Tag Archives: business

37 Questions Worth Asking

By Amira Alvarez It’s nearing the end of the year.In the quiet time between Christmas and New Year’s, I like to assess what’s transpired over the last year and set myself up for an amazing coming year.Do you have a similar end of the year practice?If not, or even if you do, here…
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Coaching, Mindset, Unstoppable, , , ,

It’s nearing the end of the year.

In the quiet time between Christmas and New Year’s, I like to assess what’s transpired over the last year and set myself up for an amazing coming year.

Do you have a similar end of the year practice?

If not, or even if you do, here are some questions I ask myself. Feel free to use them and let them inspire your own end of year assessment.

  1. What went well? What were my big wins and successes?
  2. What felt divine and exquisite?
  3. What did I love the most about this past year?
  4. What am I most proud of?
  5. What is the lesson in that?
  6. What am I the least proud of?
  7. What was the lesson learned in that?
  8. Did this past year live up to my expectations? Why and why not?
  9. What led to my biggest successes?
  10. Will I do those same things again? If so, how and towards what end?
  11. What led to my biggest (if any) disappointments?
  12. How would I change my approach given another opportunity?
  13. Who in my life did I love spending time with?
  14. Have I expressed that to them?
  15. How can I create more opportunities to be with them?
  16. Who in my life did I like spending time with the least?
  17. How can I eliminate or improve these interactions?
  18. What was missing in my life?
  19. What do I want more of?
  20. Where am I limiting myself?
  21. Where am I setting myself up for failure?
  22. What patterns of behavior are no longer sustainable and I want to let go of?
  23. What new habits do I want to create or build upon? (Next week I’ll share 10 habits I’m working on creating.)
  24. How do I want to invest in myself?
  25. How do I want to invest in others?
  26. How do I want to spend my time?
  27. What projects are the most important to me?
  28. What am I most grateful for from last year?
  29. What am I most grateful for for next year? (Yes, you can be grateful in advance.)
  30. What elements of creation do I need to bring into my life more?
  31. What is the feeling I’m searching for in my life?
  32. If there was one thing that would make next year a success, what would it be? (Truth: I can never pick just one but trying to is a really interesting exercise.)
  33. What is my word of the year?
  34. Am I excited about next year? Why? What am I looking forward to?
  35. My highest and best life looks like this…
  36. Am I committed to living my highest and best life?
  37. Who do I need to be in this coming year to create all that I want in my life?

This last question is the most important. If you can dial this in, and then hold yourself to that level of beingness, everything else unfolds beautifully.

Now, living this new level of beingness? Well, that takes attention and a deep commitment to your next level life.

That takes not letting yourself off the hook but also having fun with it.

That takes wanting what you want more than the ease of slipping back into your habitual way of being.

That takes understanding the process and falling in love with it.

Totally possible.

You’ve created so much already. Now let’s put that amazing focus onto this.

———

Want to experience more as an Unstoppable Woman?

Be sure to check out the Unstoppable Woman podcast. If you’re ready to step into an exquisite life, schedule a call to discuss how we can help you step into your next level of growth.  

Want to let go of those 10 pounds? (Yes, I’m talking about weight and the power of expectation.)

By Amira Alvarez Creating what you want in both your personal and professional life requires being clear on what you desire and having an unwavering expectation that it will happen.You can’t want the new initiative to work… and think the person running the project is going to drop the ball.You can’t want to…
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Coaching, Inspiration, Mindset, Unstoppable, , ,

Creating what you want in both your personal and professional life requires being clear on what you desire and having an unwavering expectation that it will happen.

You can’t want the new initiative to work… and think the person running the project is going to drop the ball.

You can’t want to meet your quarterly numbers… and think you don’t have the marketing to support it.

You can’t want to hire that killer employee… and think that good people are hard to find. 

These are all examples of expectations that are in opposition to what you actually want, which I imagine on more generally is ease and flow in quickly creating what you desire. 

Right now I’ve caught myself doing this with my weight. Calling myself out. :) 

I’d love to let go of those 10-15 pounds that have creeped on in the last few months.

It’s not that I don’t think it can happen. Of course it can. 

It’s that I have the expectation… 

That it’s going to be hard.

That I have to struggle.

That I will have to deny myself.

And this I know doesn’t work. You get what you expect, not what you say that you want.

So in this case, I’m simply going to get the hard, the struggle, and the denial, not the svelte body. No bueno!

I’ve had to work through contradictory expectations in so many areas of my life and business. Here’s a sampling of places where in the past I’ve wanted something yet thought it was going to be hard to make it happen: 

Taking Fridays off.
Doing marketing in an aligned way. (No bro marketing!)
Charging higher fees while working fewer hours.
Being professional and taken seriously, while still feeling sexy.
Making money without dysregulating my nervous system.
Running a business while having a lit up, hot relationship.
Finding ambitious, entrepreneurial minded friends.

I’m happy to say that I’ve created all that I’ve desired in all of these and more.

But in each case, I initially thought it was going to be hard and I had to overcome my own contradictory expectations before I was able to manifest the outcome I wanted with ease.

This requires aligning our desires and expectations and is part of the Exquisite Life toolkit I mentioned last week. 

So how do we better align our desires and expectations? 

  • Get really honest with yourself. Where are you actually expecting something you don’t want? Your spoken or unspoken fears, doubts, worries, and complaints related to a topic will show you exactly what your expectations are.
  • Bring moment to moment awareness to when you are expecting in opposition to your desires. This can’t be an afterthought, you must notice yourself in the act.  
  • In that moment, shift the conversation you’re having in your head or out loud to what you desire. Find an outcome that you can actually believe.

Because the truth is… it’s easy to let go of weight, just like it was easy to take Fridays off.

———

Want to experience more as an Unstoppable Woman?

Be sure to check out the Unstoppable Woman podcast. If you’re ready to grow a life and business you love, schedule a call to discuss how we can help you step into your next level of growth.  

From laser-focus to search light and back

By Amira Alvarez If energy flows where attention goes…And the more energy you put towards something the more power there is behind it and thus the faster you will create it…It would make sense then that we’d want to put our attention on what we want to create in our lives.But if you’re…
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Coaching, Mindset, Unstoppable, , , ,

If energy flows where attention goes…

And the more energy you put towards something the more power there is behind it and thus the faster you will create it…

It would make sense then that we’d want to put our attention on what we want to create in our lives.

But if you’re anything like me, you have A LOT of things you want to create in your life. You’re always going for more, expanding, and challenging yourself.

It’s a buffet of desires.

So, do you focus on one thing at a time or do you focus on all the things?

Like a laser beam, if you concentrate your focus, your power intensifies.

It would appear then that laser-like focus is the answer. I would hazard that this is what most (all?) of us did to build our companies and careers.

Focus, focus, focus to almost the exclusion of everything else.

We called it our passion. (Which it was.)
We called it discipline. (Which we built.)
We called it a short-term trade off. (Which it may have been.)

And then when we got to “success” and we found that we didn’t know another way.

We had conditioned ourselves to focus predominantly on this one aspect of our life in the name of financial success and mastering the game of business. 

Nothing wrong with that until we ask ourselves, what about the other aspects of our lives? This is where we start searching and asking ourselves…

What happens after “the success”?

What do we focus on now?

And do we even go about it with the same type of laser-like focus?

The answer is yes and no. 

Giving your energy to what you want matters. 

Giving your energy with a high level of intensity matters.

But giving it WHILE GIVING UP on your buffet of other desires does not work.

Your search light beam has already shown you that you have a plethora of desires. 

And at some point, single focus is a game of diminishing returns. It becomes pushing hard and not getting anywhere. The traction (or the fun) is not there like it used to be.

This is the time to broaden your skills and learn new tools.

I’m going to call this the toolkit for an exquisite life. 

Master these and you master the creation of whatever you want.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more about these tools that allow you (the already successful, driven, ambitious women) to use your focus in a different way… 

A way that allows you to create exactly what you desire so much more easily.

It will feel like magic but it’s not.  ;-)

———

Want to experience more as an Unstoppable Woman?

Be sure to check out the Unstoppable Woman podcast. If you’re ready to grow a life and business you love, schedule a call to discuss how we can help you step into your next level of growth.  

Success is Just the Beginning: A Real Conversation About Purpose

By Amira Alvarez Tailored for impact: Heads up! This is meant for a very specific individual – the brilliant entrepreneur or C-suite-savvy woman. If that's you, keep reading.  You know how to build a business. You’ve done it. Perhaps even multiple times. That’s not where the challenge lies. The challenge lies when you…
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Coaching, Mindset, Unstoppable, , ,

Tailored for impact:

Heads up! This is meant for a very specific individual – the brilliant entrepreneur or C-suite-savvy woman. If that’s you, keep reading. 

You know how to build a business. You’ve done it.

Perhaps even multiple times.

That’s not where the challenge lies.

The challenge lies when you look beyond what you’ve accomplished and ask yourself what’s next? 

Do I start another business? Step into another role in another company?
Does that even light me up? What do I really want to do?

You more or less have the time and the money to do what you want.

And you’re certainly not short of ideas. 

You keep cycling through what you could do with your life and you’re frustrated by why it’s not clear.

You land on an idea, one that would serve the world and you could probably do that very successfully, BUT…

Something’s not lighting you up about any of it… and you can’t put your finger on it. 

Is it worth the effort? Can I rally my energy for that? Do I even want to?

And here’s the thing…

You don’t really want to work like that any more. You don’t want to keep chasing the goal, being driven by urgency, stress, and not letting others down. 

You know that intuitively.

And yet… you ask… how do I motivate myself if not by the urgency created by setting another big ass goal?

Well, you can’t do it within the same paradigm.
It’s by approaching it in a totally different way.

It starts with…

Getting at the truth of who you are.
Understanding what you truly want. All of it.
Recognizing your purpose.
Figuring out what to do with that.
Unraveling the reasons why it can’t work, so that it does work.
Then walking the uncharted path and having a lived experience of a life that actually lights you up.

If this appeals to you, I’m taking two clients right now on this journey. Is one of them you?

This is for those who want to create their most exquisite life…
Who want to make good on the unconscious promises of how their life would be that they made to themselves in childhood…
Who do not wish to tolerate a compromised life any longer…
Who are willing to be present to what needs to unfold and do the deep work…

To see if this work is right for you, and if you and I are a good fit to work together, email us that you’re interested.

My team will have a 15 minute alignment conversation with you. If we think it’s a good fit, they’ll set up a time for you and I to have an in-depth conversation.

May your spirit guide you to what’s right for you.

Order, Beauty, and Success: Lessons from David Beckham

By Amira Alvarez Last night I wrapped up the Netflix documentary on David Beckham. It was soooo good!  I love learning about successful people’s paths and although there’s so much to muse about in this documentary, I want to focus on Beckham’s seeming obsession with order in his environment… from the meticulous way…
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Coaching, Mindset, Unstoppable, , , , , ,

Last night I wrapped up the Netflix documentary on David Beckham. It was soooo good! 

I love learning about successful people’s paths and although there’s so much to muse about in this documentary, I want to focus on Beckham’s seeming obsession with order in his environment… from the meticulous way he keeps his kitchen to the order of his clothes in his closet.

One might say it’s slightly OCD or that he has too much time on his hands, but I imagine that this level of order creates so much visual beauty that it helps quiet his mind. 

I know that seeing how he folded, stacked, and arranged his t-shirts made my heart smile and calmed my nervous system right down. Ahhhhh…

As someone who loves a clean and ordered house… who organizes her closet by both type of clothing and color… who likes her shoes all facing the same way… you get the idea…it’s peaceful and easy on my eyes… I totally relate.   

Order creates so much beauty and beauty is a type of order.

But watching someone err on the side of compulsion made me muse…

Is there such a thing as too much order? 

And further… I wonder what the closets of the über successful are like???

I can’t imagine anyone who is truly on the top of their game having a disordered environment.

So does order create success or are the successful naturally ordered? 

Clearly, an OCD compulsion for order alone doesn’t create success. But a disordered environment and disordered thinking certainly creates friction that gets in the way of success in both life and business.

So what’s the lesson from Beckham’s meticulousness?

No, it’s not to be OCD about everything in life. 

The lesson is to find the order that creates beauty and flow in your life and build on that. Not so much that it constrains your flow but enough to give structure to it.

Order in your relationships, management, parenting, time, food, health, love… and yes, your closet. ;-) 

Create that order and watch your peace, ease, and success increase.

Want to experience more as an Unstoppable Woman?

Be sure to check out the Unstoppable Women podcast. If you’re ready to grow a life and business you love, schedule a call to discuss how we can help you step into your next level of growth.  

The cocktail of business and emotions

By Amira Alvarez Sometimes our feelings are overwhelming. They come on strong and knock you to your knees. From clients to friends, this week I saw such bright, formidable women in tears. These are women running exceptional businesses–they are strong, ambitious, juggling all the things. And yet when the feelings come, they can’t…
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Business, Coaching, Inspiration, Mindset, Unstoppable, , , ,

Sometimes our feelings are overwhelming. They come on strong and knock you to your knees.

From clients to friends, this week I saw such bright, formidable women in tears.

These are women running exceptional businesses–they are strong, ambitious, juggling all the things.

And yet when the feelings come, they can’t be suppressed… even if that would be much more convenient.

Sure, we can set them aside or compartmentalize for a period.

I know I have. 

And yet if you don’t attend to them, that’s when all hell breaks loose. 

Rash decisions, meltdowns, losing your temper.

Or the inability to make decisions, a ‘what’s the point’ attitude, or full-blown depression.

It can get ugly. It can be a spiral of negativity.

Because your feelings will have their say, one way or another. 

They will absolutely do whatever is necessary to get your attention.

Because they need your attention. There is something important that they have for you.

Think about it… why would we have feelings if they didn’t serve an important purpose?

Nothing is random. We don’t live in a random universe. 

So despite them coming up at inconvenient times, they are not the enemy.

So how do you deal with your feelings when you’re running a major business and it’s just not the time for a major meltdown?

That’s a really good question. Today I’d like to share ONE of the things I do. 

It’s a process that once you get good at, takes all of 2 minutes. Sometimes it’s even shorter than that.

I taught it to the women in the Spirit of Wealth this past week, taking them through an in real time, actual lived experience of using this. 

I love these moments because theoretical book-learning only takes us so far. We actually learn on the field of play. That’s where it gets deeply embedded and rewired for us.

Here’s a brief recap of what I shared with them…

If you’re all good right now, listen anyway. You’ll have it for when you need it.

If there’s a feeling that’s pulling at you, needing attention, please use this process now. Maybe a few times. 

It’s a practice that starts now.