Thursday, April 08, 2010

Bee the Driver (no, this isn't a typo)

I went out in the back yard like I always do to check on Cleo and Jack. My hound hunting party was generally obedient staying out there by themselves, but they’d erupt every now and then in a barking frenzy at some real or imagined foe. I swear Jack would create something to bark at just to stir things up.

Every day this week a large black bee was waiting on the screened-in porch, pasted against the tiny metal squares as if they were a honeycomb. I presumed he somehow flew in and did not know how to get out. I envisioned him trying to press his way through the screen and arrive at the outside by osmosis. I also invented an alternate story that he perhaps had a death wish and had come there to die. Either way, I thought he was foolish.

Day after day he didn’t move, or if he did, just fidgeted around in the same space. Day after day I left the screen door to the backyard open hoping he’d get the message.

Tonight, I heard Cleo and Jack starting to agitate and went outside on the porch. The bee was gone. I said out loud to them, “Maybe that bee finally realized that the door was open.” And then I became still. Isn’t this where I was too?

Maybe the bee and I both got the same message tonight. In the absence of a full-time job, having been downsized four months ago, I had been trying to take my five-year old part-time coaching, training and communications business full-time. But I had been thinking too small and neither seeing nor accepting my current reality.

I was tempted to spend a lot of money to go away on a retreat with other entrepreneurs to play a bigger game. I also contemplated ditching the dream and going back to full-time work for someone else. Then I realized the door was already open for me right here.

• I was already an entrepreneur and had been earning income at it for several years. In fact, I teach a course I helped develop on entrepreneurship for small business start-ups for God sakes!

• I was already on track to triple my coaching and training income this year over last year. The fact that I made very little last year didn’t matter!

• I was already doing much of what these gurus and self-proclaimed experts were doing, and I knew what else to do. I just had to make space and focus, structure and specificity for it. I also realized I had high-quality support I could tap into, for free.

• I already had the confidence to make this work. It didn’t matter that I had seriously bad days, cloudy clarity and was juggling other major changes in my life. Somewhere in me, I knew I could do it. I have killer tenacity.

• I already had relevant skills and experience I could leverage from 25 years of consulting both internally and externally, working in the communications and learning field. And I had accumulated almost 200 coach training hours and a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credential. I had worked with hundreds of clients and coached more than 1,000 hours.

(It just occurred to me that I have now created my “Reality Check” list and will re-read it every day.)

So the bee and I finally realized that the door was open. Maybe he had to work through a limiting belief first about the screen or about himself. Maybe he had to just sit still for awhile and listen, plan and recharge. Whatever the reason, I know, in time, I will also find my way through…I intend to create a buzz and design something to bark at!

The invitation is "open" for you to share your tales of inspiration. What insights have you received that keep you moving forward?

To your best life,


Renee