First Word

Maintain your integrity even when it seems tough . As my boyfriend says, "Keep it clean. Keep it real." Even when it might require sucking it up, error on the side of right and watch the positive come your way. Meditate daily and clear your mind before you start the day . Begin with the thought it will be great. Then if it's not so great at least you felt great for a few minutes or hours. There is no difference between the high road and the road to justice . Staying on higher ground means that the rest will work itself out. Anger is designed to keep you from being passive . Certain situations require some anger be wrought on the source. Sometimes people deserve a little heat be put to their actions.  Forgiveness is not for the other person -- forgiveness is for you . Harboring anger and resentment only hurts you. Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting . Some things we can forgive but should not be forgotten. Your takeaway should the lessons learned ... so for...

You have to humor me today. I am prone to depression (I will admit it because it takes it out of secrecy and makes it mainstream). When I'm depressed I sleep a lot ... A LOT. I don't want to take drugs for it. The last time I did it scrambled my brain like eggs. I need my brains. So, I do natural things, and I try to recognize what's going on and stop myself from falling into the "rabbit hole". I equate the rabbit hole as a very unfriendly place and really hard to crawl back out. Sometimes though I let myself fully celebrate the rabbit hole with the Queen of Hearts. We often talk about how fun it would be to take some people's heads off and maybe spare the others. It's all talk really. You know over a deck of cards. When I let myself celebrate my dark humor I just give myself a day or so. This self-inflicted pity-party involves howling at the moon, too. It feels great. Try a little howling -- best home remedy around. The depression tends to be triggere...

Today's blog is personal. Several friends have been going through some hard times. After I had my own front-row seat on the show called "Hard Times" I've learned a thing or two. The worst cliché in the world that no one wants to hear turns out to be the truest truth: Time heals all. No one wants to hear that kind of platitude when they're hurting. What good does that do right when you're feel terrible? Most of us would prefer an instant-fix-it-now pill. Sitting in the puddle of our pain and disappointment as we wait for it to evaporate is a wet proposition. You can't dry until it evaporates. In the meantime you get to soak it all in -- good, bad, painful, real and present. Can't make it dry any sooner than it will dry. Can't escape the feeling -- it still is wet. And while this next piece of advice doesn't make it any better it's simple truth: sit in it, feel it, soak it in, and accept it. Yes, you're going to feel it for sure, and it...

I have learned over the years it's mission critical to "mind" your mindset. Every time I allow fear and anxiety to run my business, it shows up and manifests itself in negative results. Whenever I do small things like meditate and "mind" my mindset to positivity and success, positive results happen. Some people are skeptical about this belief system. They falsely believe that mindset doesn't matter. Business will be what business will be dependent upon the marketplace, supply and demand, and competition. I'm here to tell you the biggest factor that determines success isn't about the market at all. It all has to do with YOU as the business owner. Here's how: Like attracts like . Who is attracted to work with you is based on the Law of Attraction. Positive people attract positive people. Positive people attract more positive, successful people to your business. Positive people spend money without fear, and the net result; it's easier to wor...

We have several great self-help books in the 3L Publishing catalog, and I'm always fortunate in that I get to edit them. Right now I am working on a book titled The Power and Light that is You by Linda Lee, which is a wonderful book that is a guide to self-empowerment. I wish I could tell my story openly and without regret, but I really can't do it for privacy reasons. I don't believe in putting self-limiting beliefs on life. The book teaches us not to limit ourselves -- that we are empowered with our mindset to explore all facets of life. In 2012 when I left my marriage I did so with the intention to find true love. If there is one thing I firmly believe now is that at age 25 vs. 48 I had no idea what I really wanted or needed from a relationship. In 2011 I had met a person who would become very important to me. After I left my marriage I decided to chase the proverbial rainbow even though many, many issues (BIG issues) arose during the pursuit of my aforementioned tru...

I am being tested, and I decided to take the challenge. Mindset and belief in one's self are important. Keep a positive mindset every day. Believe in your own ability to be responsible for your life. Be a beacon of positivity to attract everything you need for your highest good. I have several mantras I use when I meditate to help point my life in a positive direction. I make a lot of money easily and frequently and I am grateful for everything I have. I am attracting everything I need now, and I am grateful for my abundant life. The flow of life brings me everything I need to achieve success. Today I surrender to the Universe and trust it to bring me whatever will serve my highest good. And I wrote these for the blog to share with you. For everything that happens you can see a reaction as either positive or negative. I choose to see it all as positive. My life is opening to serving my highest good. Today I surrender and believe all that is amazing, wonderful and positive...

Have you ever thought about trust? Not just trust in another person, but also trust in yourself. Trusting that a situation will work out the way it is supposed to work. Do you realize that is about releasing the concept of "control" and realizing you are powerless over anything or anyone other than yourself. Trust means going with your gut and knowing that your gut (AKA your heart) will serve you. Your heart/gut has the answers and the "knowingness," and you have to let go and know it will be all right. I am clairvoyant and spiritual. So I have an even larger idea of what my life could look like -- it's one of my gifts. I have a relationship in my life in which I foresaw the future -- and at the time I didn't understand a few things about that vision. I didn't understand how it could be possible. Throughout that journey it continued to seem utterly impossible, too. And then there was an unexpected shift. And the impossible became quite possible, indee...

I don't mind sharing personal experience as long as I think it will help someone else. Gratuitous sharing though isn't on my agenda. If you're going to get personal, a point to it makes it valuable. I have recently realized that I don't have very good self-esteem. I don't hold up very high standards of how I expect to be treated. Time and time again I have found myself in situations where I'm either being taken advantage of because of my generous, good nature or just completely overlooked. We teach other people how to treat us. I never learned to set limits (and I won't get into the reasons why). I have reflected on a few key things in my life, and I'm here to share that anyone (including an accomplished person who has much to feel proud about) can fall into the pit of feeling unworthy. When you fall into that trap you begin to accept the unacceptable. You begin to think, this is all "I" get and all I deserve. Well, I have been slowly making ...

Recent life chats with friends have brought up the roller coaster theme. One of my friends asked me, "Are you ever going to get off the ride, because at some point you might want to do that." Another friend who is less skeptical of roller coaster rides talked about it differently. I liked her reflections on life's roller coaster ride. She said, "Would you rather take the ride with your hands in the air and a smile on your face? Or would you rather scream all the way through it?" Love that question. I told her once about roller coasters, "I used to be afraid of them. And then one day I thought, "Well, hell nobody really ever dies on the ride so go with it." Life is full of ups and downs as I'm sure you've now picked up on the metaphor. I'm exploring my feelings about a long-time relationship I've had where there have been many extraordinary highs and some definite lows. I'll be honest, I've spent most of the ride screa...

When I was younger I wanted security and family. I wanted a good, steady career path. I wanted to find a slow, gradual ascent toward my dreams. Then I hit pesky mid-life. I achieved many, many goals. Yet I found I had many more things to accomplish. In my professional life, I realized I wasn't enjoying the career I wanted. In my personal life, my relationship was lopsided and unsatisfying. Mid-life became not a crisis but a time to make some scary, but important decisions. Was I going to look back at my life with regret? Who wants to regret anything? And why not live the fullest possible life? I never considered myself a risk-taker, but in reflecting on the last several years I realized I am definitely a risk-taker. I started my own company on a shoestring budget, and I have succeeded and stayed in business even during this protracted Great Recession. I also met the man of my dreams. Instead of staying in the status quo and accepting my lopsided and unsatisfying marriage, I decid...

"Sometimes you have to walk into the unknown to find out the known. Risk is scary and frightening, but to settle for something "OK" in lieu of something really, really special but also scary is to live life with limitations and never fully spread your wings! I like the idea, 'A moment of something really special is way better than a lifetime of nothing remarkable.'" I posted that on Facebook yesterday. I want to say something about risk (in this case personal risk). Most people avoid change and risk. I wrote my first book Second Bloom on personal reinvention. Risk is indeed scary. You don't know the outcome. You don't know if you're going to get hurt. Pain sucks! I think we can all agree on that fact. I got asked once, "Why do you run from the pain; what are you afraid of?" My response, "I won't be able to function if I felt it." And yet despite some real hardship here I am functioning -- more than functioning ... succe...

Yours truly with Kirk Donnelly at Wright's Beach. My fiancé and I are making all sorts of plans and dreaming about our future and what we want. I was feeling rather discouraged and sniffed that at my age the fact that I no longer owned a home was depressing. I gave up a lot of different things in the divorce ("things" being the operative word). To gain my freedom, I had to free myself of essentially my material world -- a world I worked equally as hard to build as my ex-husband and yet had to give up. My brilliant, sensitive and caring fiancé slept on my lament and woke up this morning and said I needed to give myself a break. The divorce wasn't even final a year, and it takes time to rebuild. His last thought, "And you have love."  When I left my other life, I went on walk-about and then I sat back and let love find me. Kirk found me. I left my marriage to find love. Not the kind of love where the other person doesn't want to be with you. Not th...

It's Friday so it's time for ... Friday morning musings, which means I'm going to blog about something completely useless almost in the vein of Andy Rooney. But wait! Usually when I "muse" over something you end up reading about something meaningful ... sometimes. I think I'll coin a new phrase, "Life is like a box of Cracker Jacks, you never know what is the toy surprise." Reminds me of Forrest Gump, "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never what you're gonna get." I can hear Tom Hanks' voice as Forest in my head right now. Well, I think life is more like a meandering trail with lots of pretty bushes and flowers on the road side and every now and again, a rattlesnake that if you're either smart you stay away from or you get too curious and get a poisonous bite. Ouch! Here is my recommendation for the best snake-bite kit ever ... E-V-E-R :). Use a Life Coach and in particular, I recommend Bo Bradley, who among her many roles...

Meaningless or important -- you be the judge LOL ... here are the things I learned in 2012. I will either make you laugh, roll your eyes, or agree with me. Here we go: 1. When you move twice expect your stuff to magically disappear with no clear explanation of where it went ... did it get dropped? Did the fairies swoop in and move it to nowhere land? Did the movers steal it? Aw the questions are endless. I am most specifically curious what happened to my favorite leather jacket! It is missed in the cold weather. 2. When you get divorced, expect your ex to annoy you somehow. My annoyance? Taking all of my jackets to the Salvation Army. Yep! I had quite a collection. There are now some poor people with a beautiful INC leather, full-length coat. Oh, I miss it! 3. Dating in your forties is way better than your twenties. The confidence alone makes a whole difference. I had more dates than I knew what to do with. And it was fun ... for a while; but then you know I'm really like a ...

Surprise! It's Uncle Ned and he hates turkey! What ya gonna do when it's food for you! LOL Thanksgiving is always the funny holiday to me. I find the situations that arise very entertaining. I also scratch my head, too. So, here is your post-Thanksgiving amusement. First, have you ever noticed that people will tell you stories about their families -- and there seems to be a running theme that involves some kind of family feud or conflict? A friend of mine was telling me the bitter "Uncle" story, and another friend was telling me how difficult it was to deal with her family. It hit me. No one was talking about gratitude, which is what they should have been focused on. Instead, people were "manning" up to deal with their crazy families. Or someone was telling me how a family member offended someone else. Or someone was offended by a family member. Families are complicated for sure, which is why some people pick their families. I was talking about my best f...

I am staring at a blank blog screen. I keep thinking, "I need to market my business..." I don't want to repeat the same ole thing. What do I say? Anything meaningful? Like why blogging is important, and I should be saying something here that will matter to women-owned business, business in general, and authors. What am I going to say? How about that my life is crazy and I can't tell up from down? Does anyone ever feel that way? You don't know if you're coming or going. I love being single again. I have been dating like crazy -- and that's fun. But at the end of the day, I still like that one stable point ... that one person who gets me. I do have someone like that in my life. He does get me. And here is what I should share with all single people -- and he taught me this ... don't try to control anyone. Let it be -- that is how you go with the flow and the direction of the current will scoop you up and take you where you need to go. And my next lesson, ...

My mantra: I make a lot of money easily and frequently I am grateful for everything I have. Today's blog is an exercise in the power of the mind to stay positive. 3L Publishing has gone through some transitions and changes. My move down south and personal challenges wrought havoc on the company. So now I am in rebuild mode. When faced with challenges, the best mindset is to know you can do it. Use what the time-tested book The Secret teaches. Focus on making money and not on the bills piling up. The more you focus on making money, the more money you will make -- and the reverse happens, too. What you think most about you attract, so pay attention to what you're thinking about. Are you thinking about the bills? Or are you thinking about opportunities and ways to make money? Also, a good friend of mine taught me this about money: Are your bills paid today? Then what are your worried about? Tomorrow hasn't come. Today is today. The bills are paid. It's all good. So kee...

Some days I just don't know what I'm going to say on this blog. I had some very powerful, spiritual feelings today as I was driving back to Folsom. I looked up as the sun was literally rising, and I thought, "I've got the best life, and I'm so blessed to be surrounded by such love." The sunrise is a new day, and today is the first day of the rest of my life. I have had a really rough year with a lot of loss; but you know what I'm still standing and the fact that I can wake up and hit the road to see such a sight! And to feel truly alive again. Life is full of moments, especially in nature, loaded with such beauty. If you're not paying attention, you'll easily miss those moments. So pay attention. Wake up to the sunrise and go to bed to the sunset -- and live your life to the fullest in between. I am full of gratitude and love for this crazy, beautiful life. And I'm grateful to those who have stood by my side these past months and supported me...

I wanted to write about getting through the tough times, and the importance of really feeling your grief and pain to be able to get over it. We live in a society that uses alcohol, drugs and other distractions to avoid the hard feelings -- the ones that can bring you to your knees. I've just come to the end of a long journey that lasted about a year. Each bump in the road wasn't a small bounce -- it was the kind of life stress that did, in fact, bring me to my knees several times. The entire time and through the endless tears, I just wanted it to stop. Yet I've known people who used aforementioned distractions and 10 years later continue to suffer their own demons. While each crying jag was enormously difficult, and I felt just terrible, I didn't avoid it. On the advice of my amazing life coach and some of friends who are therapists, I went with the proverbial flow. I let the tears just pour down my face and rain all over the place. I physically suffered the ravages of ...

Study the base look into the light see the formation just prepare for flight Hire the foreman give him the sight trust your instincts and follow the right Pour the foundation see it all wet know you patience don't get in the fret Watch it gel see it all dry don't get in a hurry just be shy Now is the sunrise the time and place prepare for the walk and get in the pace Now is the time Now is the space begin the journey but don't make it a race Enjoy each moment revel in the emotion move through and forward and dive into the deep, blue ocean ~ Michelle Gamble-Risley