Growing Personal Financial Wealth-Mindfully

What you don’t notice from the photo is that I walk with a cane. I have a below the knee amputation on my left leg and a half paralyzed right leg. My right hip and buttock is just bone with a thin skin over it. Above my right hip is a bulge of intestines from a hernia that I have developed. All this is from having a survived over 26 surgeries from a major car accident in 2004. (Note how well I hide all that-a lot of padding, folks!)

What’s this got to do with the Lean Saloon? Johnny is my personal trainer. Ok, you are already convinced that he is good but what you don’t know is I came to the Lean Saloon almost 3 years ago hardly able to walk up the driveway to the front door of my home; a consequence of too much sitting in a wheelchair.

Primal lean, does it work? Well, I always did eat fresh foods but Johnny helped me take it to the next level- more real food, skipping the processed stuff –especially sugar addiction, lowering my wine intake (which is the hardest to do). But it’s refreshing to have the confidence to ride a bike, walk, and just to realize the most of my potential (considering the situation, Ha! Ha!). The point is being healthy is not just about looking good but feeling good. The energy that one gets from eating right and exercising is an important part of self-care that is the foundation for success in everything we do. I know, because I am a Wealth Coach and I find I spend a lot of time with people on self care. The ability to focus and have the energy to connect with the abundance around you is the foundation of wealth. Once that is taken care of then it is much easier to focus on wealth building.

I may look small, weak, and disabled, but don’t let that fool you. I am healthy, wealthy and wise. Yay!

Almost all of the time, I am amused. Sometimes I am a little afraid. I look a lot younger than my years and so many assume that a young woman driving a car with a handicap placard couldn’t possibly be handicapped. Someone even stopped and watched me get out of the car to make sure that I was indeed, handicapped. Lucky for me I walk with a cane – a sure sign that I pass the disability test. I wonder what other people go through without visible disabilities. Yikes!

But most of all, I am touched by so much passion non-disabled people have for the rights of the handicapped. It is obvious that many have loved ones that have struggled to find a place to park only to be find able bodied people parked in the handicap space.

But I am also touched by how many people assume so much just by the looks of others. It is such a shame that we limit our world by our assumptions. It hurts us, our relationships, and our environment.
Breaking through assumptions, keeps us open to possibilities, opportunities, and valuable relationships.

You think you know? But you don’t know. As my teacher recommends- Practice- just don’t know.… every moment of the day.

I caught myself in my inner perfectionist mode. Like that game that children play where the head pops up and you take a hammer and bang it down but every time I do, more heads pop up and it gets harder and harder to bang all the heads down. My head used to be like that– a major voice that always pointed out the
imperfections, the little scratches here and there in my life that screamed out at me that I screwed up.

My head is not like that anymore. Is the voice gone? No way. Still there. Still pointing out the little scratches, fears, buts, what ifs, etc. But I don’t listen to them. They just exist, and float by.

I put my hand on the table and thought about how it was my first large furniture purchase with my husband. The memory of that purchase was fresh. That thought didn’t float by but got cradled in my heart.

He was a handsome guy who was a friend of a friend- like many that came by my apartment to talk late into the night with others while sharing a joint. We were all LSU New Orleans college kids during the economic recession of the 70s, and a war that everyone hated and rampant racism throughout the City that not just pitted whites and blacks but whites against whites for cause.

There’s a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.

My apartment on Wadsworth was a three bedroom flat I shared with other roommates and drugs, music, food and people would raft in and out at all hours. I worked and went to school and struggled like others with what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had friends that had already graduated with masters degrees and they were washing dishes and waitressing like me. Unlike me, they were saddled with student loans. I refused to get into debt to pay for a piece of paper that didn’t really help me get a job. I wanted out of the 9-5 with lunch and coffee breaks and creepy managers that were on parole and co-workers who were proud of how fast they could wrap a Whopper. I felt deep in my being that wasn’t how I wanted to spend my work life.

Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on.

In Boulder, Colorado I got a taste of making my own way. As a hairdresser I was on commission to the owner. I could make as much money as I wanted but bringing in clients and doing the work was my responsibility. It opened my eyes to the potential that lay before me but also the additional task of marketing myself as a stylist. If I succeeded it was because of me and if I failed, it was because of me.

There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.

I never looked back for a job. I always wanted to be my own boss. I bumbled lots of opportunities because of my lack of skills but eventually I “got it”. Now I love to counsel and help others climb their stairway out of dead end 9-5 jobs. My young coach, Clay, calls it –The Freedom Business. I smile because it is just plain old entrepreneurship. Taking an idea or service and getting excited about it and executing that into something that helps others and makes you bucks –sounds free but it is a lot of work too- just a different kind. I would like to coach him to realize that true freedom is financial independence where you choose not to work at all. He’s not ready to hear that yet. Maybe when he is 40?

And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

I don’t know what happened to my college friend but he was right. This song is and will always be something of a classic tune to be enjoyed throughout the ages very much like the “freedom” business of my young friend and others.