Getting Personal Here…

Here’s a throwback post from 2011:

It’s after 2 in the morning and I’m still wide awake – just read my sister’s blog and I’m re-inspired to try harder to share more of my real and raw experiences, too.  Here comes a real and raw one now:

If you’ve known me very long, you may have noticed how I’ve sort of fallen off the map since May. (Thankfully, today’s technology allows me to automate much of my business and take a sabbatical when I need one without it being too obvious. One way I did this was by pulling out some of my favorite, archived articles/blog posts and recycling them, or talking about other interesting people and the messages they had to share instead of my own.)

As I’ve said before (like I did in my class, “Lessons Learned Since Writing Jackrabbit Factor,”) our world turned upside down about 5 years ago. Everything that had been going so well (you know, all those reasons I wrote Jackrabbit Factor and Hidden Treasures in the first place) suddenly imploded. Well, not suddenly – it seemed to happen in slow motion – so slow that we hardly noticed what was happening.

Let me back up. After our first big financial breakthrough in 2000, and after having enjoyed our new success for several years, we made some careless investment decisions. When we finally became completely conscious of the problem, we believed that we could “make” those bad decisions into good ones somehow just by “thinking right”.

A hard lesson I learned was that, sure, while it may be true that in every adversity there is a seed of equal or greater benefit, that doesn’t mean the adversity will go away with right thinking.

It only promises that something good can be born from it.

It seemed that no matter how much positive thinking I mustered, our situation refused to improve. It felt as though the principles were suspended on my behalf and it didn’t matter how well I lived what I had been teaching, none of it seemed to be working as it had in the past.

So as you can imagine, one of my biggest stresses was figuring out what to do with the business. My husband had long since left his job to help me with it. But now, what about my books? What about our websites and programs? If the principles really didn’t work any more, how could I possibly continue teaching them?

I wondered if it was time to just pull all the books from the bookstores and issue a public apology.  But, even as I fought my own demons, I continued to receive mail from readers all over the world who shared their success stories and profound gratitude for my work.  Ben Southall attained the World’s Best Job out of 34,000 applicants and credited my book for his success on a national news program. Publishers from other countries were asking for the rights to my book. Business owners were talking about how my programs had helped them multiply their revenues. Mothers shared stories of how they got the money they needed even after all appearances indicated it should have been impossible.

I read their expressions of gratitude and began to feel jealous of my readers’ successes. I began to feel like a pawn – an instrument in God’s hand, helping thousands of people achieve their dreams, but not being allowed to achieve MY dream, which was to just live a simple life enjoying my children and focusing 100% on my own little family.

Each time I seriously thought about quitting, I remembered those people and their stories. Simultaneously, I felt God telling me, “Keep teaching – you don’t make the principles true or false by how well you live them.”

Actually, we had quite a few arguments about that, God and I. But He always won. I’d throw my Felicity tantrum, and get bitter, rebellious and cynical. I’d try to ignore the needs of the business and just DECIDE to live the life I wanted. But then life always had a way of throwing me back into the work.

In my rebellious moments, I derived tremendous pleasure out of cleaning a toilet, or reorganizing a cupboard.  After all, that’s what normal people do, right? I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to let go of the pressure I felt to be a shining example of right thinking.

I can’t tell you how many times I logged into Facebook, sorely tempted to update my status with what I was really feeling.  I can be really good at sarcasm, but I also know how damaging it can be, so I resisted.

Over time, I began to learn new lessons. Deep, profound, clarifying insight into the same principles I had thought I understood before. My mind opened up and all the pain began to have purpose again. I began to write the Jackrabbit Factor sequel, Portal to Genius, to document what I was learning. We had new breakthroughs, and began to see our finances turning around. We had some of our best months we’d ever had, but still had a pretty deep hole to climb out of.

The final verdict was this: I knew the principles were true. I knew that things around me changed according to my thoughts and emotions. I knew that things went better when I lived with childlike faith, and took the time to “see” the outcome I really desired and answered the question: How would it really feel if…?

It’s just that sometimes I didn’t feel like doing it. I was tired. I was discouraged. I was impatient. I was embarrassed. Thinking right takes effort and intention, and frankly, sometimes it’s just plain easier NOT to do it.

Anyway, I really do need to get some sleep, but all this is leading up to why I had to drop off the map in May, and what’s happened since.  It’s actually very exciting. 🙂

So stay tuned… and g’nite!

Read the follow-up post here

Leslie Householder
Latest posts by Leslie Householder (see all)

This Post Has 71 Comments

  1. Jill

    Than k you very much for this post. After reading your books and seeing great progress in or life, we faced something very similar. Something that made us doubt our new course. We are not giving up, but I am so glad to know that you had a setback, despite “right thinking” and I am excited to learn more about your solution…

  2. Kim altig

    Oh my…I could simply say …ditto…but I’m not quite as far along as you…tho your post has given me a place to start unraveling… If you have the time to look at my website you will recognize the signs of adding and adding trying to find the part that will sustain me. What you cannot see is the history and the current inner activity. I know in my heart that I have been given the gifts I have to share with others…yet I feel more like the reluctant messiah in Richard Bachs book, Illusions. People throw tantrums when I say I am done. If I try to reduce my work load by finding homes for some of my horses, two things happen…1. Just as I finish pulling my skin off and let go enough to say goodbye…someone says …”stop”…” I’ll pay for him to stay”. Which of course they only follow thru with for just long enough for me to give up the idea of reducing… Or 2. I find a good home for a horse, prepare my heart, which involves a bunch of emotional diarrhea …get the horse ready…with his ton of hay to help with the transition…and then they change their mind…I feel incredibly stuck.

    Your post has given me hope…not that I will find a way to continue with what I am doing, but that the spirit that supports me, has nodded with approval, I have run the race, I have done the work, the field has been sown, it is time to move on…I read a passage in a book the other day that said…if the lettuce does not grow well, you do not blame the lettuce! …or perhaps the story of a young girl digging madly through a pile of horse crap…when asked why she was doing it…she responded…with all this crap, there is bound to be a pony somewhere! It is time to stop blaming myself, stop thinking it through…stop looking for a pony in a pile if crap…and instead to celebrate life…I can walk and talk and dance and hold my grandchildren …that is the pony I want…

  3. Johann van As

    If a person fails it only means that the road will change for the better.
    It also means that the previous road was not intended, because you deserve better

  4. Tracy

    Leslie,
    I love your real and raw truth… I believe it’s just as helpful as what you teach formally… I believe we all face these kinds of contradictions in our lives… and I believe what results from it when we push through is a deeper, greater, and more profound level of understanding, ability, and possibility. Thanks for sharing yourself and your experience… every bit of it is encouraging and inspiring!

  5. nj

    Thank you, Leslie, for being YOU. Really. I love your openness and authenticity. I like how you shared how you felt and sometimes wanting to go on fb and share how you really felt; then choosing differently. Actually, I liked the whole article. It was like a breath of fresh air and mystery all rolled into one. I am looking forward to what you have to share next time. Thanks for risking and sharing.

  6. Nancy

    Oh Leslie! You should definitely leave it! It is so unbelievably scary posting something like this. I am so proud of you for doing it and not taking it down. Leave it! I recently took an unscheduled hiatus from my own blog. It happens! You’re awesome and I love receiving your newsletter, real and raw. 🙂 Thank you for sharing from your heart!

    Oh and, what happens next??

  7. Dawn

    Leslie,
    We don’t always have to learn from our own experiences. I am grateful to learn from others so I don’t have to keep repeating the same mistakes. I am so glad you shared and hope you will leave it up.

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