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Light Bulb Moments

Written by: Eva Gregory

Article Overview: You know, those moments when you experience complete comprehension, total memory, or supreme brilliance. The moment when your problems have solutions, when your worries disappear, and you have "the" plan? I'm talking about your own personal Aha moment or the point in time when you realized that you were just on the cusp of something major? Just close your eyes and think of how good it feels in that moment.

Light Bulb Moments

You know, those moments when you experience complete comprehension, total memory, or supreme brilliance. The moment when your problems have solutions, when your worries disappear, and you have "the" plan? I'm talking about your own personal Aha moment or the point in time when you realized that you were just on the cusp of something major? Just close your eyes and think of how good it feels in that moment. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to bottle those moments? To relive them and the feelings that they evoked in you? To be able to recreate that truly receptive period in your mind when everything comes together in total synchronicity for your inevitable success? Well there are various ways that you can.

When Delores was trying to spice up her love life she took to journaling. She started by listing the qualities of her dream man, what she wanted from the relationship, and the general time table. As she began to meet men she jotted down the details in her journal. Delores tweaked her ideal man list over time and ended up with exactly the man she was looking for. Her journal serves as a powerful reminder to her of what, or who you can make materialize as long as you don't skimp on the details. Delores now regularly journals and is in what she considers "the perfect" relationship.

Sinthia experiences most of her Aha moments after meditation. She finds that when she takes herself to a place and lets go of the problem and the pressure of the problem, that she is able to open herself up to the myriad of potential solutions. In fact she says that when she brings a problem with her to meditation, there are always multiple solutions to her problem when she is ready to address it. But often, Sinthia finds that a single solution seems to materialize for her with such unwavering clarity that she always knows that it is her ideal solution. Sinthia uses various types of meditations depending on her mood, but says that she writes down what she experiences as soon as her sessions are over using her five senses sight, smell, taste, hear, and touch as a guide. She says that those journal entries always serve as her passage back into the moment, if and when she needs it to.

Like Sinthia, many have learned the value of the light bulb moment. They serve as evidence to how powerful the individual is. They create a positive atmosphere in which an individual can embrace the fact that they are the creator of their own destiny, and remain in the place of creation. When the atmosphere is duplicated it can serve as a short-cut back to that ideal time and place where reception is already amped up for optimum results.

As masters of creating our own reality, wouldn't it be cool to learn how to tune in to achieve all that is desired with great ease and little effort? There are many things that work for many people. The key is to find the thing, or things, as there can be more than one, that works for you. Meditation, yoga, reading, writing, journaling and listening to music are all vehicles that delivered others to their light bulb moment destinations. Many have also found that no matter the vehicle, writing it down seems to just solidify and validate the process to the mind.

Aha moments are awesome things. They let us know we're on the right track. They tell us that we've finally removed the obstacles that have been blinding us and keeping us from the next step. Each aha moments brings us that much closer to the goal, result, dream that has been spurring us on. Just think of how much easier it will be to achieve goals if you can put yourself in a place with the proper tools, to be receptive to the ideas that come with great ease. Just relax and let them flow.

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Article Tags: achieve, comprehension, desire, Eva Gregory, goals, solutions, success, synchronicity



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Re: Did you reach your goal this year? - I love the honesty in this thread. There is so much power in that! It's reassuring to remember that entrepreneurship is TOUGH. But I find that very motivating. But to know that we all CAN do it, if we only stay the course. Sometimes I can compare myself with the worlds most famous whoever, and then feel discouraged. But that's not really realistic now is it? I've had a lot of ups and downs since I moved to Manhattan 3 years ago, and last year was no exception. I've been really surprised by some happy developments though -- just when you think everything is going to fail, something good happens! Last year, I'm most proud of being invited to speak at 3 different events, getting 6 new clients, and having a magazine article published about my coaching. A few years ago I never would have thought I could do any of that -- I had some really frustrating times where I was seeming to get nowhere. So for me, dealing w/ disappointment,frustration, and having realistic expectations has improved over the last 5 years, and now it's helped me to become a better coach for others going through the same thing. I really do understand what it's like to move to NYC alone w/ a suitcase, not have an apartment,and meanwhile try to start a business w/o support. It was sort of a right of passage for me. Side note story, but sort of represents some of the feelings I'm talking about here -- I used to make paintings. I'd sell them online. I made one called "idealism" which was basically showing how there is no place for idealism, art, or new ideas is a society of grids and stop lights and cubicles. It was an extremely low time for me, and I wanted to take all of my paintings to the dumpster -- I almost did! My mom called me and insisted that I not throw them out. Within a month, a stranger in NYC (I was still in AZ at the time), bought my idealism painting. This buyer must have felt the same way I did, and that alone proved to me that there WAS a place for what I had to offer in the world -- even if I couldn't see it at the time. I then moved to NYC where there was much more of a place for what I had to offer. Moments like that drive me forward, past whatever doesn't seem to be working.
Meet Mary Sue Milliken - chef and restaurant owner - Mary Sue Milliken will be at our "Launching an Edible Life" event February 4 in Los Angeles ... come join us! Contact aswift@ladieswholaunch.com for registration details. If there's just one thing you need to open a restaurant, it would have to be a stove, right? Think again. When Mary Sue Milliken and her best friend/fellow chef/business partner Susan Feniger opened City Cafe in Los Angeles in 1981, they had no stove or oven, only a hot plate and a hibachi out back in the alley. Humble digs, especially for two professionally trained chefs-Milliken had attended Washburne Culinary Institute, while Feniger studied at the Culinary Institute of America. Their resumes included stints at three-star restaurants in France, Spago in Los Angeles, and Le Perroquet in Chicago, where they met in 1978-the first women working in that restaurant's all-male kitchen. Rich in experience and vision, but not in funds, they were happy to have a restaurant to call their own and quickly began perfecting a unique, multicultural fare, which incorporated recipes from Greek, Indian, and Thai cultures, as well as their own mothers' recipes. Once they expanded to City Restaurant in 1985, they became culinary icons, recognized for their fresh mix of refined culinary technique and exotic Third World flavors, all dished up with down-home charm and playful enthusiasm. Now overseeing 375 employees between the Border Grill restaurants in Santa Monica and Las Vegas and Ciudad in downtown Los Angeles, the partners have also found time to write five cookbooks, including the recent Mexican Cooking Essentials for Dummies; host the popular Food Network shows "Too Hot Tamales" and "Tamales World Tour"; and launch the Border Girls brand at Whole Foods Market. What we learned from Mary Sue: Not every venture will be successful, but every experience will be worthwhile. "You've got to bounce back and just keep going. They're all great lessons to learn." Words of Wisdom "I think we both subconsciously were willing to start in a really meager setting, just because it was an opportunity not to work for a man." Penniless But Passionate "We had come home [from France] with the intent to open a restaurant together, and we didn't have a penny to our names. I was 23 years old. I had not been to college. I had no idea how to launch a business. None. Susan had a degree in economics and had been to chef's school. She's five years older than me. But she also didn't have any idea how to launch a business." Cook What You Know "First of all, you just copy things. But then, it starts to be a very personal cuisine, which is what we basically used those three-and-half years at City Cafe for-to create our own personal style of food. And it was so well-received. It started out as country French food, and it kept expanding all the time." 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"We were just making educated guesses-or uneducated guesses. In the end, $660,000 was not enough money at all. We were completely short, and we had to get an angel to come in and sign a guarantee on a bank line of credit for us. Really, it was a stressful opening, because we only had like two-and-a-half days in the kitchen with food before we had to open the doors to the public because we were so broke." Hindsight Is 20/20 "If I knew then what I know now, I would have somehow found some financial bridge so that we could have had a little more practice before we opened. I mean, literally, the first couple weeks, there were nights that we didn't even go home, and we were really burning the candle down to zero." It's a Man's World "I think we were both ready to be on our own. And the prospect of working under men, and working our way up, and trying to fight through all of the barriers, looked less fulfilling than just starting out [on our own]. Even though we didn't even have a stove, we still opted to start out calling our own shots." Know When to Grow "The growth ... it's a really personal thing. It depends on how equipped you are for the challenge and stress of growth, and how your business is doing. I mean, we've grown where things worked out really well, and we've grown where it's created a big strain on the existing businesses, and the new businesses didn't work." On Losing Money "When I look back on it, I think, 'Well, I didn't go to college. That's about how much college might cost me. I'll just chalk it up to experience.' Now I have an even better understanding, and luckily, it didn't happen at a time when I really couldn't afford it. But I'll tell you, being an entrepreneur and being in business is a real roller coaster." A Thankless Job Has Its Rewards "When the Food Network came asking for us to come and promote our second book, and they noticed we were funny and how we finished each other's sentences, they said, 'You girls should have a TV show.' The reason we should have had a TV show was that we did all of this really thankless teaching before that, and I'm not even sure it brought bodies into the restaurant. A lot of people might have looked at it as a waste of time. But I think you never know what skill you're going to develop, [and our teaching gave us the skills we needed to do the Food Network show.]" Be a Great Boss "We learn a lot from our colleagues, and from other companies that we want to be like. We're always looking for innovative ways to really make our workplace so phenomenally attractive that we can't lose good people, and we can attract the best. Those are big goals for us all the time." My Most Rewarding Business Moments... 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Meet Kim Kleeman - Shakespeare Squared: Named one of Inc.'s - THIS IS PRETTY INTERESTING. WISH I'D THOUGHT OF IT FIRST!!!! Meet Kim Kleeman: Shakespeare Squared: Named one of Inc.'s 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America. Recognized as one of Working Mother magazine's 25 Best Small Companies. Awarded the title of Illinois Family Business of the Year. Lofty accomplishments for company founder Kim Kleeman, a woman who just a few short years ago swore she would never own her own business! Having grown up the child of business-owner parents, Kleeman knew well the stresses and demands that entrepreneurial life can place upon a family. She met her husband, Jay, on the first day of college, and together they earned their teaching degrees and started making plans for a modest but happy life. When Jay's stint as a student teacher strained the family budget, though, they both started doing subcontract work proofing elementary school textbooks. 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So after my son was born, I enacted my own guerilla marketing plan and e-mailed every editorial director at the big publishing companies, looking for projects. We soon landed our first big client, HarperCollins Children's Books." Not About the Money "I just wanted to make the best company that I could and be happy doing it. If that included millions of dollars, great, but that wasn't really the goal. I didn't know at first how much work we would end up getting, but I think the extensive classroom experience of our people sets us apart in this field. As teachers ourselves, we understand the needs of our clients and we deliver on that." It Takes a Village "We employ over 400 freelance writers. Most are former teachers but we pull from publishing, journalism, and other fields as well. We developed a writing test that covers everything from copyrighting to educational taboos, and prospective freelancers must earn at least a B+. A nice plus with our business is the opportunity we can offer teachers for life beyond teaching. I really promote teachers in the classroom, but if the classroom just isn't your thing and you're still passionate about education, there is a place for you here." Those Who Can, Teach "Educators in this country are getting a bad rap. We ask them to perform many roles and yet we're not supporting them as a society. Prospective teachers must student teach to become certified and are expected to not work while doing so, but there are so many people from diverse backgrounds who would love to teach-and who would be great teachers-who can't afford to do that. The Shakespeare Squared Foundation helps pay for prospective teachers to student teach. My passion is to get the right teachers in place, because that makes all the difference for students." The Best and the Brightest "It is definitely a challenge to find and retain the best talent, because I am up against large publishers. I have to provide a different culture and be creative in the way I offer benefits. We really believe in the work/life balance and offer such things as flex hours, remote work capabilities, and a working-parents room in the office. We've been recognized for these efforts, and because of them, our turnover is very low." Networking 101 "You have to go into a networking situation with the idea in mind that there will be one person in the crowd who can make a difference to you, and you have to find that person. You may be talking to someone who makes shoelaces and has nothing in common with your business, but she may know someone in your field or know about an interesting business practice that could translate to your own. But the bottom line is that if it's not the right conversation, you politely cut it short and move on." Strength in Numbers "There is so much value in the process of incubating an idea with other women. 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Most Rewarding Moments "Winning the Working Mother award as one of the 25 Best Small Companies felt pretty great because it showed that having a unique workplace does pay off. But even better is realizing that your message is getting across to your people. I love seeing quotes at my team's desks about goals and achieving your dreams, all of the exact things I say to empower them. It's cool to realize that there isn't a lot of cynicism, and that people are really buying into these ideas and making them their own." Parting Thoughts ... "My secret weapon is the news articles that I send to my team." "I will retire when I have no more dreams to accomplish." "I will always think of myself as a teacher." "My greatest strength is my enthusiasm." This featured lady was profiled by Noelle Pechar Hale, a freelance writer living in Los Angeles.


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