The Vision Quest Chronicles: Tales of Living Ones Vision

Please enjoy this video as you prepare for your breakthrough…

I hope you can join us for the discussion tonight from 8-9 on Vision Quest Retreats Facebook Wall because the first 25 participants will be entered to win 2 Tickets to see the DC Rollergirls this Saturday in DC!!

Success Coaching and Power Networking Event January 25 8-9 PM EST

Discussion Questions

1) What big thing(s) are you planning on doing in 2012?

2) What sort of things hold you back from accomplishing your goals i.e. procrastination, fear, bad habits, negative thinking?

3) What are some ways you have broken through the above blocks in the past? Share your experience of what has worked for you and others.

At Vision Quest Retreats we specialize in therapy and success coaching aimed at women who want to live extraordinary lives.

What did you want to be when you were a little girl?

When helping my Success Coaching  clients uncover their Vision of Success (the work that they are most passionate about and desire to perform in the word) I sometimes ask them “What did you want to be when you were little?” This can often reveal clues that point to what they are truly passionate about. Sometimes these dreams are long buried, covered over by time, life experience and well meaning others who may have talked them out of what they truly wanted and who they truly are. I call being your authentic self and living your passion “living from the inside out”  versus “living from the outside in” which is what you do when you conform to expectations, desires and dreams of others.

from “The Different Drummer” 1983-1984 Stone Ridge Country Day School of the Sacred Heart

When I was a little girl if you asked me what I wanted to be my answer was often something like this…”an artist, tennis player, doctor” even then I wanted to do it all. While not a professional tennis player I have accomplished 2/3 of these goals.

There are also clues as to our true personalities in the ways we acted and felt as children. Kids are often honest and unafraid. Isn’t that we are all striving to be? Well the other day I received a gift from my past from an old friend. She came across a poem published in our school’s literary magazine that I had written in 1983 when I was 13 yrs old and it seems I was on this Vision Quest thing from an early age; urging others to live an authentic and adventurous life. I entitled the poem “Dare” I’ve included it below because it’s a good reminder for me about who I am at my core and because I hope it urges you to not only Dare to be different but to remember who you were and are meant to be. Oh by the way, please excuse my misspellings! (did we not have an editor?)

If you are a woman pursuing your Vision on the Heroine’s Quest join our tribe at the Vision Quest Retreats face book page

If you are a Woman Business Owner come play with us every Wed. at Women Owned Business Wednesdays; a 24 Hr Happy Hour where you meet cool people and win cool stuff!

Much Continued Success & Well Being XXOO,

Nicole

Nicole Cutts, Ph.D., CEO Cutts Consulting, LLC & Founder Vision Quest Retreats

How Does YOUR Relationship with Money Impact Achieving Your Vision of Success?

Many believe that a lack of money can hinder you from manifesting your goals but can being financially successful also hinder you from living your true purpose? Consider the difficulty in leaving a job in which you make a lot of money to pursue a vision which may not “make you rich.”

Your relationship to money, your beliefs about prosperity and abundance, and how these things intersect with your Vision of Success is one of the many internal dynamics that you must sort out in the course of living your vision. By “sort out” I mean increase your awareness of then shed any beliefs that are limiting.

Like any relationship, your relationship with money can exhibit varying degrees of health through your behavior.

For example, how can you manifest a dream that entails having great wealth if deep down you see wanting/having money as somehow negative i.e. evil or dirty?

Likewise an ego-driven focus solely on making money may lead you astray from your authentic self and true purpose.  Greed may help you to ignore your core values such as compassion and altruism.

Journal Exercise: What are my beliefs and attitudes about money?   To explore how beliefs about money may be impacting how you are living (or not living) your Vision of Success write your answers to the following questions?

1) How important is making money to you and why?

2) What messages were you told by your parents/family about having money? (Was money valued, vilified, shunned or chased after and put above all else?)

3) Growing up, compared to those around you in your community, were you considered poor, average, or rich?

4) How has your childhood economic standing shaped your attitudes and earning or spending habits today? (Perhaps you are afraid to have money so you spend extravagantly and stay in debt. Or maybe you are afraid to ever go without so you consume and hoard money/things.)

5) Now ask yourself, how any of the above may be affecting your ability to achieve your vision of success? (Are your fears or paradigms around money creating self-limiting beliefs that may be keeping you and your vision small? Is a drive to be “rich” or comfortable keeping you in a well paying job that you hate because you aren’t living your true purpose?)

6) What beliefs do you wish to shed or change? (Listen to your intuition)

Next Step: The next step is to rid yourself of any self-limiting beliefs so you can exhibit your true personality and manifest your greatness.

Easier said than done? Yes but remember the vision quest is a journey.

Please Join Vision Quest Retreats on Facebook Wed. Jan. 18 from 7:30-8:30 PM EST to Join the discussion at our next Powerful Women ONLINE Networking Event

A few resources you may find helpful as you explor how your attitudes about money relate to how you are living your vision are:

Success Coaching with Dr. Nicole Cutts of Vision Quest Retreats

My girl Suze Ormon’s.

The Courage to be Rich: Creating a Life of Material and Spiritual Abundance 

Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny

The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying

and by Olivia Mellan Money Harmony: Resolving money conflicts in your life and relationships

If you are a woman pursuing your Vision on the Heroine’s Quest join our tribe at the Vision Quest Retreats face book page

If you are a Woman Business Owner come play with us every Wed. at Women Owned Business Wednesdays; a 24 Hr Happy Hour where you meet cool people and win cool stuff!

Much Continued Success & Well Being XXOO,

Nicole

Nicole Cutts, Ph.D., CEO Cutts Consulting, LLC & Founder Vision Quest Retreats

A little vlog post I made based on a dream…

A little video update of 2011 highlights I did while in Key Largo over New Year’s week.

P.S.

For pics of the the Key Largo trip click Vision Quest Retreats Key Largo Album

Much continued success and well being in 2012!!!

Nicole

P.P.S.
If you are a woman pursuing your Vision on the Heroine’s Quest join our tribe at the Vision Quest Retreats face book page

If you are a Woman Business Owner come play with us every Wed. at Women Owned Business Wednesdays; a 24 Hr Happy Hour where you meet cool people and win cool stuff!

I was just coming down off the high of my first Co-ed Naked Networking ONLINE event to launch the newly renovated Vision Quest Retreats website and was poised to receive the Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the next day, from the NBMBAA when the call came.

The tension had been building for some time. I had been keenly aware of the growing competing factors between maintaining my organizational development (OD) work through Cutts Consulting and ramping up my success coaching practice through Vision Quest Retreats. I had been in a similar place before while building Cutts Consulting when I still had one foot in the world of clinical psychology. The difference these days is that I still  enjoy the organizational development work and coaching I do through Cutts Consulting whereas I was very ready to move out of clinical work. The increased tension exists in three places. One is on the level of living my vision and being my true authentic self. The second level is more mundane, but no less important; making a living. And the third level is just the limits of time and energy. I will start with finances or making a living.

As anyone who has started a business knows, they rarely if ever turn a profit right away. There is much investing and creating that goes on initially that one does not earn money off of. I have enjoyed being able to work in this creative space without the urgency or fear associated with HAVING to make money because I earn my money to support myself and to invest in my newer business from my “day job” working in organizations. This has given me a measure of comfort and enjoyment but also means there is no urgency aside from  my own desire to give birth to my new vision, which while urgent is sometimes tempered  by fear of launching out into new territory again.

On another level the aspects of my persona that are called upon and expressed through Cutts Consulting and Vision Quest Retreats are different aspects of myself.  They are both me but as I have grown and matured it is clear to me that my work through Vision Quest Retreats channels my truest most authentic and happy self. While organizational settings tend to be conservative the space in which Vision Quest Retreats live is not. Freedom is one of my most precious core values, but as anyone in business or organizations knows, total freedom and autonomy rarely exist in this setting. Working for myself I have been able to avoid most, but by no means all, restrictions of working in corporate and government setting. I have been able to strike a fairly comfortable balance that works for me between autonomy and having to answer to others. (See section on money/finances above if you are looking for what helps me to temper my need for total autonomy). In some ways the brand of Vision Quest Retreats and thus my personal brand in this arena might seem incompatible to those on the OD side. To manage this I do not  publicize VQR to current or potential Cutts Consulting clients by keeping things separate but then on the other hand I don’t completely hide it either. Honesty is another one of my core values and I don’t really believe in hiding things. In my way of thinking “the truth is the truth.” Many people have warned me about this attitude but if I can’t succeed by being honest then I don’t want to succeed. (Pride and competitiveness, while not core values are major aspects of my personality and I refuse to win by cheating or lying.)

Of course the other aspect of the tension between running an existing business and growing a new one is just a matter of the limits of time and energy. It is not easy to get all of my work done from my “day job” while doing the creating and building of VQR. I sometimes find myself very tired and stressed and wishing that I could just focus on one thing, namely VQR, but my continuing need to eat and make a living and my enjoyment for this work means that it isn’t time to let the OD work go. Of late I have been managing this and the above tensions by just staying focused and realizing that this transition, while sometimes stressful is just necessary and temporary. I actually quite enjoy the challenge but have no desire to keep this up for a protracted period of time. I would burn out and that is not part of living my vision.

It was a Thursday morning. I had just finished an executive coaching call with a brand new client at a large federal government agency. She was one of five clients I had just been assigned on a great new coaching contract. I was perusing face book and reading all the congratulatory remarks and kind words from my friends and thinking how much I love my work on both sides, how wonderful that I had hit it off so well with this new coachee and was really looking forward to continuing to work with her. That’s when the phone rang. It was my supervisor (the project manager for this coaching contract). She and I are friends so I was glad to hear from her.  After some brief “how are you(s)?” she told me that she had some bad news. She gave it to me straight, no chaser, saying “I have to take you off of the X coaching contract because of Naked Networking.”

My stomach literally dropped! I felt bowled over. “Why!?” Well apparently one of my newly assigned coachees had “Googled” me and come across one of my Naked Networking You Tube videos and was scandalized. She immediately (an apparently without viewing it) sent the link to her manager with a note expressing her outrage. I’m not sure if the managers were able to even view the video as their work computers do not allow You Tube in but they, panicked by this woman’s reaction, called my supervisor. She tried to explain to them that she was very aware of it, had actually participated in the event, and that is was totally innocent. They weren’t going for it. Apparently even though totally legal and above board, exercising my first amendment rights was creating the wrong “perception” and they would prefer if I was removed entirely from the contract, a job that was bringing in more than $11,000! It was my turn to be scandalized.

To say I was hurt and disappointed by this turn of events is to put it mildly. I can admit that I actually shed a tear or two after the call. I felt as if I had been dinged pretty hard for being true to myself and living out the spirit of Naked Networking and the beliefs behind all of Vision Quest Retreats. I felt fearful at the loss of the income and a little panicked  about how I would make it up. I felt sorry for myself for about five minutes thinking how wronged I was, being punished by the small mindedness and fear of people who probably don’t even know there is a world outside the box they live and think in. I was angry and outraged especially because it simply was wrong and unfair. I had done nothing illegal or improper to warrant this huge loss. But then my feelings shifted.

I thought, “Isn’t this exactly what you are talking about in your introductions and explanations of Naked Networking?” I already knew that there are risks involved in being your most authentic self (especially when you are a little different as I am) and had obviously been willing to take the risk. Did I mention before how much I hate to lose? Well apparently I want to take risks and always win and in this case I was upset initially because I perceived myself as losing. Perception again. Then I realized that I had not really lost at all because in my world I believe in abundance and that there will always be more work and that I have the right to only take the jobs where the fit is right. I don’t believe in being a slave to money. I also began to realize that this must have happened for a reason. Having this big contract and other OD work had been allowing me to drag my feet somewhat in terms of turning VQR into a money making business which it is intended to be. I mean let’s be clear I am a business woman. My ideal vision is to make enough money doing exactly what I love and am most passionate about and that is what Vision Quest Retreats is for me. I have said many times being on the heroine’s quest to live your vision of success is not for the faint of heart. It involves a lot of risk, overcoming fear and often striking out on one’s own into unfamiliar territory. I was being challenged in this moment to hold true to these beliefs. Well I love a challenge. As a matter a fact I can be pursuing a goal with a humdrum attitude but as soon as I am thwarted or challenged I will go into high gear to achieve that goal. This is what kicked in on this day for me.

I resolved, more than ever, to make Vision Quest Retreats into exactly the amazing vision that I have dreamed it will be. I am using the loss of the $11,000 plus as a measure. I will make that back and then some but this time it will be doing the work that allows me to be most fully and authentically my divine self. It may take some time but that is a part of the  challenge that I enjoy.

Do I have any regrets about Naked Networking? Nope! I never for one minute considered stopping it or taking it down. I also realized that my experience may help another person who is on the heroine/hero’s quest to live their best authentic life and that is why I am choosing to share this with you. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but the adventure continues…

Much continued success and well being,

Nicole

P.S. comments on this and similar experiences that you have
had are most welcome.

Receiving the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from John James, President NBMBAA-DC Chapter

Click to view pics of NBMBAA Awards Gala

Am I the only one who sometimes finds herself feeling a little “Grinchy” during the holiday season?

While many people feel joyful during the holidays, others may feel stressed, overwhelmed,  sad or lonely thinking of holidays past, loved ones lost or expectations for a perfect family or holiday life unmet, guilt because you don’t want to be with family or because you can’t provide the “perfect” holiday for your family or friends.

The good news is that you aren’t alone and there are things you can do to successfully manage troublesome emotions during this “most wonderful time of the year”.

Try my top 10 tips below to manage these feelings successfully and tell me what you think…

1) Accept whatever feelings come up, know you aren’t alone.

2) Stay in the moment/pay attention/be mindful so you can fully enjoy the moments.

3) Lower your expectations for a perfect holiday, family/life and self. Don’t compare yourself to others unless it’s to realize how fortunate you are. LET GO OF PERFECTIONISM! Do your best then let the rest go.

4) Practice gratitude for what you do have don’t dwell on what you don’t have.

5) If you are having a tough time take care of yourself by doing what you feel you need to do for yourself (nurture self). Create joy for your and others through your thoughts and behavior.

6) Don’t be alone. Get out with friends, create your own traditions, do something fun and do something for someone else!

7) Remember that it’s just a day like any other. 24 hrs and you can get through any 24 hr period. There is no PERFECT way to manage the holidays, so follow your instincts and do what you feel you need to.

Handle holiday stress and frustrations by asking yourself “How important is it really?” If you can’t get the perfect gift or are late or whatever, practice letting it go. It’s not worth giving up your serenity for it.

9) Maintain balance. Self care, being engaged, don’t overdo the eating or drinking, get exercise and rest but have fun! Enjoy the little moments and little blessings and put more focus on the positive.

10) Let go! (remember what happened to the Grinch in the end?)

NOTE: If you are a heroine or hero on the quest join our online tribes at Vision Quest Retreats & Women Owned Business Wednesdays!

Much continued success, love & well being,

Nicole

…The #1 Benefit of Networking Naked…it saves time! (what am I the only one who ever has a mixed agenda?)

Is coloring inside the lines killing you and your CREATIVE SPIRIT!?

Whether you’re and entrepreneur or “company man/woman” you may feel as if you must confine yourself to social norms to succeed in business. At Vision Quest Retreats we have determined that this is NOT the best way to live.

What would happen if you could just be yourself? What if you could be your fully authentic self expressing all aspects of your Divine Nature?

How might your life and work be different if you unleashed all the energy you currently use to maintain your facade? What if you bared yourself a.k.a. got NAKED?!

If you are ready to shed some of this Sh*!stuff and do some quality (easy as pie) Networking This ONLINE Event is for you!

COME AS YOU ARE and Join the Discussion at our Next Vision Quest Retreats ONLINE Naked Networking Event!!

We also give away prizes!  

How it works:

1) At the appointed time a note with the topic and question will be posted on the wall of Vision Quest Retreats.

2) Answer the question in the post and tell us about you, your vision, work, or business. Post links to your websites, blogs, etc.

3) You must “like” the page to comment but you do NOT have to be a woman
biz owner to join us!

4) Refresh the page often to see new posts.

5) Have fun…meet some nice people! 

Location: The wall of Vision Quest Retreats Facebook page.

Date/Time of Next Event: Nov. 30 7:30-9:00 PM EST

Much Continued Success & Well Being,

Nicole

P.S. Click to read “The Top 10 Benefits of Networking Naked“

Please drop by the NEWLY RENOVATED Vision Quest Retreats Villa for a virtual tour!

If you are a woman on the Heroine’s Quest pursuing your Vision of Success join our tribe at theVision Quest Retreats face book page

If you are a Woman Business Owner come play with us every Wed. at Women Owned Business Wednesdays; a 24 Hr Happy Hour where you meet cool people and win cool stuff!