we get from family and friends can range from feeling impossible to downright irritating! 

So, what do we do?  

If you're like me, you don't just give up. 

It's life for fuck-sake! We can't just bail. 

But what do we do? 

How do we consciously navigate a dark night of the soul? 

Where's the life-raft? 

I’m creating a life-raft.

It’s the life-raft I needed. 

So, you can stop drowning in the downward spiral of anxiety and catastrophe driven thoughts.

I’ve been collecting tools and strategies for years.

I’m calling it, “From Darkness to Light.”

It’s a four-week group coaching program, for men and women.. I’m pricing it super-easy, because I know that sometimes, a dark night of the soul hits your bank account and I want you to have the tools and experience the support you’ll get when you join the program.

I want you to go. From Darkness to Light.

Hit reply to this email and let me know if you have any questions or are wondering if it's for you.  No one but me will see the email.

I'm only allowing for 10 people to register, so grab your seat today, right here. 

Grab onto the life-raft. 

From a Dark Night to a Balcony on the Beach?

Today I'm sitting on the balcony of a lovely hotel room overlooking the ocean, in my favorite place, La Jolla, CA. 

I've been very open this week about my own dark night of the soul, several of them actually. 

So, how did I get from a dark night of the soul to this balcony? 

Work. 

Yep. That's not sexy or even terribly intriguing. But, it's true. 

I worked every day to make my internal environment more important than my external circumstances. 

What does that look like? 

It looks like this: I launch a program and get nothing but crickets, I "need" the money to pay bills, nothing else good is happening professionally or financially, and I spend as much time as I need to shift my mindset and how I feel to abundance, instead of the scarcity and fear my circumstances could easily trigger. 

How did I do it? I use a lot of tools. One day one works, the next day it doesn't help at all and I need something else out of my bag of tricks! But between all the tools and the several online communities I get support from...I've gotten through each day. 

Is my struggle over? The gorgeous scene from my balcony is a bit deceiving. This moment, this weekend while I'm here I am totally enjoying all the abundance of it. That's one of my tools. Even when parts of my life are in crisis, I can find another part that isn't, and enjoy the hell out of that! I don't have to let the crisis define me. 

I'll bask in the abundance and glory of this balcony and weekend in my favorite place and know that the only thing that exists, is this present moment. 

And then, there will be a moment when I know what my next step is. For me these days, it's usually one step. I don't know the next 5 steps, just the next one. As Brene Brown says, "courage is the ability to be comfortable with discomfort." She didn't say, "courage is the ability to make discomfort go away. 

That's why I created both, From Darkness into Light and Cocktails and Coaching. Because Cocktails and Coaching is just plain old, good fun. And we all need that. Especially when we need tools to take us From Darkness to Light. They can both exist at the same time. 

Join me for Cocktails and Coaching on Wednesday's at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern in my private Facebook Group. You can join the group here. You can ask a question or tell me about a situation you want help with, here, and I'll address it live. 

If you're in crisis. If you're in anxiety, fear, confusion, self-doubt and spinning in negative self-talk, you need From Darkness to Light. I'm only allowing 10 people in the group to keep things intimate. Get all the details and register here. We start May 21 at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern​, but I'll close registration as soon as it's full. 

If you have any questions, hit reply and let me know. Your email will be private and I'm the only one who will see it. 

When Life Throws Sh*t at you... I'll show you a way out!

I love inspiring stories!

Especially the rags to riches kind.

When my life is in turmoil, when I'm struggling to get up and keep going, I wonder, how did they get through those bad days?

When great people tell their story and include the adversity they've overcome, we're inspired. But they rarely talk about how they got up every day and went to work or took care of the kids, when they were drowning in despair and hopelessness.

I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life. Times when I wasn't sure how to go on. But, I had to keep going. Life keeps moving. So I did too.

Over the course of my life, I've gotten better at how I navigate those times when I'm not sure I can keep going. I do it with less fear. Less anxiety. I've even learned how to cultivate peace and self-love, BECAUSE things were so hard, not despite the difficulty.

Since becoming a life coach I've had several conversations with other coaches about these, dark nights of the soul, and how few coaches, books or programs really address how to navigate a really terrible time. Everyone agreed with me. "Yeah, no one really talks much about it."

I decided to create it. The program that will show you how.

From Darkness to Light is a four-week group coaching program. We'll meet for an hour a week via free video conferencing.

I'm going to teach and coach. The group will support and encourage each other.

Everyone will get down-to-earth tools to get through the day, when the day is shitty.

If you, or someone you know, is experiencing a difficult time, please join us.

I'm only charging $99 because I know that difficult times often hit your finances.

Get all the details below and register for our May group. All sessions are recorded.

You can move From Darkness to Light. I've done it, I'll be your guide.

The Dreaded "Dark Night of the Soul"

A ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ is when you’re drowning in difficult circumstances.

When the things that used to work, when life served you lemons, don’t work.

You can’t figure out how to make lemonade out of this.

Is there something wrong?

It’s easy to drop into all the disempowering questions, like, “what am I doing wrong?” “What’s wrong with me?” “Why does life have to be so hard?”

Equally easy is what I call, compare and despair. That’s when it seems like everyone you encounter is thriving in the area(s) of life you’re being challenged in. Which brings up thoughts like, “How come they can do it/get it and I can’t?” Which usually takes us right back to “What’s wrong with me?”

Every great person I admire has had at least one dark night of the soul. But we hear their stories after they are on the other side. Eckhart Tolle and the two years he lived on a park bench before writing “The Power of Now” and became a wealthy world-famous author and spiritual leader.

Oprah and her years of poverty, abuse and so much more, before becoming a celebrated talk-show host and billionaire.

How did they navigate those years, living on a park bench, in poverty, abused?

And how do I consciously navigate and get through my dark night of the soul?

I don’t want to be a victim. I want to figure out what is here for me in this dark time.   

A dark night of the soul becomes a great part of our story, when we’re on the other side, we have evolved to the next level of our journey.

After a dark night of the soul, something better, bigger, brighter emerges.

That’s why they are “worth it.”

Why I don’t want to numb-out or runaway when one enters my life.

When my dark night of the soul hits, I endeavor to embrace it and ask empowering questions, “what is wanting to emerge in me now?” “What is the next highest expression of myself and who do I need to become in order to live it?”

When you’re swimming in fear, anxiety, despair and all you can imagine are terrible futures; the one where you run out of money, or get a bad diagnosis, lose the relationship, end up a bag lady or live on the street, it’s really hard to keep a vision of the “next-best” version of yourself and your life.

I know. I’ve been there. So,

I’m creating a life-raft.

It’s the life-raft I needed.

So, you can stop drowning in the downward spiral of anxiety and catastrophe driven thoughts.

I’ve been collecting tools and strategies for years.

I’m calling it, “From Darkness to Light.”

It’s a four-week group coaching program, for men and women.. I’m pricing it super-easy, because I know that sometimes, a dark night of the soul hits your bank account and I want you to have the tools and experience the support you’ll get when you join the program.

I want you to go. From Darkness to Light.

Email me and let me know that you’re interested. No one but me will see the email.

I’ll open registration later this week.

I love you and want you to go from darkness to light. It’s possible. You don’t have to do it alone.

The Power Button

You have a power button.

The power button, literally, turns you on.

When you hit the power button, you’re clear. You’re confident. You’re ready for whatever life throws at you!

Do you feel like you lost your power button? 

Or maybe you haven’t used it lately. 

Come on over. I’ve got the keys to the “lost and found.”

We all lose our power buttons from time-to-time. Or maybe I should say, from situation to situation.

There are people and situations that can pull the plug, right out of that power button.

It might be your boss, or in-laws.

It could be a client or your finances.

It might be your health or your kids.

Whatever it is, it always feels like they get the best of you. They win. They have the power.

I’m here to tell you, it isn’t true.

Anytime we feel like someone or something “make us feel” or “we didn’t have a choice.” That’s how we know we’ve lost our power.

I can help you get you power back.

Sound too good to be true?

It’s not.

It’s what I do. All day. Every day. For every client.

Some days is a man or woman needing to decide whether to stay or go from their relationship. And if they go, what do they say and how do they recreate their lives?

Some days it’s working with an entrepreneur that feels like their web designer or virtual assistant is out of control and they don’t know what to do. Or their business is out of control, or frankly, they are out of control when it comes to their business! That happens to every entrepreneur!

Some day’s it’s a mom with her kid going off to college trying to figure out how let him go.

Whatever it is, it’s always about taking your power back. Knowing you can push the power button and get back in charge of your life in a way that is loving and respectful of those around you and doesn’t comprise who you are and your well-being. 

We always find the power button.

Can I help you find yours? Book a free 15-minute call with me and let’s find out. There’s no obligation and I promise; you’ll feel better afterwards. Click here to book yours today.

Hope is not a plan

Hope is not a plan      

Anderson Cooper said it first, during hurricane Katrina, and it still rings true.

Hope is not a plan.

Not a plan for change. 

Not a plan for safety.

Not a plan for your business.

Not a plan for your relationships

Not a plan for your finances.

Not a plan for taking a vacation.

Not a plan for bringing pleasure into your life.

Let’s make a plan.

As a life coach people come to me when they are ready to do something other then “hope” things get better.

They’ve tried ignoring the problem.

They’ve tried “hoping” it will go away or change.

Then, they decide, “I need a plan.”

They reach out to me we roll our sleeves up and we start the plan. From day one, session one, the plan begins.

Are you ready to stop hoping and start planning?

Let’s talk.

Right now, do this one thing. Click here to schedule a free Discovery Call and we’ll figure out your plan. Take the first step towards your plan.

Don’t “hope” things will get better. Make them better.

The $350 Blog

I'm not exaggerating. 

This blog is worth money! 

I've been so driven to making sustainable change in my life. You know what I mean. 

Not the sort of thing that lasts a few days or a week. 

Not the things I muscle my way through temporarily, only to go back to the old way of doing things. 

The things that transform my life. 

Change that lasts. 

As I've figured out how to do it and have coached my clients so they know how to do it, I thought, "this is big." 

Everyone wants to know how to make lasting change. 

We all get frustrated with going back to the same-old thing that didn't work before and isn't working now. 

So, I did two things. 

I created a free e-book with a worksheet called, The Five Secrets to Making Lasting Change.

​​And you're going to be the first to get it!! More on that in a minute. 

I also created a guided audio program, with private coaching included, called, One Big Change. 

​​I offered this program for the first time in January and people loved it! 

So I decided to offer it on a continuous basis. After you register, you get an email with a link to book your first private session and the audios will begin the Monday after you register. Easy peasy. 

You have something you want to change. Something that just isn't working in your life. We all have it. 

Give yourself the free gift of the e-book and worksheet, The Five Secrets to Making Lasting Change and then register for One Big Change. 

Let's get the ball rolling! 

This is what chasing a dream looks like...

Once upon a time… a woman lost her job. She didn’t do anything wrong, in fact her company appreciated her gifts and talents enough to create a new position for her, but it wasn’t what she yearned for.

What she yearned for was to be an entrepreneur, who could work from anywhere, who would live near the ocean and have the financial freedom to travel. She also yearned for romance and a partner who would be her cheerleader, friend and lover.

She dared to take the leap. 

She left the convenient, six-figure job, made her side-hustle her full-time-entrepreneur-hustle, sold most of what she owned, packed up her convertible Mustang and headed West.

Today, she’s working on a balcony overlooking the ocean.

She’s making big plans with her business and attracting new clients.

She’s making new friends.

She’s living the life she yearned for.

Does she have it all? No.

She hasn’t attracted her romantic partner.

The home is a friend’s, not hers.

She hasn’t done much traveling yet.

She’s scared sometimes.  

She doubts herself and the risk she took from time-to-time.

Some sometimes she thinks she’s crazy, as a woman-of-a-certain-age, to risk it all for a business she believes in, the people she serves, the lifestyle she yearns for, romance and financial freedom on top of that!!

She is entirely toooooo much!

And I love her! She’s bold and brave. Flawed and perfect all at the same time.

She’s learning how to heal herself by loving herself, rather than thinking there is something wrong with her that needs fixing. Love. It’s simple and powerful.

And, of course, she is me. You probably guessed that about two sentences into my story.

Now, I want to ask you, is there something you are yearning for?

It may not be a whole-life-make-over like I’ve done. 

Whatever it is. I promise you, it’s waiting for you to come get it.

It’s yearning for you as much as you yearn for it.

I’ve got three spots open right now for new clients if you want a little coaching to help you get there faster and have a guide for your journey.

It’s what I do. It’s who I am.

Click here to book your 15-minute Discovery Call and we’ll talk about what you are yearning for.

The Best Things In Life

It's been an exciting couple of weeks! 

I've added another entrepreneur as a client. Like my other creative entrepreneur clients, she's a powerhouse of talent... and she knows she needs someone to keep her business organized and create a clear path for how to offer her services to her clients in ways that are effective and make her more profitable. 

Yes! Profit! I'm not ashamed to talk about profit and I unashamedly help all my clients make more money! Not just increase sales, but be more profitable. There's a difference. My clients become more profitable. 

Do you know what one of the biggest factors is to profitability? No matter what your business or career is? (Yep. This is for everyone, whether you work for someone else or own their own business)​ It's...

Mindset! 

​Every business client I have will get coaching from me. We can employ master strategies, amazing sales funnels and have an enviable social media presence, and if our mindset is in scarcity, lack, wanting, telling us we aren't good enough, or don't have enough time, we're screwed. 

I've seen mindset ruin the best strategies, the best marketing, the best social media influence. 

You can't escape your mindset, so it's best to accept that and take the action necessary to neutralize the critical and diminishing thoughts we have and replace them with empowering and liberating thoughts. 

Easier said than done, right?

The best things in life usually are. But have no fear. I am here. 

​This is what I do all day, every day. With my business clients, my life coach clients and myself. 

We learn how to become aware of the thoughts that cause resistance, stress and self-deprecation. Then we slay them. If they rear their ugly heads, we slay them again, until they are gone. 

We celebrate the freedom we are liberated to with each victory, large or small! 

In short, we Think Our Way to Success. 

I created a cool video program, Think Your Way to Success, so that you, and everyone who wants to liberate themselves from their stressful, deprecating thoughts, has a system for doing it. You can "do it yourself" with the program or you can get the program and then book a one-on-one private coaching session with me so we can work on your thoughts. I love a good DIY solution, but let's face it, we all need a little help. You'll go so much deeper with the Think Your Way to Success process if you have a private session and have me coach you through the steps. 

Just say No...

​To your stressful, self-deprecating thoughts and Think Your Way to Success! Check it out and get it delivered to your inbox in minutes by clicking here. 

To add coaching go to my scheduler and book your first session, by clicking here. I'll send you an invoice. Right now, when you buy Think Your Way to Success you can get one session for $150. 

Let's do it! 

OK. Enough with the cliches. This program works. Treat yourself. You've earned your liberation! 

Love Yourself Into Life

I had a client recently who shared a self-destructive habit with me that she was ready to let go of. She had worked on it before with other trained professionals, without much affect. She wanted to see if I could help her.

We all have self-destructive habits. We may shop too much, drink too much, hurt ourselves physically, hook-up with abusive men (o women,) deny ourselves what we need and most of us shame ourselves with brutal self-criticism.

Whichever your current form of self-abuse is, I encourage you to work with it as I coached my client to. But, know before you start, this is a tad radical.

I want you to love yourself into life.

I hear you. There’s a cynical voice in your head right now that is saying, “that won’t work!.”

You think you need discipline or “fixing.”

Let’s face it, we often feel like we’re “broken” or “not good enough.” The obvious answer is to whip ourselves into shape!

I bet you’ve tried that. My clients try it.

It doesn’t work.

It isn’t sustainable.

We can’t discipline or beat ourselves into our next break-through.

Your next break-through, the one that changes you forever, will come from love.

A deep sense of how lovable and worthy you are. Period. No matter what.

Not loving yourself because you successfully complete certain tasks, or hit your ideal weight or stop a destructive behavior.

Loving yourself because you are. You are. You are a unique spark of the Divine.

 Created to spread your special magic into the world.

My client got her big break-through.

Are you ready for yours?

Email me and let me know what you’re ready to break-through in your life. We can get to work on loving you back to life this week!

Have you scared yourself today?

They say we should do something every day that scares us.

I’ve definitely been scaring myself a lot lately!

A move across country.

A new business.

A shift in my services in that new business.

Putting it all on the line, betting on my own success.

I can definitely say it’s worth it. Scaring yourself can create an avalanche of amazing experiences!

My word for 2019 is “Expand.”

It has turned out to be a very appropriate word!

When you scare yourself a lot, you expand a lot – or shrink back – not an option that interests me.

So, in a nutshell, that’s what I do with my clients. Whether they are business owners, sales people or individuals looking to have a break-through in their life, I facilitate expansion. Personal expansion and business expansion.

Is it work? Sure.

Are there rewards? Massive ones. For my clients and for me.

Are you ready to reap the rewards of expansion?

I’d love to help you do it. Let’s chat and see if we’re a good fit. You can book a 15 minute Discovery call here and we’ll figure it out.

Transforming into the new normal

Have you ever made such a dramatic change in your life that you created a new normal?

Maybe the transformation was thrust upon you from a life event: a move, divorce, marriage, started a family, sent your last kid to college, experienced a career, business or financial loss or breakthrough?

 Transformation means, “a thorough or dramatic change.”

 You may have noticed I’ve been pretty quiet since the end of 2018.

 I left Pennsylvania on December 27th and drove to Los Angeles. I arrived on New Year’s Eve. It was a dream come true (an intention actually from earlier in the year) to ring in 2019 in Southern California.

It was the first step in my move across the country that was full of trust in the unknown. I didn’t have a place to live (I still don’t), my business was very new (it still is) and I was struggling with my services, offerings and brand (I’m not anymore.) Something felt slightly “off,” and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I love coaching. I love liberating people to their wisdom and brilliance. So, why did things feel like such an uphill battle?

Not being independently wealthy, a big move and a new business, mixed with some brand uncertainty, also meant there were some financial challenges.

And yet… there was so much joy. So much certainty. Certainty that all this uncertainty and change that I was ushering into my life was intentional and purposeful.

I hung on and took the ride.

I didn’t talk about it on Facebook and I didn’t email you several times a week, like I have in the past, to give you the blow by blow.

In truth, I wasn’t sure what to say. So, I stayed quiet. I turned inward. I waited for my inner wisdom to lead the way.

That’s exactly what I tell my clients to do. Because I’m a big believer in, “it isn’t about the challenge, it’s about who you’re becoming.”

I kept becoming. I kept becoming a new version of myself.

“A thorough or dramatic change.”  Transformation. I am experiencing deep transformation.

 Some of it’s ugly. Some of it’s gorgeous! Sometimes I’m singing. Sometimes I’m crying.

Can you relate?

Are you in the midst of transformation?

Are you inviting transformation, as I did?

Or is life thrusting a transformation on you?

No matter what shape or size it comes in, I’m here for you. I am 100% clear that my gift is facilitating transformation. In my life. In my client’s lives. In my business. In my client’s businesses.

I am now 100% clear.

I am a transformation coach. I even made some changes to my website to better reflect my services, including biz consulting and operational support for entrepreneurs, and my commitment to sustainable transformation. Check it out, www.BrendaFlorida.com

I work with individuals and business owners who want transformation. They aren’t kicking and screaming against it. They are ready to embrace it. Ready to become the next version of themselves. To create a new normal in their lives, careers, relationships, business and how they contribute to the world.

 Do they get scared? Sure. Do they need help? Sure. Are they willing to invest in their transformation in order to experience the joy of living the next highest expression of themselves? You bet your life they are.

 Is transformation knocking on your door? Will you answer it?

Book a 15-Minute Discover Call here and we’ll chat about it.

There’s no better investment than the investment in your own transformation.

How to navigate any life transition. Really.

If you're in the middle of a transition, this episode is for you!

Whether you're changing jobs, starting a business, have an empty nest, moving to a new city or starting/ending a relationship, transition is a challenge.

Today I'll share with you my top three tips for navigating a transition, because, after two divorces, sending four kids to college, moving 14+ times in my adult life, changing jobs, careers and starting businesses, I am the Queen of Transitions!

Check out the program I mention, Think Your Way to Success. It will give you badass tools for taking the sting out of your stressful thoughts! To explore working with me one-on-one, so you get the support you need for your transition, email me and we’ll set up a time to chat. You deserve it!

What's the deal with the Law of Attraction? I'm not getting what I want!

If you've ever felt like that, I get it!

I felt it too, which is why in this episode I recently take a deep dive into the art of manifesting.

I’ve been working on several significant manifestations recently and I’ve learned a few things about why it works sometimes, and doesn’t seem to work other times.

Let me know what you're wanting to manifest and if you can relate to what I struggled with. Shoot me an email at brenda@brendaflorida.com and tell me about it!