Just the other day, a friend and I were catching up, talking about life and how we were ... and we realized that it had been almost 10 years since we last had spoken.

​Just. Like. That. 10 years. Poof! Gone. 

Maybe you've had a similar realization, where you were going to take this job for a few years and hone your skills and then you were going to go after the big, bold dream that made your heart come alive. A vision that would allow you to really explore the depths of your potential, and your impact on this world.

But then 10 years passed by. And you're still at that same job. Your life is okay, I mean, you have nothing to complain about, and honestly, do you really have time to get that project started? I mean, that shit is HARD!

But, that inner wanting for something bigger, for you to realize your full potential, for you to become a version of you that you are so excited and proud to be, not for anyone else but for yourself, is still there. Still burning. Dim, maybe almost gone, but still there. 

My job as your coach is to challenge you. To be a little in your face and say: "Are you really telling me that you're going to let another 10 years go by, and then another 10, and then before you know it you're 70, or 80, or whatever age you'll use as an excuse to say 'well, now I'm too old.'" And then, just like that, it will all be over and all you potential, your dreams, your passion, will have been wasted.

Hell. Freaking. No.

Start now. Get working on that project, go back to the powerful version of yourself that took 100% responsibility for your life and your brightness and bigness, stop making excuses as to why you can't have a life that feels exciting. You don't get to shrink before your life. Yes, I'm asking you, challenging you, pushing you to be bold and courageous.  

Okay, okay, Luz! I get it - and you're right, damn it, the time is now! But wait ... what do I do?

Glad you asked! You can do this work on your own, or you can schedule a call with me. Either way, you can follow the next 5 steps and be well on your way to living your life with purpose and intentionality. Where you step into the driver's seat and BUILD, DESIGN, CREATE a life OF YOUR CHOOSING. 

1. Your Funeral
Oh shit!! We went dark real fast. 

Yep, we did. As a coach, I'm supportive but I'm also real and I'm going to ask the hard questions. I have to. I know I sound like a broken record, but THIS IS YOUR LIFE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. It's kind of a big deal, don't ya think?

So yes, we're starting with your funeral. I want you to imagine your funeral. You are there and can see and hear everyone, but no one can see or hear you (I know what you're thinking: it's Harry Potter's invisibility cloak!! Nope...just a thought exercise, although that would be sweet!). I want you to think of what you would want people to say about who you were, how you showed up to life, the values you exemplified, how you treated those with less resources than you, the risks you took, the ways you were bold and courageous, how did you stand up for you and your dreams? 

I want you to start there. At your funeral. So you can start thinking ahead, so you don't have to waste years, decades, a lifetime. Decide NOW who you want to be when it's all over. Decide how you will show up, even when it's hard. How you'll treat strangers, your team, your family, your spouse. How will you leave the world better off than you found it? 

2. Mentor Patterns 
Next, I want you to next find 10 people whose lives you would be super thrilled to step into for the next 10 years of your life. Think of what about their career and lifestyle specifically calls out to you. Is it that they get to travel, their adventures, the commitment to impact, their business acumen, the love they share with their spouse, that your role model is a female CEO and yet she manages to lead her company not as a man...but as a woman? 

I want you to make a list of all the patterns you see in terms of career, lifestyle, and then I want you to take it one step further and find all the skills that they needed to grow into to be who they now are. 

3. Pick Your 10-year Primary Field of Interest (PFI) 
This idea comes from one of my mentors, Brendon Burchard. It's basically the concept that ...sorry to break it to you, but you can't do ALL the things. You gotta focus! Even Elon Musk chose the areas he committed to being excellent and the best in the world at. You have to choose. 

So, what are mine? Peak Performance/Living Your BEST Life (Hi, I'm your peak performance coach ), Financial Empowerment, and Corporate Social Impact. This means I don't do anything that isn't aligned with these three. 

When I'm invited to serve on boards, or get recruited to join companies, get an invite for a knitting party... it's an easy no.

I know who I am, I know who I'm becoming, and I've got my priorities straight. 

So tell me, what are your three PFIs? 

4. 1 Year Planning 
Okay, so we've done the big picture work, we know the kind of life we want to live, we've strategically studied those who have been successful at living that kind of life and creating those results and life outcomes, next we're going to start implementing. 

I want you to choose 3 skills that you are going to focus on for the next year. (Btw, if you didn't catch my training on how to plan for an epic 2019 check it out on my blog!) These are going to be three new stretch skills that will require you to take courses, attend seminars, hire a coach, and read books.

By the end of the year, you should feel basically like a new person. You have been intentional about being in the driver's seat of your own development, and growing yourself to someone that is now able to master aspects of a version-of-you you want to grow into. 

5. Boundaries 
Last but not least, we have boundaries! Ta-da! Now, for this to work, you've got to do the work. You can't get to this part of the process if you don't first do the stuff above! 

What I discuss over and over with my clients is that you've got to have the right North Star. When you do, then saying "yes" and "no" to the right things becomes a piece of cake. Whether that is saying yes or no to the person you're dating ... but not sure how you feel about them. About the multiple job offers you currently have to choose from. Whether you should go out for a night of socializing or stay in. Or whether to work on the weekend, or say, "nope, today is a me day." 

You've got to have boundaries, and you have to have the right boundaries based on solid foundations. 

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Phew, well there we have it! Now, you're ready to get back in the driver's seat and be excited that YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE. You are responsible for all the life outcomes, the feelings, the realized or non-realized dreams, it's all on you. 

So please live your life with intentionality. 

Much love, 
Coach Luz 
 
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2019 Planning Sessions
Want to go through a planning workshop with me 1-1 so we can plan out YOUR epic 2019? Sign up for a power session here! https://www.luzcgonzalez.com/power-sessions.html

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What Peak Performance topics do you want me to speak on?
Send your suggestions my way to luz@soulonfireacademy.com and I'll make sure to add it to my list of ongoing content! Let me know what's on your mind, and what you're struggling with when you think about living your best life and thriving. 

How to Be More Confident - 10 Steps to a More Confident You

There's people who we see in our lives who seem to just exude confidence, and we might wonder "why can't I be more confident like them?" 

Well, the good news is that confidence isn't just something that you're born with or not, confidence is something you get to practice and create on a daily basis!

This is a topic I was asked to write about from someone in THIS community, so I'm definitely listening! Send your suggestions my way to luz@soulonfireacademy.com and I'll make sure to add it to my list of ongoing content! Let me know what's on your mind, and what you're struggling with when you think about living your best life. 

At the end of the day, I'm here to serve YOU, here to celebrate YOU, and here to support you in living your best life!  I'm always in your corner!

Your coach, 
Luz

10 Steps to  a More Confident You
Now, without further ado, here’s ten steps for more confidence! 

1. Self Love and Care
It is critical, critical, critical that you practice self-love and care. Of ALL the items on this list, the most important of them all when it comes to building confidence is self-love.

When you love yourself, when you see the good in you, the inherent value in all that you are - that translates directly to confidence. This confidence is realconfidence, not confidence you have to fake. So, every morning make sure you do something that reminds you that you are amazing and that you love yourself! (I recommend a loving self-hug every morning )

Now, a necessary part of loving yourself in a healthy way includes loving on your body and treating your temple (I call my body my temple) in a way that ensures you are showing up as your best every day. This means exercising on a consistent basis, eating foods that energize you, and practicing mental health (meditation, gratitude, affirmations, etc). 

2. Know Yourself
To be confident, you need to have clarity as to who you are and who you are choosing to become. When you know what you stand for, when you have DECIDED who you will show up as in the world no matter what the world throws your way, this shows up as confidence. When you know and like yourself, you can't help but go through life with grace and self-confidence. 

This means you've got to do the work. We went to school for years to learn about math and science, and yet many of us haven't spent as much as two hours to get to really know ourselves and our deepest wants and desires. To decide who we want to be on this earth. To decide on what we want our legacy to be. Once you do the work, and you show up with integrity to you have decided to be, you will have incredible confidence!

3. Have Boundaries - Say No
To get to this step, you first have to do step 2. You need to know yourself so you can know what you will be intentional about saying yes and no to. But once you have decided what will no longer be tolerated in your life, then when situations or people present themselves that aren't in alignment with what's most important to you, then you have a much easier time saying no. 

And you must get good at saying no. Peak performers are comfortable and practiced at saying no. Confident people are so secure in themselves that they say no. Doing step 2 will allow you to know what to say yes to, and have a way easier time saying no to the right things. 

4. Be in Charge of Your Body Language 

Being in charge of our body languages is so important to both feeling and looking confident. A quick tip here is to make sure you are not making yourself small with your body - that is crossing your arms, hunching, keeping your head down.

You want to make yourself big, open, keep your chest and head up, smile!, speak loudly and clearly, stand firmly, make eye-contact, and breathe in deeply. If you practice these things on a daily basis you will prime yourself to feel and look confident on the daily! 

5. Look HOT and Upgrade Your Environment 
Yes, make time to look damn good. When you look good, you feel good. Rather than walk around, you strut around. Go ahead and strut your stuff!

Also, make sure to upgrade your environment. I'm not saying go and go live in a castle (but hey, if you can go for it, that def counts as an upgrade!) but I am saying take pride in your space. Have your room, your home, where you come home to be a reflection of you, and thus have it be clean, tidy, and uncluttered. If you take care of yourself, take care of your things, this translates into how you do life.

How we do anything is how we do everything, and that starts with things as small as the intentionality we bring to how we dress and if we keep our home clean. 

6. Power Name 
Get yourself a name that is a trigger to make you feel powerful. I have all of my clients choose power names that remind them of their most confident, badass, and powerful self.

My name, for example, is Fire Storm. It speaks to my fire, my energy, my warmth, my passion, my intentionality and that when I decide on something there is nothing that can stand in my way. 

What's your power name?

7. Priming Confidence 
In this community, we don't just wait for things to happen, we make them happen. That includes not just waiting for confidence to knock on your front door, but it means being intentional about doing the things on the daily that will make you a more confident you. 

Some things you can do to prime yourself to be more confident: 
- Visualize yourself being your most confident everyday before you leave for work or school 
- Establish a door frame trigger to remind you to be confident as soon as you arrive at a door. This idea I learned from Brendon Burchard, and it basically means that you can select a door, say the door when you first arrive to the building where you work, you make it a point to remind yourself every time you pass through that door that you will be confident for the rest of the day. 
- You can also set an alarm for confidence. I recommend setting an alarm that reminds you to be confident three times a day for a month! 

8. Be Excellent 
Be disciplined, have integrity, and keep to your commitments. When we are in integrity with our best self, when we do what we said we'd do, when we show up as the best version of ourselves, when we do the work even though no one is watching, this builds confidence. 

9. Build Competence and Allow Yourself to be a Learner 
To be more confident, you have to make time to become more competent. This means you need to be intentional about scheduling in competence ... and allow yourself the grace to be a learner. Know that you're going to mess up. It's not always going to go according to plan. It's going to be messy. Revel in the journey. Allow yourself the grace to be a learner so you can achieve competence and thus be more confident in your abilities!

10. OWN yourself 
Finally, we need to own ourselves. This means you've got to stop comparing yourself to others. This is why steps number one and two are soooooooo important. When you know who you are and you love yourself, you start living your life not from a place of comparison, but from a place of owning who you are and knowing that who you decided to be is amazing.

You'll know that you have everything you need inside yourself to live an amazing life. You'll be better able to celebrate others, see their wins and really feel genuinely excited for them, while knowing that you are on your own unique path to awesomeness.

You'll learn from others' lessons, and rather than having comparison rob you of your joy, you'll know that you are on your own amazing path, and you'll feel confident and happy knowing that you didn't just stumble onto it, but with deliberation and intention you decided to be the best and most confident version of you! 

Want an even more in depth training on how to be more confident?

Catch this 1-hour training and make sure to share with anyone who could benefit from it! 

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​

I haven't done a book review in some time: soooo here we go!!

Finished this book a few weeks ago, and Rachel, I LOVE you!! I really recommend all the ladies to read/listen to this book. It was so raw, authentic, beautiful. It was so lovely to hear from another #MogulBossLady working on building her empire, while being completely open and vulnerable about what the journey has been like.

I give it five stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Calling all my PEAK PERFORMERS! Holy smokes has this book been amazing!!! Now, before picking it up I thought..."yeah, yeah, I know about the growth mindset...I don't need to read an entire book about it." But then Tom Bilyeu was talking it up, and I thought...come on, how good can this be? How much more can I learn?

BUT!!! GUYS!!! You HAVEEEEE to read this book. I'm not done yet, but every time I'm working on it I can't help but think "I must share with the world what an amazing book this is!!"

It speaks to the growth mindset in all areas of your life and has amazing examples of fixed-mindset ppl and growth-mindset people. It speaks to work, fitness, relationships, education. So, so, soooooooo good!!!
​
If you are a boss, leader of any team, a parent, in a relationship or wish to be in one, basically if you're freaking human READ THIS BOOK!!
I give it five stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Now, this book took me by surprise. I picked it up from one of those Berkeley tiny outdoor libraries, and found myself LOVING it! I was even highlighting the darn book! And it's fiction!!

I really recommend anyone who needs a fun, pickme up, fun, uplifting story. I used it as my before bed book. Fun, light, sweet, and inspiring read!
​
I give it five stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I made a commitment to international massive positive impact when I was just a little girl. My entire life I have been OBSESSED, there is no other word for it, obsessed, with dedicating my life to making a meaningful impact in this world.
I started by thinking I needed to become a doctor or a lawyer to do this, and I opted for being a lawyer, but in law school felt my soul dying from not being in alignment with my vision of what brought my soul alive. Things just didn’t feel right (including knowing that as a lawyer, realistically my income would be capped, which….HELL freaking no). I took the California Bar Exam, a 3-day BRUTAL test, and I remember running to the bathroom every 10-minutes feeling like I was going to hyperventilate and faint from the anxiety. While waiting for the results, I spent some months working at possibly the most impact-oriented legal organization in the country, and still, things didn’t feel right.
Then, my ticket to freedom arrived. You needed a 1440 to pass the bar, and I received a 1391. I kid you not. Nine marginal points were my ticket to freedom! To a life that was in alignment with the future that I saw for myself. And so I told everyone in my life, who loved me very much but would say things like “Luz, you just attended one of the best law schools in the world, you should at least practice for 3 years,” that I was done. I was not going to practice law. I would not squander my gifts on earth and waste this precious time we have on beautiful planet earth.
That’s when I discovered the world where social impact meets technology, and I knew that technology would be part of how I arrived at my vision of impact in the world. Now my vision includes two main aspects: technology and mindset.
My focus on the power of mindset started with a really scary anxiety attack while I was in law school. I was coming back from working at the 24-hour Starbucks cafe I always worked from…talk about workaholic…and had called it a day because I was feeling ill. I had been dealing with food sensitivity issues for years that doctors couldn’t help with (more on this at another time), and on this day it was acting up. On my drive back home I had to drive on the Bay Bridge, and while driving on the bridge my left arm started going numb, my left leg started going numb, I thought I was going to have a stroke and there was nowhere for me to safely pull over. I safely made it to a mid-point where I could pull off and had my friends pick me up and take me to the emergency room, where I was told this was an anxiety attack. At this point, I knew things needed to change or I was literally going to work myself to illness or death.
Everything changed. I said never again will I be so oblivious about my health, happiness, and well-being that it gets to the point where I think I’m about to die. So as I do with everything that I commit to, I dove in with obsessive focus. I learned about the science of stress, neuroscience, epigenetics, the science of happiness and fulfillment, and jumped on the self-development train like there was no mañana!!
And that’s how we are here today, and that’s why I started my Heart-Focused Peak Performance Coaching. I can do peak performance (think: getting really hard shit done) with my eyes closed, I literally do not know how to not perform and work to be the best, but now after almost a decade of starting my own self-development journey, rather than focusing on achievement for the sake of achievement, I focus on achievement that is focused on living your best life, whatever that means for you, and with a focus on health, abundance → which for me includes financial freedom (can we get a hell yes!), happiness, fulfillment, loving relationships, boldness and big thinking, and yes, global positive massive impact.
So, how am I committed to changing the world now? Through my work in tech and through my coaching and speaking work. I’m on a mission to create an army of people who walk around their lives with their soul on FIRE 🔥, soooo jazzed about the life they’re living that they can’t help but be a beam happiness, joy, and passion. I’m also on a mission to change the international financial landscape through my work with Konviv, to create a world where ALL are financially empowered.
THAT, if you ask me, is revolutionary, life-changing, and the most incredibly rewarding work.
I hope to work with YOU to support you in finding work that feels as exhilarating, as “Oh my freaking God, I can’t wait to get out of bed because I fucking love my life and the work I do!!” as I feel every morning when my feet hit the floor and I start my day.
May you live with your soul on fire. 🔥
Join me on social media for daily motivation at: https://www.facebook.com/GonzalezfLuz/
And join our Soul on Fire Community at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1829304787377572/
*Learn more about my coaching work at luzcgonzalez.com. After learning more, if you’re fired up and serious about stepping up in your life and investing in yourself and your future, and want to chat, feel free to schedule a FREE 1-hour coaching session with me through my Calendly! So excited for your success and fulfillment! https://calendly.com/gonzalezf-luz/soul-on-fire-1-1-coaching-discovery-call.

How do you CELEBRATE in life? 💐🎉✨
It is sooooo important that we celebrate all milestones, small and big, as we continue on our journey.
You had a goal to ____. You achieved it!! YAY! Did you celebrate? I hope so!
Today, I accomplished a small, but important, milestone. I am now very intentional with making sure I celebrate ALL wins, so I made sure to take time to celebrate. Was it grand? No, I literally spent 3 minutes, an entire song, dancing and celebrating this win in my living room making space for the fact that this win happened and that PROGRESS happened.
Kinda nerdy, but I actually have a celebration spreadsheet! That's how committed I am to celebration!
Question: Do you celebrate your wins? How can you up your celebrating in your life?
It's also important to bring awareness to HOW we celebrate.
In the past, celebration for me meant FOOD!! 🍕🌭 Dessert, sugary stuffs 🍰🍭🍩 (yes, I wrote stuffs)! Booze!! 🍾🥂Time with friends and booze! A lot of things that were actually not that great for me...
Now, I make sure that the way that I celebrate will actually move my life forward and that it feels healthy. Rather than reach for the bottle of wine, I choose something that is in alignment with my larger life goals. 🛤️
Here's some suggestions for celebrations as you go on with your bad self: 😎 
- living room dance party to your fave song 
- singing in the car session! 
- yoga or other yummy self-loving session 
- healthy and yummy meal that will have your body feel like it's THRIVING 
- dedicated time off for SELF-CARE time (hours, days, a weekend, etc)
- have a list of things you've been wanting to experience. Have a win? Celebrate by gifting that experience to yourself! 
- hike
- walk around your neighborhood with a big smile on your face
- an adventure!
A NOTE: just make sure that your celebrations are not dependent on other people or circumstances you can't control. Making time for a dance-party by yourself for 2mins, TOTES DOABLE. Flying to Fiji to celebrate with your entire family....doable but might take more coordination!
I also recommend having different tiers for your celebration with ideas that work for YOU to celebrate yo self. 😍 
    1) smaller wins (living room dance party, or car singing at top of lungs session)
    2) bigger win (schedule time to get massage!)
    3) even bigger win (weekend away at luxury airbnb for self-care!)
    4) even bigger win (that's it, I'm buying myself my private jet!!! #GetIt)
So, do you celebrate? And, HOW do you celebrate?
Say yes if you are committed to bringing more joy to your every day by engaging in a practice of CELEBRATION!! Wooooo!! 🌸🎉✨