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The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Plus, a Really Big Thing)

Right at the precipice of all of the biggest breakthroughs … 

BREAKDOWN. The question is what you’ll do with it. Run headfirst into the opportunity of the challenge? Or retreat, tail between your legs, to the safety and comfort of old patterns?

Either way … the sun will rise tomorrow. The only real question is will you like the person you are when it does? 

And, if you don’t, you can always make a different choice. That’s the great part about life. Everything can shift in a moment.

It simply takes your awareness of the vastness of your choice to bring your attention to what really matters.

As I stand on the precipice of my own next level and in the midst of the big breakdown preceding the breakthrough, I’m reading a book by Ben Horowitz called The Hard Thing About Hard Things, and it should be required reading for anyone seeking to build anything big and meaningful.

If you are in the struggle at all, or feeling the question of whether to give up or forge ahead, read it. It’ll either inspire you to keep growing, or it may scare you right into completely giving up.

Either way, I trust it will support your next step.

Twelve years ago, when I hit up against a very similar challenge, I recall one of the coaches I followed at that time saying “You’re either growing or dying.” And my response to that was, okay then, I’ll die. I don’t want to grow anymore.

So, I did.

I walked away from all I had created, and died into my next best self. I remembered that none of who I appeared to be on the outside — family, financial and legal expert, business woman, or mom —  identified the truth of me. 

The truth of my being was so much more than all of that.

It was a ten year process of integration, and now with this next turn of the wheel, here I am again.

A precipice. 

And, of course, a breakdown to precede it.

This time, though, I have the context of multiple cycles and I know what comes next, regardless of what I choose.

The journey to liberation (especially financial liberation) isn’t linear, it’s spiral. We get to revisit everything we’ve touched in the past repeatedly until we heal it, fully.

My current stage = detachment. 

  • Can I hold all that I’ve created so lightly that if it’s not meant for me, I can easily let it go? 
  • Can I release my grip on how I think it should be and let Life operate through me in such a way that my capacity is expanded exponentially to steward more, without holding on to any of it? 
  • Can I make it through this moment keeping my heart open, my soul in service, and trusting that Life has my back in ways that my little mind can’t see?
  • Can I truly trust that whatever is arising is guiding me to release what needs to be let go, and to step into my next best, most powerful self?

This time around the wheel, the answer is an unequivocal yes. I’m here for it. I don’t know exactly what I’m being tested on yet (that will come with the benefit of hindsight), but I am deeply grateful for the test because I know what it means …

There’s greatness on the other side, and all I have to do is keep showing up in alignment with my values, honing my leadership, trusting that Life has my back, and is removing everything that is not an energetic match to my next level, and giving me all the resources I need to see my vision come to pass.

When you are in the breakdown and everything around you seems to be challenging your conviction, your purpose and your future, your psychology and management of your emotional state is the single most important factor in how you get to the other side. 

You are an incredibly powerful creator of reality.

And, let’s be clear — the question is not whether you will get to the other side (of course you will, one way or another) But HOW will you get there? 

Will you get there with stress and worry and tension and bad mood and grumpiness (I’ve gone that path before) or will you get there with deep faith and trust that you will be able to keep meeting each moment and knowing what to do, knowing what to say, knowing how to be? 

If this is a hard moment, it means even bigger and better things are coming, but Life will only reward you with those bigger and better things IF you prove yourself worthy … 

Some people say it’s not necessary to prove yourself, but I disagree.

Life is always testing your worthiness. If everyone was just “worthy”, well we’d all have the same station in life, right?

We’d all know our purpose, and our path, and our deep self trust, and our abundance, and prosperity, and self love.

But, we don’t.

So, what does worthiness look like that gets truly rewarded by Life? 

It looks like doing the work of healing, learning to live in harmony, learning to live in values alignment, and integrity, taking personal responsibility, and recognizing your full power as a creator of Life itself.

Whew …

And, so, here we are.

At the precipice of the next level … 

Something big is coming.

Personal Family Lawyer has lived in my vision since 2007 when I enrolled the first 13 lawyers into my dream of a new way of serving families with a heart-centered counseling methodology for making a lifetime of wise legal and financial decisions.

Since then, I tried to walk away from it a number of times, questioning it’s value, questioning if what I was doing was truly important, questioning if I really could create the vision of a Personal Family Lawyer in every neighborhood.

Well, Life has had my back, and the back of Personal Family Lawyer all these years, and wouldn’t let me let it go. 

Instead, I was repeatedly invited to dig deeper, look more closely, and discover the truth of what it meant to be a lawyer helping people look at incapacity, and death, and make eyes wide open legal and financial decisions.

What I discovered is that inheritance and legacy and estate planning … when truly understood, are a gateway to awakening, healing and the cultural shift I think so many of us have been craving for our lifetimes.

And, now, Personal Family Lawyer takes its next big step into the world. 

In the next couple of weeks, our new brand and website will finally launch. 

And with it, a refocus on introducing you to the lawyers who stand behind the promise of what it means to be a lawyer who truly has the back of her clients.

Personal Family Lawyer is based on a win/win business model that gives you the assurance of knowing your lawyer is helping you make the very best legal and financial decisions for yourself and your family — not just based on what’s best for your lawyer financially, but what’s actually best for you and the people you love.

I so look forward to sharing more about it with you. If you are a lawyer, join us on September 15th, for a live masterclass with me, where I’ll share more. If you are not a lawyer, stay tuned, much more to come.

To your eyes (and heart) wide open life.

Ali

“Expression is scary. Speaking my truth isn’t always safe. Maybe I’m too much?”

I have felt these things time and time again. I bet you have too. This is why I’m inviting you to be a part of my dear sister/friend @IsablellaBraveheart’s FREE 5-day online challenge called SPEAK.  

Isabella does not do fluff. Life is raw, intense and unpredictable. So is @IsabellaBraveheart. Join us in the deep end – and SPEAK!

 Isabella will be hosting live daily Zoom calls with a juicy lineup of storytellers, artists, speakers and expressionists, including yours truly, to help you explore and embody YOUR expression more deeply. 

I will be speaking about  “The Power of Witnessing”  in one of many of Isabella’s FREE calls during the challenge and YOU are personally invited to join us. 

We kick off the SPEAK challenge on September 19th

Join us here—» https://braveheart.krtra.com/t/D7jXyYLF9rlF

SPEAK challenge
Toward Aware and No-Harm Investing

Do you wish you understood how you could invest in ways that supports the future you want to see? We do! Toward Aware and No-Harm  Investing is an on-line course for individual investors offered by Marco Vangelisti starting October 3rd, 2022, and if you’ve got money in the stock market, I recommend you attend.

You can join here. Select TANHI Course and Use code NLBM to take 10% off your investment. 

If you’re a lawyer who would like to love your life and law practice again, tune in for this event:

Discover Personal Family Lawyer®

Discover Personal Family Lawyer®

September 15th at 12pm ET/ 9am PT

Why did you decide to become a lawyer? To make a difference? To get paid well? To do something meaningful with your degree? 

But that’s not your current reality, is it?

Maybe you’re stuck on a treadmill of meaningless transactional paperwork or tied up in court, constantly caught up in conflict. Your schedule is not your own, and you’re always on call day in and day out—and even at night. Plus, when you’re not putting out fires for clients, you’re at the mercy of the court. And it’s starting to become unbearable. 

On top of being overworked and burnt out, maybe you can’t sleep at night because you don’t know where your next client is coming from. And just as frustrating, the clients you do have don’t appreciate you. They leave you constantly chasing invoices, and that’s if they even pay you at all.

This is far from the dream you envisioned when you decided to go to law school.

Right now, you may think the whole law school thing was a mistake. You’re fed up with practicing law, and you may have even found yourself searching “leaving the law” more times than you care to admit. If you don’t make a change soon, the stress will affect your family life, your health, and your income — if not already.

But what if you could love practicing law?

What if you could start a practice that allowed you to have the income you need while maintaining full control of your schedule and enjoying a sense of purpose? What if your clients appreciated you so much they paid you $4,000, $5,000, or even $6,000 to work with you, and on top of your fees, they sent you gifts of their appreciation?

This is not a dream I’m describing. It’s the life I created for myself, and I’ve since taught thousands of other lawyers how to create their own versions of a life and law practice they love.

I’ll be sharing all the details on how you can do it too at our upcoming Masterclass: Discover Personal Family Lawyer® on Thursday, September 15th at 12 p.m. ET.

During the Masterclass, I’ll share what you need to do to create a law practice you love that meets your unique income and lifestyle goals, as a Personal Family Lawyer.

Register here to join us!

Quick Links:

I’d love for us to stay connected! When you connect with me on social media you will be able to be even more in the know about upcoming events and registration details.

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