How Wealthy is Your Emotional Bank?

"The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters." - Thomas Jefferson

I recently spent a fun-loving weekend in Boston celebrating my girlfriends last days as a single woman. I have known her from the time we were 3 years old. We went through elementary school together and then in middle school we were placed on different “teams” which separated us from having any classes together, and hardly seeing each other between classes. We drifted for a bit, but in High School we became close again. We introduced each other to new friends and shared experiences such as crushes, proms, first boyfriends, applying to colleges, petty adolescent female “cattiness”, my parents’ divorce, alcohol (this experience didn’t end well) and partying. I always knew I could count on her. She was a solid fixture in my life.

We both ventured on to different colleges and in that time we gained more friends. None of these friendships replaced the strong foundation of the relationship we had with each other.

After college, I moved to California and she moved to Boston. Our friendship remained.

At some point in our early 20’s we both ended relationships with our boyfriends. We became single woman in our 20’s trying to navigate our worlds. We leaned on each other more than anything. We had phone calls multiple times a week. A lot of times they were consumed with three topics – boys, money, and career. We became experts in each other’s life. We would make early Saturday morning phone calls to share our Friday night details. We often joked that we were leading parallel lives – she was living it in the big city and I was living it in the suburb of Syracuse.

Then three years ago, I met my husband and a few months after that she met her soon-to-be husband. Once again, our lives paralleled. Now she’s getting married, close to a year after I did.

Looking back on our friendship, the thing that kept us in tact is that we constantly invested in each other’s Emotional Bank.

What is an Emotional Bank? This is really similar to a regular bank account. Deposits of cash are made and cash is withdrawn. However, with an Emotional Bank, cash is equated to support, kind words, a lending ear, air plane tickets, long phone conversations, lunch dates, etc. For example, spending a half hour talking to a friend about her broken heart generates a deposit from you in her Emotional Bank. If it’s a good friendship, she will deposit into your Emotional Bank at some point by comforting you.

See, my friend and I would constantly make deposits in each other’s banks. She flew out to see me in California – that was a HUGE deposit for me. In return, I withdrew from my Emotional Bank and would visit her in Boston. One of us constantly made an effort. We haven’t lived in the same city in over 10 years, and yet we are still bonded. Our Emotional Banks are overwhelmed with deposits.

This is really as simple as give and take. When you give something, most of the time you receive something in return. It may be a tangible or non-tangible (friendship) item. But, if you keep giving –or withdrawing from your Emotional Bank for someone and they aren’t making any deposits back, you will soon become bankrupt and it will probably be the end of the friendship. I’m sure you have said, “I can only give so much!” once or twice when you are in a relationship where you felt you were giving your all and not getting anything back.

I’m not writing all this to share about my great friendship, though I do feel gratitude toward our friendship. My intention is to get you to think about relationships that you haven’t been feeling so great about, or a friendship that’s dwindling. Think about a way you can make an Emotional Deposit in someone’s life? It may take time to really build up the Emotional Bank, but eventually, you will start to feel those deposits returned to you in amazing ways, along with the blessing of a healthy friendship.

Interview with Andrea Owen from Your Kick Ass Life Coaching

I came upon Andrea Owen while searching YouTube for coaching clips. This video appeared called “Kick Your Gremlin’s Ass” and I was totally intrigued. Not only was the video hilarious, but it was so true to life for me. I immediately hopped over to her website and have been following her inspirational messages ever since. I was super excited when she agreed to be interviewed for my blog! Check it out!

Andrea Owen is a professional life coach and speaker. She is passionate about empowering women and girls to value their character and feel beautiful by manifesting respect and love for themselves first and foremost. She has helped hundreds of people manage their inner-critic to break through and live their most kick-ass life.

I love the name “Your Kick Ass Life Coaching”. What inspired this name?

For almost 10 years I've lived by the mantra, "Life is too short for it to not kick ass". Even before I knew what life coaching was! A few years later I started a blog under the name "Live Your Ideal Life" which was okay, but didn't really match who I was. When it came time to launch my business I purchased the url, but something inside me was dragging my feet. I kept going back to my mantra and talked it over with a friend. She asked me why I didn't have "kick-ass" as my business name and I said, "I cannot use the word "ass" professionally!" and she laughed and responded with, "Why? Are you afraid you're going to offend someone?" And Your Kick-Ass Life was born.

What has caused you to be an activist for women and girl empowerment?

It started years ago when I met Jessica Weiner who is the Global Ambassador for the Dove Self-Esteem fund. She trained me to host workshops for young girls to help them build self-esteem and confidence. Also, I spent some time working as a personal fitness trainer. Many of my clients were up for working on their bodies, thinking it would bring them happiness. It was overwhelming to me how much some of them lacked self-esteem. I wanted so badly to help them, but it was beyond the scope of my job. Those two things made me realize my true calling: To help women empower themselves and to love themselves in order to live their own kick-ass life.

Tell me a little bit about those gremlins?

Your gremlin is your inner-critic. The voice that is sometimes mean, perhaps it tells you you're stupid, ugly, whatever. Or, it may just strip you of power, telling you you can't follow your dreams because it's too risky, too much money, you're too old, etc. Our gremlins have evolved with us and grown up with us and will always be with us. Some people live their whole lives assuming that this is their truth, because the gremlins primary job is to present itself as truth. Sneaky, right?

This is the one thing my clients tell me helped them the most when we work together. The thing they walked away with as being the most helpful. So, I decided to save people time and money and put together an ebook and workbook called, "Kick Your Gremlin's Ass: Manage Your Inner-Critic to Live a Kick-Ass Life".

While we can't remove it from our lives, it certainly can be managed!

How do you manage to balance your family and business?

I don't. ha! I honestly think "balance" is unattainable, just as "perfect" is. I feel it's just another thing for us to think we need to have in order to not only be happy, but something to think everyone else has except us. I think we can have harmony instead. Whenever we say "yes" to something, we are saying "no" to something else. When we focus on the things that we value the most and the things we truly love, harmony is with us.

Has your potty mouth ever gotten you in trouble? LOL!

Not yet! My writing style is exactly how I am in real life. People that know me very well have told me they can hear my voice when they read my writing and I take that as such a compliment. I don't believe in sugar-coating, I think we get too much of that. The hard truth is hard to come by, but so very important in our own self-discovery and growth. And a few f-bombs never hurt anyone. When I first started writing, I censored myself and it was no fun at all. How can I write about LIVING your life and being your authentic self if I'm feeling ashamed to say the word, "shit"?

How Can You Make a Miserable Job Work For You?

Are you feeling stuck at work? Does your job make you dread waking up in the morning? We spend so much time at work that it’s a shame if you can’t find something that brings you joy while you are there.

Sometimes leaving your job isn’t an option. However, you don’t have to live a life of misery. Here are some tips that just may change the way you feel about work:

-Write a list of all the tasks that you actually enjoy doing in your job, even if it is only one or two things. Try to find a way to perform these tasks more throughout the day.

For example, if you really like interacting with customers, then try to talk to your customers more and find out what they like, and what they would like to see change. And just think how impressed your boss will be when you are able to come up with a solution that increases customer sales, purely through the feedback you received by talking with the customers. Plus, your customers will feel more valued!

-Become an expert at something, preferably something you are interested in.

Maybe you work with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets a lot. Take a class to deepen your knowledge of the program, and then share your knowledge with co-workers. Chances are people will start coming to you with questions about Excel and word will get around. Wouldn’t it feel good if the CEO comes to you because he can’t figure out how to “split” a workbook (little Excel lingo for ya!)? Plus, it’s really hard to get rid of someone who is providing the office with knowledge that no one else has.

-Don’t take yourself too seriously; it’s ONLY A JOB after all!

Sometimes we get so caught up in working, that we forget the many other things that we have going on in our life (the great things) – dinner with friends, enjoying your kids, the good book you can’t put down, our favorite TV show (The Office for me), milestone celebrations, etc. All I am saying is, sometimes you need to put into perspective that your life is composed of a lot more than your job. Put in your time when you are there, and when you are not there, forget about it!

-If you hate your boss, try to find a way not to.

I have news for you. If you hate your boss, she/he knows it! I am sure your hate permeates through you at times. And really think about this – would you give a raise or promotion to someone who hated you? Probably not…So you are going to have to find a way to stop being a hater. This isn’t easy, but it can start with changing your thoughts. If you start to think of your boss as someone who is purely trying to complete their job with your help, and remove the personal things that are involved (ie – the tone they take with you, how they demand something from you, how they make you feel) then you will be able to remove some of the feelings you have connected with your boss. And remember, it’s rarely all about you! We get so caught up in how our bosses treat us sometimes, that we think we must be the “special” one that they target. But this is usually not the case. If you take the time to see how they treat other people, you will see similarities.

I challenge you to give one or more of these a try and let me know how it goes! And if you have been dealing with this for a while, I would love to hear more tips you may have for bringing more joy (and less misery) into your job?

What Gets In The Way Of Trusting Your Instinct?

I contemplated bringing my huge golf umbrella in with me to Starbucks. After all, it was only slightly raining, and I was sure I could run into the café without getting soaked. Plus, this is Syracuse, NY. It rarely rains ALL DAY (now snow is a different story). However, here I am, over 3 hours later sitting in Starbucks and the rain still has not let up. It’s actually been raining really hard since I entered the café. Oh, and I decided not to bring the umbrella in with me.

This got me to thinking, how many times have I made a decision, only to decide to follow a different path than what I had decided on at the last minute? I find myself doing this a lot. Here are a few examples.

-Since my gas light is on, I decide to get gas on my way home from work so that I won’t have to deal with it in the morning. Once I start my venture home, I decide I am too tired and will just go straight home. Once the morning comes, I am running late anyway, and now I am much later because I have to get gas if I want to go anywhere! This is when I start cursing myself.

-I decide that I will pack for a weekend away the day before leaving. This gives me time to pick my outfits, gather my jewelry, makeup, etc. Then I tell myself that there’s no need to pack so early. I end up packing in a hurry and with frustration the day we leave. Then I am running late which is aggravating.

I guess what I am learning is that my first instincts are usually the best ones. I need to trust these and rely on them more. Usually, the little red guy comes along and gives me a million reasons why I shouldn’t trust myself. Sometimes I just have to fight back! Last night I started obsessing about how badly the house needed to be vacuumed. I told myself that I would vacuum after my favorite show, The Office, was over. Once it ended, guess what happened? The red guy came along and told me that I could vacuum in the morning so no need to get off the couch! I firmly told him to stop. I stood up, got out the vacuum and the rest is history. I ended up going to bed with a cleaner house and one less thing I had to worry about today.

Was there a time in the past when you ignored your instinct? What happened? What gets in the way of you trusting your first instinct?