Updates, news, and... What are you choosing? Really?

Oh gosh... friends. The fodder for today is so rich. I've had so many things happen this last quarter that have informed much of my thinking, inspired me, and given me so many answers to questions I've been grokking literally for over a year.

I'm going to be addressing some of these things here on this blog over the next year -- I hope you'll join me. And I'll be doing it in mini posts and long. Business and personal. Leadership and culture. Whatever is true for me as I write. Note: The more personal stuff that I write about, I save for our AC #TuesdayTreats email subscribers (as well as articles and announcements and deals that I don't make publicly). Would love you to join me there as well. Subscribe here. For now, let's dig in... 

Oh... where. to. start? 

Couple high level announcements first. Our official PR campaign for CONTAGIOUS YOU: Unlock Your Power to Influence, Lead, and Create the Impact You Want (that new book you see on the right of this post) completes this week! Wow! That was intense. People don't realize that PR and sharing done well and intentionally is literally a part-to-full time job. I am so grateful for every outlet that invited me to share, speak, write, interview, etc... WOW. Thank you. (You can access many of the interviews and articles here.) A huge thank you as well to Cave Henricks Communications (CHC) for their support and care in that campaign and for helping me introduce this book to the world. I learned so much.

Of course, I will always be thanking my publisher McGraw-Hill for publishing another book with me (we did CONTAGIOUS CULTURE in 2015 and I'm madly grateful we got to do another one together). Publishing a book takes grit, care, love, rigor, and a village and I had a great one. 

Some things to know now as we close that chapter and move into the next (because no worries, I'm just getting started on introducing and sharing this book): 

• Get your copy of the new book (or the original one) on Amazon, Porchlight, Barnes & Noble, or wherever books are sold.
• Please leave a review and give it some book love (it really helps and I truly like seeing how things are landing for readers) 
• Follow me on my social media -- I'm doing more and more on it. For example: Instagram has an 18-day #ContagiousYou series/challenge we're running (today is day 4) -- free -- all you have to do is show up. (Even having the book is OPTIONAL, though... come on. It will help if you have it. Grab a book!) On Twitter, I'm talking more and more with people as things are coming up and I'm feeling congruent in posting. Please say hi there if that's your jam. Of course FaceBook -- always on there with more personal stuff (there's a business and a personal page -- happy to see you on either or both), and LinkedIn -- get me there. More and more business content AND I've been writing for #YouAsked and I really like doing that. I love your questions and having something to offer. So follow me there as a "follower" and also, LinkIn with me. How can I help? Always listening and doing my best to be on these platforms regularly. I've been putting out a lot of content and interviews and all that for the last year (a book + interviews and articles galore will ask that! I feel so lucky to have had these opportunities!) AND, now that we're in this chapter, you'll see more on social media, on this blog, and on #TuesdayTreats. Please join me. My rule is that as long as it is pleasurable for me and valuable for you -- I'll keep it up. If that changes, I stop and do something different. 

And new for you: CONTAGIOUS CONTENT!

One of the biggest learnings I had this year is the visceral experience of clarifying intention and choosing choosing choosing. Every choice I made had impact -- for good or bad. Every intention I had created impact (sometimes unintentional impact). And I've become wildly sensitive (even more so than before if possible) to the power of intention AND choice. 

So my offering/inquiry for you today is...

WHAT ARE YOU CHOOSING? No kidding. Really. 

We are always choosing SOMETHING. 

Get this idea and we're free, powerful, and way more likely ready to move big mountains.

Get clear on your intention and your choice and everything else gets cleaner... 

This is an idea that I find can be a huge blindspot for people as well as a total liberator when they see it. (It always is for me, and when I'm fuzzy or unclear, all I have to do is come back to this idea.)

We are always choosing. Our intention helps us choose more effectively. 

I speak about this on yesterday's Instagram story and post (if we're lucky, Ashley put it in the highlights so you can see it for longer). I wrote a post on this on Twitter yesterday. And now I'm offering you this... When you choose to say YES, you are choosing NO to other things. Here are 13 choices I've personally made myself or witnessed in others in the last week.

1. Choose TV late at night or a night out, you are choosing LESS sleep.
2. Choose crap food,  you are choosing subpar energy and performance.
3. Choose wimpy language ("try" "busy" "hope" "can't" as opposed to "will" "richly/intentionally scheduled" "intend" or "won't"), you are choosing likely weaselly outcomes and a weak foundation to create impact from.
4. Choose to self-medicate with drugs/alcohol/exercise/spiral thinking, choose to not address what's what.
5. Choose to not tell your truth, you are choosing abdication and an opportunity to deepen your relationship.
6. Choose to judge, get self-righteous, and tell people what to do, you are choosing to lose out on curiosity, connection, learning, and being an invitation.
7. Choose to complain (especially again and again), and you are choosing not a request or forward action, but to stay stuck. 
8. Choose to reschedule that important meeting again and again, you are choosing avoidance and staying where you are.
9. Choose to say yes to the last minute reschedule again and again, you are choosing not honoring your time or boundaries or value.
10. Choose to take mistreatment and not stand up or hold that boundary, you are choosing to teach people that's okay. 
11. Choose to say NO to something that isn't good for you, you choose your YES for your well-being and being in right relationship with yourself (and likely others).
12. Choose to be negative, grumpy, committed to your misery, and toxically contagious, you are choosing to invite people to meet you there.
13. Choose to be positive, helpful, in service of solutions, and usefully contagious, you are choosing to have people meet you there. 

You get it. I get it. We all get it. Right?

Awareness is key. Choice is power. Both reduce struggle.

So what are you choosing? 

Bonus work: For any of these that resonate for you, get curious as to what the INTENTION is under that choice. #freedom #power #action #go

Have a great week.

//axc