Speaking at the dedication ceremony on November 13th

Today, I wanted to share something with you that I shared with friends on Facebook yesterday. Though it's not about the how-to of branding , it IS about expression (or, more specifically, we could say it's a show OF authentic expression that I'm a stand for, for all women), and that's something, of course, that connects you and I — the desire and 'how-to' of authentic expression in business and in life.

Ah, music to my ears…

In light of the recent tragic goings-on around the world, I also believe the expression below appropriate to share with you, my community of Creative Heroines, because you are a woman devoted to continuing to move more gracefully from problem to solution, in hopes ofexpressing more of who you really are. And, really, that's what my personal story genuinely has baked into it.

You stand for your authentic expression and solutions in business and life, and I proudly stand with you! (Thank you for being you).

I intend for the sharing to do three things:

1) Energize you to share more of you really are (People engage and connect with you (the real you), long before they engage with your products and services).

2) To support you to step even deeper into gratitude, the thing that can support you to land smack dab in the middle of your greatest business and life vision quicker, and with a lot more joy.

and

3) Allow you to see that the personal is professional and the professional is personal. Remember that what you make the opportunity for in your business, you also create in your life, and vice versa…what you make room for in your life, you also continue to nurture in your business…

Enjoy.

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On Friday the 13th, my high school's art building was named after my brother and one of the studios inside was named after my Mom.

It was a beautiful afternoon, fitting for two creative souls.

Before sharing my thoughts and a blessing I was asked to give, they handed me the microphone that had just worked outside. Only this time it didn't work.

I joked that my Mom never needed a microphone to share what she wanted, believed or felt and we laughed. In many ways, it was fitting that I didn't have or need a mic either. (Infinite love + gratitude, Mom).

As usual, I went off piste from what I had written for a bit, and part of what came before heading into the blessing, was this…

About 30 minutes after my Dad called that July morning to give me the very unexpected news that she was gone, I was back home from dropping Nolan off at Summer camp.

Sitting at the dining room table, I wailed. After I caught my breath, I grabbed a piece of red paper and a pen, my version of Kleenex and the thing that, for me, most appropriately holds the overflow of emotion…

The very resilience and inner strength my Mom exhibited in her 57 years, I shared with the 60+ people in attendance, was the very thing that in that moment moved me to start writing everything about her I was most grateful for. I wrote until I couldn't write any more, a pouring out and a swimming in the truth of all that still existed.

I continued…

I wrote what I was most grateful to her for and I also wrote what I was grateful to have created alongside her, particularly over the last nine months (our relationship had grown another set of brand new, beautiful wings).

As we head into Thanksgiving, one of those days we can create in the every day, I am evermore aware that what has made way for my healing, more and more, is this: the looking inside of myself, and outside too, both left and right at all there still is, and at all they have left behind in me that will stay with me for my forever.

It's mighty — and so is gratitude.

Life-giving and life-affirming, just as one of the mantras/momtras included in a new workbook to clients beautifully states, "The more gratitude I feel, the less it hurts, (repeat at least 3x)."

And that's the real blessing.

The more gratitude we feel, the less it hurts.

Enjoy your weekend, Creative Heroine and may your your greatest freedom, healing and the biggest expression of you in business and life lie in your honesty and heart.

Transparency truly is the bridge to connection.

Speak with you soon…

Life is good,

I'm back. 

Wherever you've been, off in that creative and beautiful mind, on an exciting trip, diving deep into healing or thrown deep behind-the-scenes of a new program launch, I hope that you have had very real (and long) moments of feeling back…

Are you back?

• In this season of life, are you feeling that you've landed back in your purpose?
• Landed back into what really light's you up, and, therefore, what "business" will continue to be about for you?
• Back to giving yourself more permission to express your true self, not just via your blog or on social media, but with all of your most important relationships?

In short, are you coming back to yourself and feeling even more you, even more honest and true to the person that matters most ~> you?

As I ramp back up from my most recent loss, this is what I've been diving into, a coming back to self. (For those of you who are new, it may not be what you expect to learn about in a business newsletter, however, when it's a part of my life, it's also a part of my business: I lost my Mom unexpectedly three months ago, and also lost my 22-year-old brother, unexpectedly, two years ago. The winds of change…).

And, in ways, I do feel — back:

~ Back and ready to share around what you need most support with in your businesses and brand expressions.

~ And back to, generally, give this life all that I got.

I do have a lot to give, and I know you do too.

So…how do we continue being the givers and the livers, the person who lives life to the fullest? (Sorry, I don't mean to make you think of liver pate :-).

So here's the thing that grief forces you to look at straight in the face ~> we can give more fully of who we are, be most generous of spirit and of greatest service when we have made time to give to self…to reflect, sit in stillness and, generally, make our enlightened no's a must.

Have you made saying no a must lately in your business and in your life? Have you been reflecting daily and weekly on what's working and not working for you? Have you made time to sit in stillness knowing there's as much creativity and strength in it, as there is in the drive you have to build am empire?

Over the last three months, I have re-designed what feels like my entire life and business:

I've tweaked my business model, changed my program launch plans, taken myself off of countless newsletter lists, further refined my weekly schedule and what types of activities I focus on during weekends, as well as let my team and family know, in no uncertain terms, how much self care and stillness will continue to be folded into it all…

I was pretty good at it before and, let it be known, that I will be exceptional at it now. Join me. Let's be exceptional at reflecting more often, at giving generously of our enlightened no's and at being more still, so we can really hear the space between the words and meet our most cared for self.

It's such a gift when we give to ourselves and are able to support others even more fully as a result.

So there it is.

Be exceptional at coming back to yourself and continue the exploration process by asking yourself: what may I need to tweak in my life and business so I'm expressing my true brand of woman?

What does my brand need to express that hasn't been expressed yet?

How does your marketing need to change or evolve to feel most like you?

What might you need to fold into your offerings so they include not just what you think will sell, but what will shine and most serve you?

As I shared with my Mom Mogul Success Society clients last month, success has many definitions and every week, every month and every year, we need to ask ourselves, once again, what our own definition really is. At different seasons, we have different versions of success and we need to base what we do (or don't do) based on that very definition.

Allow your current version to come front and center to really take care of you today. That's what true success does…it takes care of you.

Forget what others have told you success is, come back to yourself and make decisions based on what you, deep down inside, truly feel.

Today, my definition of success is based on how still I can be while still also getting after my passions, goals and serving some of the best clients around the world. (For those of you reading this — you are some of the favorite parts of my days).

Life and entrepreneurship call us to create and do every day, more and more in line with our values, however, the problem is that we're too busy to listen, most days. Today, however, I'm listening rather intently.

Which brings me to this. In the spirit of being back, really listening as well as doing things differently, I'd love to ask how I may best support you in my giving and sharing via my virtual love notes (aka newsletters)?

What are your most pressing questions around creating a meaningful business, while still having a life? To creating consistent income? What part of your authentic brand is yet to be figured out? What are your biggest obstacles as far as your expression is concerned?

Seize the moment — let me know! I'll be choosing a few of the most common themes and will reply with my Success and Brand Coach hat on.

Until we connect again, Creative Heroine, I wish for you, your own moments of radical (yet simple) stillness.

Here's to meeting the self whose way better equipped to serve, lead and guide with full heart because she's given herself the gift of time…

To your enlightened no's!

Life is good,

 

 

 

 

p.s. Just post your comments below and let me know what's on your mind, as far as branding, expression and authenticity (or similar) are concerned. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you!

Periscope. It's truly all the rage. It's my favorite way to spend time on social media right now and I believe it will "stick" not just for me but for millions of other people. Be one of the early settlers with me!

As you can see above, I've been fairly active on the platform already and am on my 35th scope. I scoped at Oprah's VIP event a few weeks ago, scoped in Mexico, Iceland and more, all around how you can create (or re-create, as the case may be) your brand (apologies that I'm just getting around to sharing my channel with you!).

Come on over and I'll not only continue sharing how-to's around the topic we're all most united on ~> Branding/Your Brand of Woman but around how you, too, can grow your influence, visibility and brand on the new LIVE-streaming video platform.

Again, be one of the early settlers! Join me on Periscope. 

1. First, download the free Periscope app onto your smartphone.

2. The, create a username (matching your Twitter account), a killer bio for yourself (feel free to take a look at mine as just one example), upload a headshot, start taking notes around what your first video Periscope broadcast will be about and, voila, you're on your way.

3. Connect. In the search bar, look for my handle @michelleghilotti.com. 

Join me this week for my next three to ten minute brand training scopes where you'll walk away with specific how-to's and increase energy to take action on the way you truly want to be of support to others through your successful business and magnetic brand.

"See" you soon, Creative Heroine. Enjoy your business and enjoy your life!

Life is good,

 
 
 
 
 
 

p.s. Can't wait to provide value in this new way #bizscope #brandofwoman #creativeheroine.

I have been quiet for a little while now.
 
Over a month ago, I lost unexpectedly lost my Mom. As many of you who have followed my journey the last two years, you also know that I lost my baby brother unexpectedly in a car accident two years ago.
 
Talk about an avalanche of change in the last 24 months. As you can imagine, these two physical losses are heartbreaking. I wouldn't be being honest if I didn't also tell you that that they have also broken me open in the most positive way. New ways, in fact, that I’m uncovering every day.
 
I’ve lost (physically) but I know that I have and will continue to gain a new (emotional and spiritual) perspective, everyday that I stay open.

Specifically, I know that I will gain a new and even deeper way to love, to serve and to transparently share.
 
In this time that I haven’t been communicating with you, I’ve gone inside, and in many ways, looked up. You could say I’ve looked up for guidance around how to best heal. I miss my Mom and Dino terribly! (The photo above was taken at our family home just two months ago before she passed).
 
Life will look up as I continue to look up. Thankfully this is just the kind of woman my Mom was and is also what she passed onto me…

One thing I know that helped me begin to heal from losing my baby brother was serving others (acceptance was met somewhere at the intersection of helping others and taking time to be still and also help myself).

I remember sharing this with my Mom many times over the last two years. She would ask me how I was “doing it” and this was almost always my answer: supporting and serving others.

One thing I will forever be grateful for is following each other’s grief journeys so closely. She was my confidante and I was hers, and for that, I am extremely grateful! Where there is love there is life, and, there is still so much love between us.

As happens with tragic or unexpected deaths, I haven’t made sense of it all yet, of course, but, I want to share as much as I can. Why? Because we can't do it alone (we aren't meant to do it alone) AND writing is my medicine. (It is great medicine).

You may follow my ongoing sharings on my personal Facebook page HERE.

I trust that pieces of what I share will support you on your journey of change. Because, as humans, the truth is that we are all on a journey of change…
 
Lastly, as always, I am acutely aware that in order to create your most powerful authentic brand as a woman, you must work, everyday, to create yourself. And sometimes this can come from allowing things, such as death, to show us how to live today, REALLY live, today.

If you have a choice. Choose really living today.

So, that's where I am at the moment. I'm happy to be back sharing with you. Thank you. Sending you all my love.

Life will look up as you continue to look up…

I'll be in touch again soon.

Life is good,            

 

 

 

 

p.s. Where there is love, there is life. 
You can follow my writing on life and death HERE.