A few additional thoughts:

One of the best business assets to have…

…is an open heart.

Indeed, we each have a heart.

And each heart is able to open.

So the question to ask is: How often do you let yours open up – and for how long?

If you answered “occasionally” and “for milliseconds,” I totally understand.

Closing our heart is a reflex most of us learned at a very early age.

A closed heart often feels absolutely natural, relatively comfortable, and like we are fully protected from the slings and arrows of failure, rejection, criticism, and shaming.

Except that a closed heart is not necessarily a protected heart. Just like an open heart is not necessarily an unprotected heart.

Closing yourself down and protecting yourself are two different things.

This is an important distinction because very often what is holding you back from shifting to a higher level is the fact that your heart spends too much time closed…

…closed to receiving help and to celebrating victories and to making bold moves and to doing things imperfectly.

Those are all things that make us feel vulnerable and thus trigger us to tuck our heart behind closed doors.

But those are also all of the things that are required to make our dreams come true.

This practice – of keeping your heart open* a little longer each time the urge to close it hits you – might be exactly what’s needed for you to make your next big leap.

* If you’d like some guidance about HOW to open (and keep open) your heart, this book is a good place to start: Radical Acceptance by Dr. Tara Brach.

Onward!