Business of Writing Mini-Series Day 2: Positivity and Opportunity with Life Coach, Lisa Cherry Beaumont

Yesterday it was health and fitness and today it’s my whole life. Lisa Cherry Beaumont is a Life Coach and today we chat about lifestyle, fulfilment and life purpose alchemy. Lisa outlines a four step process for change, mentions gratitude practise, meditation, goal setting and brain training (among other things), and offers us action steps to fight off overwhelm and disillusion. She reminds us that everyone’s definition of success is different and it’s important to ‘have somebody there to guide you, push you over it, to talk you through it as you just keep going, keep making sure that you’re moving forward’. You can find out more about Lisa and becoming unstuck here. (http://www.lisacherrybeaumont.com/)

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Writer on the Road is sponsored by Fit N Fifty Plus. Please visit Jennifer here (http://fitnfiftyplus.com.au/) and don’t forget to mention I sent you:)

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Duration: [00:32:14]

Melinda: It's welcome to another episode of Writer on the Road, yesterday I was getting my exercise coaching and today I'm getting my life coaching. Welcome Lisa!

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Hello Melinda, nice to speak to you!

Melinda: I'm speaking to Lisa Cherry Beaumont, life coach from sunny Florida but at the moment she's in San Diego, just come down from the rooftop swimming in her pool, or swimming in a pool, eating a nice vegan lunch to share with us how to get our lives on track and live with purpose. Lisa how did I go with that introduction?

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: That was a good introduction. The only thing that wasn't accurate is that I've been in Florida but it's not from originally, I'm actually from the U.K. but I do love Florida and I have spent a little bit of time there. But it was a great intro otherwise, thank you. Very accurate.

Melinda: How are you going to help me as I make my transition from school teaching which ends in three weeks, moving on to a full time writer's life or a full time creative life and without all the pain and fear that goes with losing a full time income and living a fulfilling passionate life doing something I love?

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Sure well the first thing that I do with people is take them through something that hasn't really got anything to do with their work but really to do with what lifestyle they want to achieve for themselves. So are they the kind of person that wants to stay in one particular place and raise children and whatever, are they somebody who wants to travel around the world, what really do they see as their ideal lifestyle, so that's where I'll start with you. I would ask you what sort of lifestyle and get really specific on what it is you want your life to look because ultimately that's what you're trying to achieve, a lifestyle and then your work and your purpose fits into that.

Melinda: Being specific and goals. Now that is something that we do as writers and we're encouraged to do as writers aren't we everyone, know what we're going to do, what we've got planned out for the next couple of years. We're a little bit, or I'm certainly a little bit more lackadaisical when it comes to my life because everybody else has a part of it. Focusing back on me and what I want to do, how do you encourage, I suppose we're talking today about women, encouraging women especially to focus on where they want to go when there's so many other people taking parts of them?Lisa

Cherry Beaumont: If you've got a partner, if you've got children, if you've got other work and so on then that has to, you have to take all that into consideration. But ultimately we've all heard the phrase you've got to put your own gas mask on first kind of thing. You've got to make sure that your needs are taken care of first before you can give to other people.

What I notice is really common with a lot of women...

Yesterday it was health and fitness and today it’s my whole life. Lisa Cherry Beaumont is a Life Coach and today we chat about lifestyle, fulfilment and life purpose alchemy. Lisa outlines a four step process for change, mentions gratitude practise, meditation, goal setting and brain training (among other things), and offers us action steps to fight off overwhelm and disillusion. She reminds us that everyone’s definition of success is different and it’s important to ‘have somebody there to guide you, push you over it, to talk you through it as you just keep going, keep making sure that you’re moving forward’. You can find out more about Lisa and becoming unstuck here.

Writer on the Road is sponsored by Fit N Fifty Plus. Please visit Jennifer here and don’t forget to mention I sent you:)

Read Full Transcript

Duration: [00:32:14]

Melinda: It's welcome to another episode of Writer on the Road, yesterday I was getting my exercise coaching and today I'm getting my life coaching. Welcome Lisa!

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Hello Melinda, nice to speak to you!

Melinda: I'm speaking to Lisa Cherry Beaumont, life coach from sunny Florida but at the moment she's in San Diego, just come down from the rooftop swimming in her pool, or swimming in a pool, eating a nice vegan lunch to share with us how to get our lives on track and live with purpose. Lisa how did I go with that introduction?

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: That was a good introduction. The only thing that wasn't accurate is that I've been in Florida but it's not from originally, I'm actually from the U.K. but I do love Florida and I have spent a little bit of time there. But it was a great intro otherwise, thank you. Very accurate.

Melinda: How are you going to help me as I make my transition from school teaching which ends in three weeks, moving on to a full time writer's life or a full time creative life and without all the pain and fear that goes with losing a full time income and living a fulfilling passionate life doing something I love?

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Sure well the first thing that I do with people is take them through something that hasn't really got anything to do with their work but really to do with what lifestyle they want to achieve for themselves. So are they the kind of person that wants to stay in one particular place and raise children and whatever, are they somebody who wants to travel around the world, what really do they see as their ideal lifestyle, so that's where I'll start with you. I would ask you what sort of lifestyle and get really specific on what it is you want your life to look because ultimately that's what you're trying to achieve, a lifestyle and then your work and your purpose fits into that.

Melinda: Being specific and goals. Now that is something that we do as writers and we're encouraged to do as writers aren't we everyone, know what we're going to do, what we've got planned out for the next couple of years. We're a little bit, or I'm certainly a little bit more lackadaisical when it comes to my life because everybody else has a part of it. Focusing back on me and what I want to do, how do you encourage, I suppose we're talking today about women, encouraging women especially to focus on where they want to go when there's so many other people taking parts of them?Lisa

Cherry Beaumont: If you've got a partner, if you've got children, if you've got other work and so on then that has to, you have to take all that into consideration. But ultimately we've all heard the phrase you've got to put your own gas mask on first kind of thing. You've got to make sure that your needs are taken care of first before you can give to other people.

What I notice is really common with a lot of women is that we have a tendency to feel a little bit guilty if we put ourselves first like we shouldn't be doing that, but it's necessary because we're a happy wife, a happy partner, or a happy mother or whoever it is that's relying on you, that's the foundation, that's the foundation for you being able to give to others is making sure that you're happy first.

Melinda: I agree with you, I think it's on the airplanes where you've got to put your own mask on first and I always look at that and I think oh please don't let that happen. We talk about putting ourselves first, I was talking to an exercise coach yesterday and she was saying you just have to make the time, you have to meditate, you have to take ten minutes for yourself and everyone else around you will benefit. So I'm assuming with life coaching as well if we get our own heads on right and know where we want to go then everyone else around us will benefit.

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Absolutely. There is a tendency as well for us to believe that if we have what we want that other people are going to be upset, other people are not going to like it, other people they won't get used to it. But the fact is if you don't follow your own dreams, if you don't decide what it is that you want then someone else is going to decide it for you and you're going to be the one that feels miserable, you're going to be the one that feels unhappy, you're going to be the one that has nothing to give and so ultimately all those around you that you think you're going to be upsetting you're actually going to be upsetting them more by not being happy within yourself.

Melinda: I was reading on your website this morning Lisa that there were signs that you're not happy. Can you take us through some of those steps because that was one of the very early things, I read those, there were four things there and I read them and I went yeah okay it is time for change.

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: That's a blog post that I put up yesterday in response to hearing about somebody who is basically bashing their head against the wall with the same thing over and over again. The first point in that blog post is to get you to identify that there's something that you need to change. So one of those things is that you keep coming up against the same problem over and over and over and over again.

Another identifier is that people keep giving you the same advice and your friends or your family or whoever, or your colleagues are starting to get frustrated with giving you the same advice over and over again and you're just not listening.

One of the other indicators is any kind of what I call overuse or self-medication which can be anything whatsoever, it can be drink, it can be overeating, it could be shopping for things that you don't need, it could be staying up half the night online on Facebook or playing videogames or whatever. So this is when you know that something's not right, these are really good indicators that something needs to change.

Melinda: As writers I know we often have to have full time jobs and part time jobs, anything to supplement that income. When we take that leap into full time writing it can be really scary not only financially but to have the confidence to know that you can work and work to a plan from home. I guess there's a lot of fears around it or surrounding the issue of taking that leap.

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: It's absolutely terrifying for most people. You're right outside of your comfort zone because you've been, unless you've been brought up with, in an entrepreneurial environment where perhaps your parents were entrepreneurs or whatever, if that's not the environment that you've been brought up, if the school that you went to and most schools do teach, you go to university and then you get a job and you have a steady income and that's what success means in society generally.

So something outside of that, it's almost like well there's no, there are no rules and regulations to this, there's no security in this good grief what's going to happen and it does take a leap of faith, it really does. If you don't feel that then you're quite unusual. If you don't feel that it's a bit scary then you're pretty unusual.

Melinda: I wake up in the middle of the night and I go oh what's going to happen that very question that you ask, I have enough income to get me through the next couple of months and then after that all bets are off and I thought why am I doing this and I thought because I can but in two months’ time I might be talking to you again going yeah shouldn't have done that. What are some of the strategies I guess to help you through that period of absolute fear? What am I going to say to myself when I wake up and go uh-oh I'm in trouble?

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: That's a really great question. As a business owner you will come across it over and over again. So some of the strategies that I use with people are a lot of people try and run and hide from meditation but I'm afraid it really does work, it really does help. Bringing yourself back into the present moment is a really good strategy for removing the fear because the thing is Melinda when you're in a state of fear, when you're sort of feeling oh my goodness how am I going to manage, what's going to happen in two months' time, oh my goodness, what you're doing is energetically pushing away the good things that could be coming to you.

So what you have to do in order to attract the good things, I know this is, it's very metaphysical and it all sounds a bit airy-fairy if this is not the way that your mind generally works but this is how it works. When you are in a better frame of mind, in a more positive frame of mind and I don't mean delusional, I mean just feeling positive, putting positivity out there, then it's attracted to you and you will find the opportunities do present themselves.

But just going back to what we said right at the beginning of the call is about setting goals for yourself, what is it that you actually want because if you are floating and floating and floating, floating you are not necessarily going to get what you want because you don't know what it is you want and therefore you're not going to recognize it when it comes and sits right in front of you for you to take hold of.

Here's, let me just give you a little story. I'm moving around at the moment and I'm using, I'm staying in different properties because I don't live here, I'm traveling at the moment and I need to find somewhere to stay in the next few days and so I've been looking online for places to stay and I just couldn't find, it was like I can't find what I want, I don't understand it. Then it was like hang on a minute do you know what you want, have you decided exactly what you want? So what I did was I made a little short list of six or seven prerequisites for the place that I want to find. I found three within five minutes because I then had decided exactly what I wanted and I found them. That's what it's about.

Melinda: I think that's the crux of it Lisa when it comes to knowing what you want and then chasing it. I've written down here positivity versus delusional. Now many times I've been at this point where I'm going to jump off and take this leap. I have a very loving, kind sister who I absolutely adore who's in Paris at the moment and she constantly tells me I'm delusional and that I have to keep a real job. In the back of mind I've kept that and I'm thinking yeah you're right, I actually do.

So I'm wondering whether all these years we're I've stopped, I haven't made that leap because in my own mind I've trained myself, it's not my sister's fault, I've trained myself to think I can't go for this, that I'm going to fail. It's only at the ripe old age of 55 that I'm going I'm actually going to try the other approach this time, I'm going to try this positivity and meditate and pray that in two months’ time that I am open to the opportunities that do come my way because as you said if you put yourself in the position things actually do happen.

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: We are trained to believe that we're delusional if we want something that's outside of the box, we're pushed into a box, society pushes us into that 9 to 5 job box and we are kind of lead to believe that if we want something different from that it's like well it's not possible but of course it's possible because a lot of people are doing it, I mean I'm doing it. There's a lot of people doing it, working for themselves, maybe they travel, whatever, being writers. It's entirely possible. I think what is the, I think your question there is what the difference between being positive and being delusional. Well goodness, it's a fuzzy line is that one isn't it? It's a fuzzy line, what is the difference between positive and delusional?

Melinda: It's my quote, it's my mantra. I look at it as Alice down the rabbit hole. I use Alice in Wonderland to run my life and we've come across this wonderful quote about the Cheshire cat and it's the grin without the cat and I just, I love that. So if you put your grin out there the cat will catch up and I thought we're just going to have to run with it and see what happens.

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Oh I like that.

Melinda: You've got brain training exercises. Training my brain Lisa?

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Train your brain, do you know what there's the simplest exercise that I do and I didn't design it myself, it's been going for years is a really strong gratitude practice and that is where you look for, beginners to this, so if you're listening and you're thinking what on earth is a gratitude practice, if you're a complete beginner to this, then what I want you to do is to get a piece and I mean piece of paper and a pen, I don't mean on your computer or on your phone, I mean actual pen and paper and write down every day three things to be grateful for and there is a ton of scientific evidence that this actually makes you feel better, it makes you feel more positive, it attracts greater things into your life, you become more successful in whatever it is success means to you. It's really, really effective.

When I say three things to be grateful for every day I don't mean that it has be a marriage proposal or winning a free trip to Paris or whatever, it can be just little things like I got up today and I'm having a really good hair day, I don't even need to do much with my hair, that's something to be grateful for. I got to the coffee and they were giving away free coffee or I got a smile from a stranger in the street or just little things. If you can find three things, if you can't find three things to be grateful for then you're not trying because everyone's got three things to be grateful for, just waking up with a roof over your head you can have, a cold refreshing drink of water.

What it does is it trains you to look for the positives instead of focusing on the negatives and the worry and whatever it is you feel is bringing you down and it gets you into that positive state where you are attracting more good things to and you're recognizing them and pulling them towards you as well. That would be, for a beginner, for somebody who already does that then ramping up to ten a day. If you're already doing ten a day and you want to ramp it up even further some people do a 100 a day that is a challenge I can tell you. Melinda I've done the 100 a day thing and you are like I am grateful for my eyelashes.

Melinda: Well I can tell you that as writers we'd rather channel those, I think those 100 gratitude things into a chapter of a novel. I think having that privilege of being able to write out our thoughts and write out our stories is something that we have as writers that can be very beneficial when it comes to I guess this life coaching idea. You have a book called The Life Purpose Alchemy that turned into a bestseller.

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Yeah, that's right, Life Purpose Alchemy: Discover what fulfills you and do what you love for a living. It's actually not a storybook, it's not a novel, it's not even an instructional book. What it is is a workbook and yes I've got a lot what some people call woo-woo going on with me, but I'm actually incredibly practical as well.

What this book does is takes you through six steps in order to figure out what it is you want your life to look like and what work you want to do and then how to get started. But it does also tackle that thing that you talked about, the fear. So what I did was I took the top ten fears of my clients, the ones that just keep coming up for them over and over again and I did some mindset work on, some exercises on being able to shift their mindset around these top ten fears so that when they do come across this, which inevitably they'll come across some of them if not all of them, then their mindset is in the right place already so they don't hit a brick wall and go running backwards.

Melinda: Yeah and that can happen as well. I think we'd all love to be living in our attics and writing our novels and living this very romantic life but reality needs I guess, we need to balance that with our realities don't we. One of the things I wanted to very quickly talk about with you is this idea of a life coach and why they're becoming more and more popular. Now I listen to a lot of podcasts out of America and life coaching and mentoring, those kinds of things, are almost dare I say a dime a dozen now. If you're looking for a good life coach, what are you looking for?

Lisa Cherry Beaumont: Well do you know I'm going to answer your first question why are there more of them. Why are there more them? I believe that there's probably a lot of answers to this question but I think one of the answers is that we are becoming less and less of who we really want to be, of who we really are. What a life coach does, what a good life coach does is gets you back to being who you are, who you want to be, what makes you happy.

What makes a good life coach? Well there's all sorts of different life coaches, there's all sorts of different coaches that deal with all kinds of different things and people help you with anxiety and depression, some people will help with your business, some people will help you around your money mindset for example, you've got writing coaches, you've got all sorts of different coaches.

Specifically what I do, I trained as a general life coach, personal performance coach which is, yeah that's what I trained to do. But as I did more and more of it I realized what it is that I am particularly good at and what I particularly enjoy doing. So what really authentic for me and that's life purpose coaching. So helping people to find their purpose and then get started doing it.

So what you’re looking for in a life coach is someone who is able to deliver the results of whatever it is that you're trying to achieve. So if you're wanting just generally to be happier then you might want to look for someone like a happiness coach. If you're looking for someone, if what you're trying to get in your life is just to be more effective, to actually get more done then you want a productivity coach.

There are some general life coaches and I would say all coaches can help you with most things but if there's something specific that you really want to deal with then I would say go for somebody who specializes in that, like you would with anything....