I’m about to launch a personal project that I expect may be of interest to quite a few out there: I’m planning to tackle my money issues – in public!

I have decided to use my life as a living laboratory. I want to credit Molly Gordon (author of The Accidental Entrepreneur) for expressing this concept in a recent interview with Isabel Parlett (the “Soundbite Shaman”). Molly said she decided to be transparent about areas of her life where she might have felt shame or defensiveness, and that made for rich learning and teaching for herself and her clients and followers. I felt relief when I heard her say this, of not having to pretend to “have it all together.” The idea of someone in public modellng being honest, vulnerable, and human seemed both courageous and healing.

So in the interests of Science, in the spirit of curiosity and experimentation, and with whatever degree of transparency I am able to muster, I am embarking on an exploration of this biggest bugaboo of my life. . . .

I, like so many others, have deeply-ingrained, semi-conscious or unconscious limiting beliefs and self-images having to do with money, that have restricted my earning capacity and held me back from playing a bigger role in the world – until now.

Now, through much personal transformation,  in my middle years, I am moving to the next level of my career, ambition, and creative expression. I am ready to play a bigger game, step up, take risks, be visible, and make a difference.

Yet I can feel these limiting money beliefs and self-images sticking in me, pulling at me, tripping  me.  I realize they will continue to trip me and keep me from reaching my full potential unless I confront them directly. And not just my earning potential, but how many people I can help,  how much difference I can make in the world, everything I want to do and be.

Several years ago, when I entered the coaching profession, I looked online for coach trainings and noticed that most devoted a significant chunk of their curriculum to marketing. As a “good” spiritual helper/healer type, who had always shied away from anything resembling tooting my own horn, I at first recoiled. But I did a quick double-take, saying to myself “Oh, that’s why I’ve never succeeded! (Duh!)”

I then and there recognized that learning to promote myself was my next soul-task, and I vowed to devote myself to it in the spirit of fun and play. When I learned that Internet marketing included writing and speaking – two of the things I most wanted to do – I knew I was in the right place!

I have spent the last few years happily immersed in learning many creative techniques for marketing using the Internet. And although there are still lots of challenges for me there, I have a new comfort-zone where it comes to promoting my products and services.

So now I have a new soul-task that I am ready to commit to – an even higher hurdle: my money issues!

Stay tuned and watch this blog for what I hope will be many future installments of this bracing adventure.