“You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more.” Oprah Winfrey.

Leadership skill: Staying the course. I didn’t realize that taking the plunge to start a Blog & shout out to the universe what I wanted without fear or apology, not dimming it down, but being the full expression of it, would become a journey back to my Wild Feminine, back to my essence, my intuition, my Spirit.

That it would open me in ways I can’t fully describe, sacred ways…ancient ways.  That it would plunge me head on into a transformation that my Spirit has been calling to me, I think since I was put on this planet & return me back to myself – my Self.

And that I would begin to blossom, slowly at first, with a few scrapes & bruises, but slowly….to feel the blossoming of my soul into this Wild, Feminine, unapologetic creature with unbounded, relentless soul & a business mind to be reckoned with.  I used to hide these parts of myself.

How could I be taken seriously if I am so feminine?  How can I be a business woman & laugh & play & act a little kooky while putting a deal together?  How could I create win/win/win’s in everything I do without compromising my soul to do it?

I live in a world where so many things reverberate back to me the opposite of my deeply held beliefs.  Things like – you have to take what you can, there isn’t enough, to be in business you have to screw people over, get your head out of the clouds business isn’t personal, it’s just business.

I don’t hold the belief in a La-La Land, but I do hold the belief that with some thought, care, love & a great group of intelligent people who have a desire to do things differently but also understand the way the world works & know how to create success can honest to goodness change the world.

That’s not a pipe dream & it’s not a fabrication of my imagination & I’m not some silly girl with pie in the sky ideas, which very honestly is what I thought of myself for a long time.  That is, until I started to see all the things in my intuition I knew were next start to manifest.

I saw markets shift before they shifted, I saw opportunities before they were recognized, I saw solutions where everyone else said there were just problems, I saw ways to make it work that were win/win/win with a few adjustments here & there to a model that could be effective & efficient.  But I didn’t trust myself.  I didn’t listen to my intuition, I wanted everyone around me to agree with me before I’d move forward.  And I did a great job at creating all the wrong people around me who could only see the negative, the can’t, the problem, to be extra sure I wouldn’t bloom too far forward.

And one after another, I’ve seen the market shift in exactly the way I predicted, the opportunity become recognized & capitalized by someone else, the solutions be built & the success be had – by others.  While I sat on the sidelines.

This journey, this return back to myself – to embracing my wild, my crazy, my moon-influenced behavior, my rational irrationality, my ebb, my flow, my razor sharp focus, my lightening fast connections, my deep intuition – it has led me further away from what I thought I should become &, miraculously, returned something I thought I’d lost long ago.  Something I had felt stripped of, ripped from, raped & pillaged of & never could really quite articulate.  My deep, feminine knowing. The truth beyond illusions, the deeper meaning of it all, the “what’s not being said”, the love withheld.

And rather than not trusting it, I am listening to it & following it….to some very interesting places.  Stay the course….steady this ship of mine, the waves of doubt are vast & heavy, the uncertainty is stifling, the air is thick & hot with fear & yet I press on.  What task to unfold in this next initiation – it could bring me to my knees….it could bring me to my feet….it could rip my heart in half & serve it back to me, it could take my broken heart & heal those wounds for me.  I don’t know….

 

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

“I am a woman in process. I try to take every conflict, every experience, & learn from it. Life is never dull.” Oprah Winfrey.

Leadership skill: execution. It’s great to have a great idea, but if you don’t bring it across the line into being, it stays right there in idea-ville, where eventually it coughs & dies.  An idea is really just the first 10%, the rest is building team, solving problems, managing psychology & psyche & execution.

How many tries & fails? How many almosts but not quites? How many stories have you heard from friends or relatives or associates that tell you about their “great idea” that is “sure to make millions”.

Whenever I hear those ideas,that’s usually my queue to run.  Or turn on my polite & demure hat where I play stupid for 15 of the longest minutes of my life to listen, while every fibre of my being wants to poke bazooka sized holes in this idiotic rendition of an idea I’m painstakingly listening to.

The truth is, most people have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about, what it takes to bring the seed through to fruition or how much they will be tested, trialed, chewed up & spit out in the process.  I definitely know I would have never signed up had I had any full knowledge of what the ride was going to look like.  Words like perseverance, iron stomach, tenacity, determination, responsibility, commitment, ownership – they don’t even begin to describe it.

Today, of all days, I have been tested in my development company on one of our projects.  Two deals live, then collapsed.  Two important deals.  Two extremely important deals. Two, holy bananas thank God these deals came through because I was feeling on my last legs to stand here, have collapsed.  And I’m back at the beginning, further behind then when I started no answers, no new deals in sight, no solution. Scared. Alone. Uncertain of what’s next.

It’s easy to shout hurrah when you’re winning, but what about when what shows up is a loss, followed by another loss & another & another, until you feel so beaten up you’re not sure you can stand again? In my experience, this is really where the rubber meets the pavement in creating what you want to create.  And it’s not easy.

My frightened parts, emotionally immature self wants to vacate. Push the eject button, go on a 3 day bender, go hang out in pity party-ville, ignore the pink elephant in the room charging for me, pretend it’s all ok, sink down into a depression & give up because it’s just too hard.  And I won’t lie, I’m certain I spent quite a bit of time there for at least a day or 2, sometimes you just need a little permission to go on a pity party….as long as it has an expiry…

My empowered feminine self is quieter today, rocked a little, uncertain a lot. But as my pity party timeline expires (12am Sunday – clock runs out Krystine, pick up bootstraps now), I slowly start to hear her voice again.  Time to get it done. I don’t know the answer, I don’t have a solution, I don’t even really know where to start, I’m overwhelmed & understaffed, but I will pick up my ownership, my responsibility, my clarity, my supports, I will ask for help, I will seek out solutions & I will engage my team to help me find answers & get results.  I’ll go deep in my psyche & transform what need be, I won’t be afraid to face myself, even if what I see is ugly & dark & hard to look at.  I will move forward, I will summon my Warrior Goddess to bring these battled & bruised & weakened soldiers across the line & cry tears of joy when we do…or I will die trying.

Maybe that’s a little over dramatic, but for those who have faced the harsh realities of their own shortcomings, their own failures, their own compromised integrity or biggest fears, they’ll know it’s not far from truth.

No one tells you that success is an inner game first, that having a great idea is really the easy part, that, for some of us, crossing the line in succeeding will mean confronting the darkest parts of our nature, our deepest fears & insecurities, again & again & again. Most don’t survive.  This is where ideas die on the vine.  Do you really have what it takes?

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

“Surround yourself with people who will only lift you higher” Oprah Winfrey.

Leadership skill: owning your power & greatness. Lots of people think that if they make money it will solve all of their problems. If that’s you, stop it…immediately. It’s the single most dis-empowering thing you can do to yourself.  Here’s why.

If you’re a person who thinks “if only I made X dollars, all of the Y problems in my life would be solved” – you are not only delusional, but you are single-handedly keeping yourself away from the very thing you think you want. Money.

People who build success don’t just think or know, but vibrate in every cell of their being that they are absolutely responsible for their own success, they own their power, they create their reality & they fully commit to do whatever it takes, tenaciously, relentlessly, to cross the line.

When you make a statement like the pathetic & disempowering one I mentioned, you are a victim, you have given your power away & you are at the effect of “life” who “dealt you a bad hand”, “didn’t give you better parents”, “gives everyone else the easy road”, etc, etc, etc. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Everyone is dealt the hand they’re dealt, it’s what you do with it that matters.  People who build success know the only one responsible for their success is them, and they firmly take the reigns of their ship & own it – good, bad & ugly.  Nothing is more empowering than true ownership.

How do you know if you’re truly owning your power & your greatness? It’s simple – you’ll be creating results & those results will be nurturing you. And when you are owning your results, owning your power, owning your brilliance & your vision, the money will follow.

I always find it so funny how easily I can be derailed because someone makes a comment or has an opinion or a judgment. They want to tell me what I should do, or how they think things should go.  In those moments, I get angry.  Not because of what they say, but because I shrink, I give my power away & I don’t fully own who I am, my capacity, my brilliance, my absolute razor sharp vision & intuition.  I shrink, then I doubt, then I start to change things.  I’m angry because in those moments, I have given my power away & am not in my true Ownership.

The truth is, I am a brilliant manifestor of exponential growth, I build wealth easily for my clients, I have vision for what’s next that is incredibly accurate & I make connections that are unseen by others.  I am powerful.  I am a formidable opponent in a boardroom. I am so highly intelligent that it borders on mad scientist. And my capacity is massive enough to steward a global company worth hundreds of millions, if not into the billions. And I can do it all in balance with my relationships, my health & my sanity, from the calm & from the deeply, deeply feminine, while also having a deeply nurtured spiritual self & a family.

And in all of that, I am absolutely terrified to truly own it.  My fear is I’ll be seen as a tyrant, I’ll be judged, I will be alone because no man could stand beside a woman like that, I should play small if I want to have a family & hide my power so I don’t make a man insecure around me.  These are actual thoughts that go through my head….daily.

Its hard, for me, to be in my ownership all the time.  But every day I take another stride forward, another stand for me, another opportunity to thank the peanut gallery for sharing and direct them to the comment box of “I don’t give a shit” & just truly own that THIS is the way I do it.  I didn’t say it was the right way, but it’s my way.  And this is my life, my path, my terms and there are no scripts in life.

My Universe & I have a clear connection & I know my path.  Yes, it might look a little wacky, maybe even downright crazy. But I don’t believe we were put on this planet to conform, I believe we are here to stretch the wings of our creative potential, to break the norms, to bust the conformity wide open, to take a stand for our own uniqueness in a sea of the same & soar, wild & free.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

 

As a woman entrepreneur committed to running a purpose driven business, I noticed how often I struggle daily with these 3 questions

“Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a different way to stand.” Oprah Winfrey.

When you’ve connected a company with your spiritual path & purpose – anything that is not aligned & vibrating at that level of spiritual integrity needs to be transformed.

If I am not aligned in my personal & spiritual integrity to be able to steward my vision, then I will keep bumping up against my own issues, inadequacies, low vibrational consciousness again & again until I either transform it & breakthrough or I fail.

Its a fairly simple natural law – one I think most women entrepreneurs often overlook.

For me, my vision of making mortgages fun & building green projects that matter is not lightweight by any means & whether I knew it or not at the time, some of the challenges I would need to overcome to steward this vision have been more difficult then I could have ever imagined.

My business is seasoned, but not mature, rapidly growing but still moving through growing pains, scaling from my current level to the next level, but constantly dealing with the challenges of a start up.  At this level, the 3 questions I face on a daily basis are:

1. How committed am I?
2. How disciplined am I?
3. How badly do I want what I want?

When I am confronted by all of my insecurities, failures, inadequacies, when I’m working so hard but the scales keep feeling like they’re tipping away from me, when I’m overwhelmed & overloaded & pulled in so many directions I can barely keep my head above water – how badly do I want what I want? And am I willing to go the full distance, not knowing if the answer will be yes?

I see so many women stop here, fail before they cross the line because of the fear of failure.  I want to say that one more time, I’ve seen so many women entrepreneurs fail because they are afraid that the answer will be no, that they will fully commit, they will put their hearts on the line in their business & they will fail.  So instead of fully committing, being disciplined, being focused, they fail first.  Save the heartache & devastation of what would happen if they really committed their hearts & passion & purpose & they were destroyed.  I know for me, it is a survival mechanism, built out of wanting to protect my fragile emotional self from pain & heartbreak.

Some of the things I bump up against have nothing to do with the world outside but everything to do with the world inside me. My own self-doubt, my negative self-talk, my fear of success, my unsupportive belief systems. Some of those things are extremely difficult to look at & even harder for me to own. Where I fail, where I come short of the whole distance, where I’ve compromised myself, where my personal integrity has been out of line. It’s painful to look in that mirror, see what I have done to create a situation, own it & then vulnerably open in surrender, not knowing what the answer will be. More pain? More to transform? Or a breakthrough?

It feels like a long, dark tunnel, with little wins here & there that have kept me going, but this journey has been arduous, wrought with so many difficulties, so many fears triggered, so much to face at times I don’t know if I can do it.

And when the tunnel is dark & the fears are many, & the last desperate hope that I’ve been clinging to to get me through falls away & I am left alone, in the silence, with no answers…..it is the mirror I face. To look within.

At this level, I have done a lot of inner work & outer work to become the leader I want to be…but what’s left inside of me to transform….it is the terrified bits of myself, down to the brass tax. What I am up against is my own terror to be vulnerable, to be authentic in the world without armour, exposed, naked, real, honest.  To be my truth. And my deep horror & fear that when I look within at this depth, what I see is that I am not being as authentic as I think I am, I am not being as honest, as integrous, as truthful. When I look within, I see my own compromised integrity, manipulated emotions, behaviours originally built as defence mechanisms that have now imploded & become saboteurs of my success.

My heart can’t take it, my stomach feels nauseous & I don’t know if I can do it, I am so terrified to face myself, so terrified to own these dark parts of who I am. The voice inside me, the one that drives my passion forward, is quiet & I feel alone, at the edge of a cliff, no supports, no bridge, no rope. Just me, all alone, facing the depths of myself……back to those 3 simple questions:

1. How committed am I?
2. How disciplined am I?
3. How badly do I want what I want?

As a woman entrepreneur, committed to running a purpose driven business, I must be solidly rooted in the answer to these questions, connected to my purpose, my passion & my reasons for wanting to create what I want – otherwise, I might give up, I might give in, I might cave to the fear & the pressure & the overwhelm.  Today….I feel those walls caving in a little….and as I write this post, I ask my readers to share this with women entrepreneurs they know who are building purpose driven businesses.  We all struggle in our movement forward, sometimes it feels very lonely, my commitment to my vision is growing deep roots as I move gently through these frightened bits of myself & I want to share my movement forward with other women entrepreneurs, to connect, inspire & relate.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca

 

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” Oprah Winfrey

Leadership skill – finding amazing mentors. I used to be on a men’s CEO board – me…& 12 old boys’ club CEOs. I was 25, had already made my first million, had an ego that was 10 times as big as I was & thought I knew it all. Those men handed my ass to me.

Any deal I brought forward, they hammered me, drilled it down, asked tough questions I didn’t know the answer to, threw it against the wall & when I’d had enough & couldn’t take anymore…they’d push me further.

I hated it, my ego was crushed, my confidence broken, my pride completely torn to shreds. But I loved them. I loved them because what they were doing was trying to keep me safe. I really didn’t know what I was doing, I was way over my head, I had a ton of vultures that were circling & couldn’t see the forest for the trees & worst of all….I had zero respect for money. I just flippantly walked through life as if I could create another million by blinking my eyes. I had to lose a lot of money before I finally started to let my ego go.

As an entrepreneur & a fiercely stubborn woman at times, it’s hard for me to hear other people when they’re poking holes in my world of possibilities. It’s hard for me to hear them, it deflates my creative process, it shakes my confidence & plants seeds of doubt in my intuition. I don’t like it.

But having people around me who want to keep me safe – by asking the hard questions, by not backing down even when I’m angry, that can match my power & dish it right back to me, I want these people in my team.

I’ve had a mentor for as far back as I can remember. I always thought – if I wanted to be a pro athlete, I’d get a rockstar coach. If I want to master my life – I’d do the same. Seems only logical.

Today, & for the past 8 years, my mentor team (or as I refer to them, my board of directors) is Living in Balance coaching. A group of high-level, highly connected & extremely successful women who have paved the path before me. Bridging the feminine, the spirit & the women’s way of doing business in balance. I love & trust these women completely & they are truly the backbone of my success.

Often times, I don’t like them very much. They ask the tough questions, they poke holes in my field of possibilities & they relentlessly fight for my safety – even when I’m kicking & screaming. But I love them & I trust them & I know they do it to make sure my creative space of infinite possibilities is firmly tethered to the ground. If I had one piece of wisdom for any women entrepreneurs, it would be to find an incredible mentor or coach, be open, learn & listen.

My board of directors is my sounding board. I don’t go to them for advice, I go to them to hash it out, find the holes I’m not seeing, bring in information & feedback & then, as the CEO of my ship, I make a decision for me & the direction of my company towards my vision & I am fully committed & responsible for it. There is no greater purpose for a board.

I have such gratitude for all of my mentors – the anal-retentively & most respected for complexity lawyer who taught me everything he knew, the 12 old boys’ CEOs who sat on that board & lovingly handed me my rear end to teach me how to really run a company, the personal coaches along the way to help me work through my emotional maturity & the absolutely brilliant women CEOs who today sit on my board as my mentors with Living in Balance.

Every guide a gift. I thank each one. Without them, I would be lost. How anyone can be successful without these sages who have paved the path is something of a wonder to me. I really don’t think anyone is. Behind each successful person is a mentor team of wise old owls, not to direct, but to guide with wisdom & love.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.didyouknowmortgage.ca

“I believe the choice to be excellent begins with aligning your thoughts and words with the intention to require more from yourself.” Oprah Winfrey.

I have this big vision for my life – maybe it’s crazy, maybe it’s not crazy enough.  I’ve spent a lot of years scaling it back so I don’t overwhelm people – it’s hard for others to support you when they are confronted by their own fears & their own inadequacies, their own issues around why they hold themselves back from being audacious & wild enough to share their deepest vision & live their dreams.  Maybe someone shut them down once so they spend their lives shutting others down.  Maybe it hurts too much to look at where they’ve given up.  Maybe they believe in lack & don’t think there is enough in life for everyone to shine & so they block out others for their own gain.  I don’t really know, but it’s one of the hardest things I find about human nature – our desire to drag people down rather than build them up.  I’ve learned how to hedge this my whole life – play small, cover up that crazy infinite possibility space that is as natural to me as breathing air, hide in the shadows.  Rather than shining my bright beam of absolute creative possibility that you can have, do, be anything if you work at it, if you are committed, if you go the distance, if you drop fear at the door & fail a whole lot & make a bunch of mistakes too – no one said it was going to be perfect.  But you pick yourself back up, dust off those bootstraps, have a few laughs, learn & go again.  It doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else – it’s between you & your Source & your path through this crazy game called Life.

When I think about requiring more from myself, it’s not about doing more, it’s about being more.  Being an absolute, unapologetic, bright as the Sun stand for my own creative force, for possibility, for wildly colouring outside the lines, stretching the norms & busting through limitations.  Holding the line without mercy or apology – that there is absolutely no greater truth than this.  That we were all put on this planet to fulfill our creative potential & that I stand in my truth to be a beacon for others, to absolutely destroy the “norm”, the “expectation”, the “way it is supposed to look”.  And that, above all else, we are ALL abundant – we were born of abundance & when we shine our light it does not take away from anyone, it does not overshadow but it empowers & it adds to & it is exponential in it’s creative force.  Abundance is our birthright – it is our minds that are sick & impoverished, & so we see lack everywhere.  When we own our abundance, not superficial egoic greed, but our TRUE abundance, we bestow a gift on the world.  The truth unlocks the power of our destiny & our lives become more real, more relaxed, more at ease.  We give more, we open deeper, we attach to less because we know we are enough & because we know this, we want for less.  We strive for purpose & meaning, not control & power.

To expect more from myself – that when I want to shrink because I feel someone getting uncomfortable around me, that instead, I tell the truth.  That in relationships with men, I don’t hide my gifts or pretend to be less than so they don’t feel inadequate, instead, I own them fully, not overpowering to overcompensate for my own insecurity, but in my own empowerment & that I hold the space for their empowerment too.  And if it’s too much for them, that I don’t make that mean anything about me & I don’t use it as a way to beat myself up, but that I look forward & onward to find other shining stars that are shining just as brightly.  That I don’t just know my truth, that I speak it, that I live it & don’t compromise it, not for anything.  That I can be everything that I want to be at the expense of nothing – an incredibly feminine woman, a lover, a wife, a mother, a ferocious business woman, a powerful leader, a brilliant steward of green living projects that make the world a more beautiful place, an advisor for clients who want to strategize mortgage solutions, a wild & fun City girl, a grounded & down to earth country girl, an artist, a muse, a yogi & a sage.  That I can be beautiful & smart, sexy & a brilliant leader, wild & fun & fiercely intelligent, that I don’t have to compromise being a woman for being a business-woman.  I can be all – in fact I am all.  This is an expectation that is worthy of living up to.  That is grounded in truth & authenticity.

I see my life again, a little clearer this time – not a scaled back version.  So many tries & fails, slowly, over time, they chip away at possibility.  They chip away at beauty & magic & settle down in practicality & normality – places my Spirit goes to die.  I am suffocating there, lost in a sea of Sameness, in different shades of grey blending, bleeding, into a life of complacency.  No.

Today, my strength in my conviction is renewed.  I am afraid, sometimes I feel alone, I don’t know what is around the next corner, I’m scared to open my heart lest it be broken yet again.  But then I think of the Goddess Athena – I think of her strength, her wisdom, her vision, her femininity, her capacity to love & the devoted men who would give their lives to protect her, the devoted citizens who praise & honour her guidance & the powerful, masculine God who stands beside her.  And I know that in the fog of what lays before me, I can hold on to the whisper of Her voice calling from within me.  To not settle, to not give up, to claim Her in my heart & let my life open in depth to find Her again….like I once knew, long ago…but like the faint remembrance of a dream, I had forgotten…

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field.  She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia.  Find more on her here: www.didyouknowmortgage.ca

 

“Difficulties come when you don’t pay attention to life’s whisper. Life always whispers to you first, but if you ignore the whisper, sooner or later you’ll get a scream.” Oprah Winfrey

Leadership Skill – letting go of what doesn’t serve you…..fast.  Consciousness is a funny thing.  The more we grow & evolve & become more authentically who we are meant to be in the world, the louder the whiplash is when we step out of alignment with that & try to fall back into old behaviours, old patterns, victim mentality, etc, etc.  Sometimes, it hits like a freight train, just to be sure you’re paying attention.  I’ve said before in my Blog posts to the Universe that one of my worst qualities as a business woman is my people pleasing nature – I want to be liked & I can have a chameleon quality with my personality at times.  I”m sure I built it as a way to find calm & peace in chaos & disorder from a young age.  I like harmony, I appreciate peace & calm & ease.  In a lot of instances, it serves me.  In business, & often times in my relationships – it is my Achilles heel.

But, whether I like it or not, Life keeps showing me that it’s just time to let it go.  To stand in my own empowerment & my own truth.  That although what others are going through & their reactions & their hurts & their struggles – although they matter, they aren’t MY responsibility & me catering myself to make others comfortable really doesn’t serve them or me.  I’ve been a people pleaser so long & so many people have gotten so used to it, that it is extremely uncomfortable for a lot of them now that I am standing up for what nurtures me & what serves me.  That I am standing up & saying although I appreciate you & wish you well – this situation doesn’t serve me, this deal doesn’t nurture me, this relationship doesn’t take care of me & so I choose something different, for Me.  And I matter enough to stand in my own life as the most important person in my world, that I love myself that much.  Selfish?  No.  Self-love.  Yes.

I’ve been working on this piece a very long time, but as I move my mortgage business & my green building projects forward – to share my gifts with the world – the last 10% of me transforming this behaviour or survival skill or whatever it has been is up.  And Life simply won’t let me move forward until I get the message loud & clear.

Am I going to lose some relationships as a result of standing fully in my Light?  Sadly, yes.  That part is always hard on me.  It’s hard to let go sometimes.  But why would I want any relationships in my life if they don’t nurture me?  That just seems like a terrible act of Self-loathing.  We are temporal, transitory beings, here for such a short while in this game called Life, why would I choose to spend my short time on this planet with people who don’t respect, love, care for & nurture me?  Why would I want to do anything or be with anyone or share my precious time in spaces that don’t fill me up?  Seems kind of silly really.

The part that makes me the most angry at times is when I see that I have let a snake in my garden, that I have allowed a situation or relationship or deal or whatever through my gates that really doesn’t serve me.  I’m not angry at them, I’m angry at me.  Because what that says to me is that somewhere inside, I have compromised myself.  I have said yes when I knew, if I really asked my Higher Self, I knew that the answer was no.  But that little martyr, self-sabotage behaviour shows up in sneaky ways – maybe I can help that person, maybe I can love them & nurture them & they will transform, maybe I can “make the deal work”.  What I’m really saying is, “please feel free to abuse me at your leisure, I’ll make excuses up for you about all the reasons why because I don’t really love myself either”.  And when I see that that is the truth, all my anger falls away & I see a deeper truth in it that just makes me so sad.  Sad for me, sad for them, sad for the world.  That we would treat ourselves & others this way.  If we are all Divine Beings, which I truly believe we all are, we are all God-incarnated, we are all God-essence, we are all Love….if that’s true, & for me it is true, then what are we doing to each other?

That I would allow myself to be treated with disrespect, with dishonour, like I don’t matter, like I’m unimportant & like I should be abused (really, in the end it is some form of abuse).  That I would tolerate that same behaviour in others.  That I would demand anything less than the purest, deepest love that I can give in this moment to myself & to others – it is a travesty of Spirit.  It is an epidemic on this planet & in all of our human hearts.  It is heartbreaking & soul crushing & brings in me such a profound sadness that my eyes fill with tears & my heart is torn in a million pieces.

The only thing I have control over is me.  I see, yet again, all the spaces I need to clean up where I have left that last 10% open & exposed & vulnerable to snakes.  That last 10% where I have been choosing, still, not to love myself fully.  That last 10% where I have allowed other people’s emotional neediness to take precedence over my own well-being.  I see people I have hired that aren’t a fit that I’ve kept a little too long out of that emotional attachment – where standing up for me means rocking the boat & maybe not really being liked that much, so I have been afraid to do it.  I see relationships where I am not being respected that have me hooked & I’ve played into that I need to let go of.  I see that every time I get caught in a web of this kind of self-abuse, emotional entanglement, it takes me away from being in my creative, empowered force, it takes away from the growth of my mortgage business, it takes away from the success of my development projects, it takes away from me being able to share my gifts with the world.

To stand in my Light & share my Light with the world through my gifts of making mortgages fun & creating beautiful green projects that matter, this is really my only wish.  And thanks be to Life for making sure I get the message loud & clear – that I can’t be my brightest Light & still hold on to this self-abuse program.  I have to let go of what doesn’t serve me.  People, situations, deals, clients – if it doesn’t nurture me, it has to go.  I don’t need an explanation, a rationalization or a reason.  Whatever the reaction is, it’s really not about me – the only thing that matters is that I be nurtured by my life.  Being my Light is being Love – & it starts with me being able to love myself completely & wholly, not 90% of the way, but 110% of the way.  And that is the greatest act of Self-love any of us can bestow, the greatest gift we can give back to the world.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field.  She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia.  Find more on her here: www.didyouknowmortgage.ca

“I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it.” Oprah Winfrey.

“I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it”  Oprah Winfrey.

Leadership Skill – forgiveness.  How do you live a life of freedom without forgiveness?  Like a bird in a cage, when we hold on to grievances they keep us trapped.  Sometimes we don’t realize that the door was open the whole time, we just had to let go.  It’s funny though, forgiveness really has nothing to do with other people, it’s always about Self.  I’ve never felt the need to run out & ask for forgiveness of anyone & I’m certain I’ve done some things to warrant it over my years.  But I’ve always understood that someone else’s interpretation of an experience or their digestion of a situation really hasn’t got a lot to do with me – it’s their process, their journey, their experience.  I’m on mine & I interpret or misinterpret my world & it leads me on my path.  I don’t feel like anyone needs to ask for my forgiveness for anything, & I’m certain there are many things that have happened in my life that would warrant it.

But my belief is that life is a journey, & a perfect one at that.  Every experience we ever have is divinely orchestrated, moving us from one miraculous moment to the next on our way back to God.  To wholeness, to divinity, to whatever it is you believe.  So I don’t hold grievances towards anyone for anything, because I believe in the perfection of life & that even if I don’t understand the reason now, it will reveal itself eventually, in this life or the next.  That definitely hasn’t been an easy skill to master, taken a ton of hard knocks to land that one.

What I find so funny though is that although I have been through some serious atrocities of the human spirit, horrific situations, I’ve been betrayed in the most vile of ways, had my heart crushed into a million pieces again & again, & yet I hold no grievances, no judgments, no grudges & no ill will towards any of those who have inflicted those things upon me.  Yet, in spite of my depth of forgiveness of others, I find that the person I am the hardest on is myself.  In business, if I make a mistake, I use it as ammunition to beat myself up with.  It’s quite astonishing how incredibly harsh I can be on myself.  And if I’m not quite on top of the beat-myself-up-for-not-doing-it-perfectly program, I always find I’ll attract someone who feels the need to tell me exactly how I’m doing it wrong.  Way to manifest Krystine.  If it’s not on the inside, create it on the outside.  No escape.

As my business scales & my ability to control things becomes unmanageable, I have to let go of mistakes.  I have to forgive myself often.  There’s just no other way for me to scale without having some stumbles along the way, stumbles that will be my responsibility, I will own them & some of them, I won’t be able to repair.  Can I live with that?  Can I allow myself to let go of the handrail to learn how to walk on my own, knowing I’m going to have some screw ups along the way & not stopping to use those mistakes as a place to beat myself up, but as a stepping stone as I push through to the next level of stewardship of this crazy vision I have for my life & for the dent I want to leave in the universe when I’m gone?

Some days are better than others.  It’s hard to feel like a failure, even though I know my business is moving forward, my mortgage volumes are rising, we’re launching new divisions of our company to serve our clients with our gifts of making mortgages fun & helping our clients create wealth, new investors are showing up for green building projects, alignment is happening, the right team is showing up.  On the outside it looks like success.  On the inside, all I see are all the places I am failing & I am so incredibly sensitive to it.  I can’t remember if I brushed my teeth & my hair some days.  Did I leave the iron on?  Did I remember to pay that telephone bill?  Did I remember to call that client back?  Did I forget to add a decimal on that feasibility report?  Failure, failure, failure, failure.  So hard.

What I’m learning, gently now, slowly now, is that forgiveness comes when I implement structure to solve the problem.  It’s time for a personal assistant, housekeeper to take on more duties, bookkeeper to manage personal expenses, project manager to review my feasibility reports – get myself out of details I am not good there, I can’t succeed there.  Structure, system, implementation.  Structure, system, implementation.  Each mistake, each “failure” is a chance to learn.  If I don’t implement the change, then I am doomed to keep repeating the same things.  And each pang of “failure” in me is a sign that I need another piece of support so that I am nurtured again by what I am creating.  And I need to be gentle with myself, love myself more, nurture myself more as I move through this growth spurt to a new platform.

Yes, I’m extremely hard on myself.  A perfectionist in my nature, although sometimes you’d never guess it in the creative chaos in which I sometimes (ok, most often) operate.  Learning, slowly, how to be ok in mistake-ville, to let them be part of my process in growth.  To let go of control & to own those mistakes when necessary & implement new structure to support me when necessary & to laugh so hard my belly hurts sometimes & just let it go when necessary.  To let myself lean into a place of “I’m going to screw it up-ness” & to forgive myself anyway, implement new supports & keep moving forward.

I feel the bars of this cage getting wider & my suffocation slowly releasing.  I know that there is no way to scale & hold on to every minute detail.  I know that even a perfectionist, control-freak is going to need to learn to trust her team & her structure & her universe to let go fully into surrender in order to grow in stewardship.  All of my history has me triggered as I get to see how hard it is for me to trust when I’m not the one in control, how hard it is for me to let go in surrender.  Back to forgiveness.  Let it go.

I close my eyes, for a long time……& I hear the creak of the cage door open, as my wings ever so gently take flight….

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field.  She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia.  Find more on her here: www.didyouknowmortgage.ca

“We are each responsible for our own life – no other person is or even can be.” Oprah Winfrey.

Maybe you can relate? I feel like I’ve had these tiny hooks in me, little invisible hooks that are tied down & anchoring me to where I am.  Difficult decisions I’ve needed to make to take care of me, to ensure that my health, well-being & financial future are preserved.  This is upsetting to those who have become so comfortable living with their little hooks in me.  In order to choose me, to stand in my power & say no – I’ve known I need to not just rock the boat, but to sink it.  I’ve been sitting on some of these decisions for a long time.  Not unwilling to make them, but reluctant to.  I don’t want to be the bitch, I don’t want to be hated or thought of as a tyrant or an unreasonable beast – trust me, I can be all those things. But I want to be liked & keep the peace – one of my worst & most debilitating qualities as a business woman, trust me, I know.  It pains me to even type the words.  I’ve been in boardrooms with men for most of my life – if they heard me say that, you better believe my jugular would be on the table.  But sadly, it’s my truth & I’m not afraid to own it.  I don’t like it about myself either, I’ve spent a lot of my life working against the grain of this personality trait that paralyzes me in business.  But there it is – my biggest weakness.  And I have had many, many people come into my life to exploit that weakness to their advantage.

But something has changed in me.  I want something more than I want to hold on to that old emotional neediness.  I want to create the vision I have for my life, I want to pursue my passions, share my gifts with the world – make mortgages fun & build beautiful green projects that matter – & shine my brightest light on the stage.  And I can’t do that & hold on to this emotional baggage – I have to choose.  I have to choose to let go of that old behaviour to go where I want to go.  Or keep it, & stay stuck.  It’s really that simple.  Choice.  We all have it at any time – choose to change your state, your situation, your outlook, your reaction, your perception.  Choice.  And until you want something more, often, that choice is to stay where you are.  But me, finally, after years of brushing against this one, I want something more.  And so I must choose – be the Martyr, or be empowered.

You’d think it’d be easy from there right?  All I have to do is choose?  No.  Choice is followed by action.  And not just any action, relentless action.  Those little hooks & little anchors have been holding me down for a very long time.  And I’ve worked as much as I can to transform them, but now…..now it’s time to fight.  Fight to break free, they cinch tighter.  Situations unfold that are uncomfortable – I have to choose again.  Say no, be firm, be a shark, don’t take anything less than everything.  Situations blow up that are more than just uncomfortable, they’re downright awful.  Stay strong – they are testing my resolve, that’s all.  Keep moving.  Another cinch to hold me down.  Relentless Krystine, be relentless.  I push harder, I fight.  I have to fight.  I fight with intelligence & conviction & ruthless, merciless, jugular-ripping, ball-stripping, unrelenting force.  Those hooks are making me bleed, but still I push through.  I fight for me, I fight for my importance in my world – that I matter, that I come first.  Somehow, very subtly, my power was given away to each of these people who hold these hooks & rather than the deal or the situation being about the nurturing of me, it all became about them.  Their drama, their situation, their return, their benefit – while I get the scraps & am last on the list.  Martyrdom has many faces.  No.  Not anymore.

Today felt like a culmination of all of this process that has been unfolding for some time now.  I have been unafraid to rock the boat, I’m actually pretty certain I blew a hole in the hull & that baby is sunk, I have made the difficult decisions, I have pushed back with force rather than coddled with sympathy.  It hasn’t been easy, in fact it’s been some of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.  It’s taken time.  I’ve failed & had to try again.  I’ve felt trapped in this web of hooks for what has felt like eternity.  Reactions were not warm & fuzzy, in fact they were pretty upsetting.  But it was interesting, today, even in the middle of it all, I didn’t take any of it personally.  Not that I would – business is business, yadda, yadda.  But I guess what I mean is that, it didn’t affect me at all.  My strength in my conviction was so solid – I knew with certainty, not just as a concept or an idea, but with certainty that whatever their reaction is, it’s really not about me.  Maybe they don’t like that the free train of riding my coat tails is ending, maybe they don’t like that the easy road of taking advantage of my weaknesses is over.  Whatever it is, I don’t really care.  No more will I be the martyr, no more will I allow myself to be taken advantage or emotionally manipulated.  In one final roar, I ripped those hooks clean out of the ground.

Yes, there is still more work to be done.  This has been going on a very long time, I have more to clean up.  But my communication is shifting to a level that is so incredibly empowering & exciting.  I matter.  I come first.  I take care of me.  I am nurtured by what I create & what I create nurtures me & there is no other purpose for anything that I do.  That isn’t selfish, that’s exactly what each of us is put on this earth to do.  To know, to be.  It is the greatest act of self-love we can bestow.  And any act of self-love is a tribute to God, it is coming home, it is the truth.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field.  She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia.  Find more on her here: www.didyouknowmortgage.ca

“Stepping into a brand-new path is difficult, but no more difficult than remaining in a situation that is not nurturing to the whole woman” Maya Angelou.

Leadership skill – managing massive scale.  Be careful what you wish for because you will most certainly get it!  It’s easy to ask for something.  It’s a whole other world to move your state of being to be in the place that you need to be to actually receive it, steward it & own it fully.  I am definitely struggling with the transition….my workdays are melting one into the other, I’m up so late I can barely keep my eyes open & just when my head hits the pillow, I swear my eyes are opened again for a new day.  I’m balanced, in the chaos, & I’m having a heck of a lot of fun.  If there is one thing I’ve learned in my years & with the support of my coaches, it’s that the nurturing of me comes before anything else.  How else do I expect to hold the enormity of what I want to create if I am not fully filled up, healthy & deeply nurtured in my day?  But still, I stretch to hold it all & it’s trying on me.  Stretch to carve out the time I need for meditation, connection, spiritual practice, yoga.  The wolves are loud today.

As my business scales, I notice my relationships deepen, become more authentic.  This is a beautiful consequence, one I hadn’t anticipated.  Maybe a result of having absolutely no room for BS anymore, who has the time for anything petty when you’re moving at the speed of rapid growth?  No drama, no games, no inauthenticity, no gossip, nothing that isn’t a 10 on the scale of connection, depth & love in my life – if my time is stretched than I want to ensure that where I do spend it is authentic.  Who knew this would be a result of scale?  Gratitude fills me.

Delegation – not only do I need to become better at it, I need to scale it & I need to deepen what ownership means to me in it.  I need to become a master at discerning fit within my team.  It’s not enough to just delegate, I need to delegate to people who I trust, who are committed, responsible, own their results & create results.  They are masters of their field & I am honoured to have them work with me.  But there is a big gap between delegating & just passing it off & dropping them because I’m overwhelmed.  Just because it’s delegated, doesn’t mean I drop them – I need to connect more deeply with my team once I’ve delegated to them.  Support them.  Communicate with them, often.  Particularly at first.  Until we are so rock solid in our structure & in our level of communication we move as a unit.  Right.  Ok.  Deep breathe.  Lost a few deals learning this one, time to pick it back up again.  We are rapid growth & rapid growth demands deeper connection, more communication & communication & communication.

Connection – to my support systems, to my mortgage clients, to my projects, to my contacts, to my yoga class, to my music, to my workout,  to the trees & the flowers & to my dog, to my family.  Get on the phone with my mentors & my coaches often.  I didn’t realize how uneasy the depth of connection would make me feel.  To scale my business, I need to be connected to what I’m creating with much more depth than I’ve ever been.  It unnerves me, I’m not quite sure how to be there yet.  I still feel a little uneasy there.  To connect with that much depth, I feel vulnerable.  My defense mechanisms want to eject me back to the safety of control & separation & disconnection.  Scale feels vulnerable, wide open, exposed.  It means I have to let go of micro-managing, I have to let go of debilitating control.  This is hard for me, it’s hard to let go of control.  Slowly, as I inch a little closer.  Make some mistakes, inch back again.  Slowly though, I start to feel it.  As I move towards scale, I start to feel the support of my universe behind me.  Things I am forgetting, I am reminded of naturally, I don’t need to control them.  The right situations manifest, the right people are easier to discern.  I am asking for what I want & what will serve me & unafraid if the answer is no – I’ll just keep going until I find yes.  Freedom is flowing, but I feel nervous.  Can I trust it?  Slowly though, no need to rush this one.  Keep moving, keep communicating, be closer than ever to my support team & my mentor team to shore me up so I can move through this one with ease.

My structure needs to change again, an ever evolving process.  I need better systems, better tools.  My inefficiencies are becoming loud, I quickly need to adjust & adapt.  Streamline, systemize, create efficiency through structure & manage the structure effectively with commitment.

I’m tired today.  But inspired.  The Late Maya Angelou was a warrior of Spirit & I dedicated my work today in her honour.  I must continue forward.  In her honour, for my honour & for the honour of all the women I want to inspire in what I am creating in the world.

Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field.  She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia.  Find more on her here: www.didyouknowmortgage.ca