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The Secret of SHE

I just got an enthusiastic email from a client: “I feel as if I have discovered from you a magic secret of life that nobody else on the planet knows about.”

OK, she may be exaggerating…a bit. But in truth, what she learned IS one of the most powerful, and best kept secret among Successful High Earners (SHEs). It’s also the biggest show-stopper for underearners.

The secret– so utterly simple, yet so profoundly difficult—goes like this: “When you commit to a goal, you don’t have to know how you’ll achieve it. You just need to do what comes next.”

I learned this from my interviews with SHEs. To paraphrase a famous quote, they’d set a goal, jump off the cliff, and build wings on the way down. Conversely, Underearners think they must have a full-blown plan all figured out before they’ll even allow themselves to consider taking a leap.

Here’s a typical conversation (from an actual email):The Secret of SHE

Woman: “When you say we ‘don’t have to figure it all out,’ does that mean I don’t have to figure out exactly how I am going to make the money I want to make?”

Me: “Yep. “

Woman: “Hmmm, that goes against my business school training that taught you have to make a business plan, a marketing plan to achieve your revenue goals.”

She’s right. The secret runs counter to society’s teachings. But the most successful high earners taught me otherwise.

The lesson I learned from them: The HOW is NOT important. I repeat, the HOW is NOT important. What matters most is your degree of commitment.

Here’s how the secret works. Commitments are like magnets. They draw opportunities to you, often disguised as coincidences. You turn on the news, step on the bus, bump into a friend, hear the phone ring, and from absolutely nowhere, someone or something shows up that’s just what you need.

(Warning: If synchronicities aren’t forthcoming, revisit you commitment. There’s a direct correlation between fierceness of commitment and frequency of coincidences.)

That’s how the secret works. Once you commit to a goal and get out of your own way, it’s mind boggling what can happen. Try it, and tell me your results.

How Powerful are You?

Not long ago, BusinessWeek ran a cover story on Women and Power. They featured a series of women that ran the gamut of economic status and job titles. It immediately reminded me of an important lesson I learned from successful women:

Money does not give us power

Power comes from the choices we make. That’s a very important distinction. Not all high earners are powerful women.

In my research, successful women fell into two groups. The Successful High Earners and the Hard-driven High Earners.

The Hard-driven ones are  superwomen on steroids, classic workaholics.  They are NOT powerful women. In fact, they have more in common with underearners than their higher paid peers. They live in deprivation…not necessarily money, but time, joy, freedom, and control of their life. They feel trapped, often by the money itself.

You know what makes Successful High Earners so powerful? Conscious choices based on self awareness. Most of these women actually take time to for self reflection, to figure out what was really important to them.  Their decisions are based, not on fear, but on their priorities, their most cherished values.

One of the most poignant examples was a woman who went to a workshop where she was asked this question: If you were on your deathbed, looking back at your life, what would make you feel happiest and satisfied with how you lived?  From that came a list of her top 5 priorities. Soon after, she was asked to be on the board of a business start-up in China. The meetings would be all expense paid weekends in SF. There was a time she would’ve jumped at the chance, but, she realized, Chinese business wasn’t one of her priorities.

“It would’ve been fun,” she told me. “I would’ve met interesting people, but it would’ve taken me away from my partner, the book I was writing, all those things that are really important.”

Spoken by a truly powerful woman. How about you? If you were on your deathbed, looking back at your life, what would make you feel happiest and satisfied with how you lived? When was the last time you identified your top priorities, your deepest values? More importantly, are you living them now?

Meet Barbara Huson

When a devastating financial crisis rocked her world, Barbara Huson knew she had to get smart about money… and she did. Now, she wants to empower every women to take charge of their money and take charge of their lives! She’s doing just that with her best-selling books, life changing retreats and private financial coaching.

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