Life is good, why not dance on the metro?

Someone asked me the other day what this last year felt like having turned 40. Hasn't it been amazing? 40 is GREAT!

My answer: Yes, all of the above, I feel like I've dropped into me.

Truthfully, though I've felt this "dropping into me" every year in life, I'd say that the last 4-5 years I've experienced the biggest quantum leap in celebrating this comfort in my own skin. You too?

Which leads me to this and it's something I've shared with you before ~ our greatest authentic brand and your greatest happiness depends on you more and more fully "dropping" into you.

It depends on:

Expressing more of who you really are…

Doing this includes a level of transparency that leads to trust…

It includes a big dose of true human to –> human (not business woman to –> human) connection that leads to long-lasting relationships and the growth of our business…

It includes an extra serving of detachment (non-attachment for us yogis) from what others, especially those that don't fall within our ideal client or friend sphere, think.

Becoming even more you is what creating a great, authentic brand is all about and it's what being in alignment is about.

Your leadership, greatest brand and greatest happiness depends on how aligned your thoughts, words and actions are.

And it's what your business and bliss depend on. Being the kind of leader who shows up as 150% herself every time, whether it's via her newsletters, how she speaks and holds herself at a dinner party or in a VIP day with a client. 

Sure there's a level of elegance and professionalism that allows clients to feel supported, organized and well taken care of, however, we need not be a different person in our business than we are in our personal life. (For years after leaving the corporate advertising world and starting my business 14 years ago, I used "is this professional?" as my communication filter…boy was I wrong and boy did it feel bad).

Enter the wisdom that comes with time and asking the right questions: I now know that the filter is definitely "Is this in alignment with my mission, values, message and with what I say I most desire in my life?"

How would your brand communication change if you used this filter too?

How to drop into you (3 tips):

3. Understand that you will not appeal to everyone; you will polarize. Not everyone is meant to be your client (or best friend). With this understanding and acceptance that some will be repelled by what you have to say and how you say it, you can more easily shout what your movement and message is all about from the mountain tops. As the kids say, YOLO.

2. Get still. What makes you truly happy? Keep listening, go on that daily hike, buy the guided meditation app (and actually use it)…find more time to just BE vs. DO. Being driven and action-oriented is valuable as entrepreneurs and so is taking time to sit by the lake, river or ocean pondering what it is that we really want and who it is that we really want to be and gift this world…

1. Write your most transparently elegant Facebook or blog post yet (that delivers true value to your community AND that really shares more of who you really are!) and, after spell-checking, without further delay, push send! Many times dropping into more of who we are takes some cold turkey'ing it. So, what do you really believe? What do you truly value? What have you wanted to say or share but haven't for fear of what others might think or say?

No one is watching you or judging you as much as you think they are. I promise. They're too busy thinking about what to say or not to say in their next Facebook or blog post.

Enjoy your business, enjoy you life, until next time, Creative Heroine!

Have a beautiful dropping into YOU weekend.

Life is good,

Many of us nurture the feeling or belief that we never have enough time.

So then we don't.

But maybe that rumbling, that feeling, is merely signaling that we need to shift gears, work in our genius way more, and work with and commune with people that enliven us, that add to our joy and that either make time stop (love and romantic relationships are great at this) or simply open up the idea of what 60 minutes can really do and feel like (I find the more I work with people on my own business who are working their true gifts and *in* their genius, this is exactly what happens).

Have the rumbling?

Do you need to work with or commune with people that make you feel alive and that add to your daily joy?

Life is good,

p.s. Can't wait to share some of the brand and leadership tips I'll be giving at the Running with Heels dinner 3/30 with you. xo

This week my love to you comes in the form of sharing the Five Keys of Great Branding with you.

This soundbite was another part of the talk I gave in England in November (you might remember that I’ve shared the mp3s around Creative Blocks and How to Nurture Your Creativity in the last few weeks).

Here’s what you'll get a taste of in this five-minute clip:

• What branding really is means for creative women entrepreneurs like us.
• What a great authentic brand IS and what needs to be in alignment in order to …
• What self expression has to do with success.
• What ONE thing you need to tap into so your audience ALWAYS remembers you.
• What feeling you want to gift the world through your work and why this is important for your brand…

Enjoy, Creative Heroine, in joy: https://soundcloud.com/michelle-ghilotti-mandel/five-keys-of-branding-1

Life is good,

Greetings Creative Heroine!

I gave an interview yesterday morning on the topic of creativity and happiness and would love to share a bit with you…

The interviewer whom I met while out in England in November asked me how I infuse creativity into my life.

This is part of what I shared:

I infuse creativity into my life by having one thing everyday I'm looking forward to doing/reading/singing (I calendar it/it's non-negotiable), by infusing surprise on a weekly basis, no matter how small, into the lives of those I love and by asking myself the following question on a daily basis ~ "what would make me feel most alive in this next moment/today? What empowered thoughts, kind or loving words or actions can I take right now to be compassionate to myself or others?" (Creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and solutions come to us for life and business when, just like a Facebook ad, we boost self-love).

Then, once I have the answer (there always is one), I said, I make a quiet promise with myself to move on doing that as quickly as possible.

We're smart. We're all great at knowing the things — intellectually — that we need to do in order to be happy, creative or more fulfilled, but what really separates the successful — the Creative Heroines — women who move from problem to solution in hopes of expressing more of who they really are, is the doing.

Inspiration is lovely and necessary (it makes you feel wonderful when you've heard an inspiring talk or read an inspiring story, doesn't it?) but it's inspired action that helps us create what we want to be a part of.

Get clear on what it is that you need and want and then do it before ego, fear or worry has a chance to catch on to you.

Getting in and staying in inspired action will help you feel alive.

So, I ask you, Creative Heroine, what one thing do you want to look forward to every day? Calendar it all the Friday before a new week.

How can you get out out of your mind and worry, and infuse surprise into the lives of others? Choose the day each week where you're going to give and delight your spouse, your child, a soul sister or your mother-in-law.

How can you take what you intellectually know will make you happy and actually move on it now or today sometime? After your coaching session or hour working on your new offering this afternoon, promise yourself to make the phone call or put the shoes on to go for the hike in the canyon you've been saying you want to do for months now.

Being an entrepreneur (and tapping into that entrepreneurial spirit) gifts us with crazy drive, fire, opportunity and loads of authentic self-expression if we want it. It's there. Let's use it. It's not cool to lose it. 🙂

Your brand of woman is made up of all that you have coursing inside of you so let the fully-expressed her out to play…

And…action.

Let's keep it going, Creative Heroine, join us in the private Michelle Ghilotti International Creative Heroine in Business and Life Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1582874648592822/

Life is good,