The Little Book of MORE

PREFACE Welcome to The Little Book of MORE: The evolution of YOU. Congratulations on taking another step forward in your process by selecting a book that will stretch your thinking, support your growth and celebrate your accomplishments. MORE develops holistically, fostering a richness that is centered at your core, challenging your habitual patterns and leading you forward toward owning and living your potential. Actively seeking to create MORE will provide you with the capabilities to create a life centered on the continuous development of health, happiness, and contentment in all that you do. The concept of MORE was born from my own life's journey. My journey has been filled with intentional and unintentional teachers, who have stretched my thinking, expanded my awareness and deepened my understanding of my sense of self. Experiences of my students and coaching clients have assisted me in clarifying and articulating the core elements and components inherent within MORE. I weave our collective stories throughout the book to trigger connections to your own life's journey and stimulate your process of growth and evolution. My work has been heavily influenced and inspired by the research and work of a host of great minds. A list of reference suggestions is included at the end, for those who wish to explore similar concepts of MORE through the work and guidance of other leaders in the field. MORE is how I strive to live my life; it is my compass, leading me forward and reminding me where and when I go astray. I offer MORE to you as a simple tool for guiding you forward; ever evolving and expanding your potential. MORE requires you to fully engage in the process of living. MORE is a way of believing and interacting. It is built on how you create Meaning, Own your potential, foster Relationships, and understand and respect Emotions. The MORE is a commitment to yourself, to honoring your worth, abilities and potential. MORE builds on your strengths, supports and fosters your growth, and turns your failures into opportunities for learning and success. It requires your honest acceptance of where you are and where you wish to go. The MORE process acknowledges that growth toward your potential is never easy, usually messy and continually challenging. MORE requires a commitment to your positive growth and potential, and patience to allow your life to develop over time. It is important to note that your brain has developed its neuropathways and habits throughout your life and always follows the road “most” travelled. Neuroscience has demonstrated that our brains need months of continual positive reinforcement to create a new habit and pattern of thought. MORE requires patience and a focus on every small step forward. BLOG POST Remember When Do you remember your first best friend? The one you played with for hours on end. The one you told secrets to and trusted with your fears. The one who was your partner in all your childhood explorations. My best friend was Karen. Her family moved in down the street when we were both 4 years old. We were inseparable through most of our school years. Growing up before the need for play dates and physical boundaries, Karen and I explored the reaches of our neighborhood and the country roads that began at the end of our block. The older we got, the braver we became, the further we explored. We were Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer; we were runaways and adventurers. We packed lunches, hopped on our little coaster bikes and explored for hours. Our backyards became tented escapes, penny carnivals, and a wide array of locations for escapades and characters. We rode the city buses to swimming lessons, art classes, and Saturday afternoon matinees. Our sleepovers involved little sleep and a lot of talking. We laughed, we learned, and we cried together. We believed anything was possible. The Disney movie Peter Pan inspired us to become scientists as we endeavored to create Pixie Dust. Perhaps we just didn't get the right combination of the white "sprinklely" substances, flour, sugar, and salt? Undaunted, we continued to believe that, just like our Barbies, we could do anything. Our lives have taken us in very different directions and led us down very different paths, but always, we will be part of each other. The part that believes we can be MORE. UNDERSTANDING MORE MORE's four core elements, Meaning, Owning, Relationships, and Emotions demand your dedication to moving beyond your current status quo, to accept that harmony and fulfillment are possible in your life and that you have the power and opportunity to create them. Although the core elements fall into the order of the acronym, they do not form a linear process. As you work to fully embed and nurture MORE in your daily interactions and decisions, you move across all the core elements weaving them into an upward spiral that will guide your way of being, interacting and believing. This book takes you on a journey through each core element. We will explore the creation of Meaning, examine how to Own your potential, gain clarity on fostering Relationships and discover respect for all Emotions. From Passive to Active MORE As a child, I had no idea how hard my parents worked to make ends meet and give my two sisters and me all that we had. We never seemed to lack for anything. I had friends who had more things and friends who had less, but we all appear to have enough. We lived the epitome of 1950-60's middle-class Canada. The economy grew, wages rose, and everyone began to need, buy and collect more of everything. I grew up a shopper. In Edmonton, Alberta everyone knew the location of every high school by its adjacent mall. As a young adult, I purchased as I wished, never stopping to pay attention to the motivation behind my purchases. Buying made me feel good; it was such a rewarding experience that I ignored my ever-increasing credit card debt. Consumerism fed my ego and gave me an artificial, passive, "outside in" sense of worth. It was not until I chose to move to the British Virgin Islands (BVI) that I forced myself to deal with my debt. I arrived in the Caribbean debt-free. I soon learned that my meager savings in Canadian dollars turned into next to nothing in the U.S. dollar-based currency used in the BVI. That, combined with the minimum salary I received teaching at a small private school, threw me into a new understanding and appreciation of what I needed. I began to examine how I could essentially have More by living with less. It "forced," or should I say, "allowed” me to actively explore my worth from the "inside out," not the "outside in."