Invest in Your Now...

“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore,” by André Gide, is a quote I kept on my refrigerator for years, reminding me to continually re-evaluate my loyalties, what I was holding on to, and the shores that beckoned me.
 
In his book The Illusion of Money, Kyle Cease gives the example of three hypothetical women (Helen A, B and C) and the way they invest a million dollars that comes into their lives. Helen A quits her job and spends hers on parties, novelty art, and a car she won’t be able to continue to afford, among other such things. Helen, B keeps her job and invests in real estate and the stock market with an average return of 10%. Helen C quits her job and begins taking workshops that move her toward her joy, hires a personal trainer for fitness, changes her eating habits, begins traveling and transforming herself. She gets ready to start her own business.
 
Going forward, Helen A has significantly less money at the end of a year and nothing to show for it. Eventually she runs out and is back where she started. Helen B is responsible with her money. She is invested for the long term, gaining returns as long as the market is increasing, but she is still investing in other people and other people’s projects. If the economy wavers, so do her returns. And she has not invested in or moved the meter of her own joy.
 
Helen C’s investments go with her. She has expanded as a person, is growing herself and her skills. She is prepared in a new economy with who she has become. She has placed herself in a new position to continue to follow her joy and passion for wise decisions that bring her greater returns.  
 
She has created a more nimble position inside and out to innovate and create as the world changes. Though she initially has less money at the end of the year than Helen B, her investments bring greater returns over time, including investing in the market, if she chooses.
 
This is a powerful example, albeit hypothetical in the book, that is the real world experience of many, including myself. Joy, intuition, self-investment, and the gratitude that goes with it, is a powerful resilience model that also guides the practical decisions we make daily for business and all of life.
 
As the corona virus moves across the globe, This is a time of new beginnings; oceans and lands inside and out that await our arrival. Our investment. Utilize the rapid movement that is taking place like a wave of energy moving underneath you. Trust your vessel. As rapidly as shifts are happening, stay nimble. 
 
Flow with what happens next to navigate your next move. Invest in yourself in a way that is right for you. Evolutionary support, rest, a new project, new directions in your business, contemplation, nature, and play. 
 
What new equilibrium is seeking you out? As life picks up again, we will be in a new world. Are you releasing your old shores or hanging on? How are you investing in yourself? 
 
Before the word corona was attached to a virus, it had many meanings. It’s interesting to consider those meanings symbolically with the current global situation. The 16^th century Latin root referred to a crown or wreath. Here are additional meanings according to Google: 
 

• the rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other stars. The sun's corona is normally visible only during a total solar eclipse, when it is seen as an irregularly shaped pearly glow surrounding the darkened disk of the moon.
• the glow around a conductor at high potential. 
• a small circle of light seen around the sun or moon, due to diffraction by water droplets.
• a part of the body resembling or likened to a crown.
• the cup-shaped or trumpet-shaped outgrowth at the center of a daffodil or narcissus flower.
• a circular chandelier in a church.
• a part of a cornice having a broad vertical face.

 
Perhaps this is a time of greater light brilliantly eclipsed in a pandemic. To grow the glow around you and your highest potentials. For you to grow more nimble in a changing world, shrug off the attachments to the old shore and find yourself in rarified air with other stars that can’t wait to shine with you.
 

With great love and thankfulness, 

Shelley

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