My dear friend, Nettie Hartsock,  offered an idea to me to write an article around, “Repurposing Content: The Soul Journey”.  She went on to say what repurposing mean is that you take the content of something you’ve already written and you “repurpose” it more powerfully in another area.  The content stays the same; the difference is in how it is utilized for each audience and each target.
 Nettie is obviously a dear, dear friend of mine to offer me the idea that instead of seeing a reoccurring life lesson as a negative, to reframe it into an opportunity for me to repurpose what I’ve already learned and edit in the new awareness’s to maximize all of the life lessons. Well, when you think of it that way it sure does feel hopeful don’t you agree?
The life lesson that I am spiraling around these days is the one about stepping into my power as a woman and yet being able to step back from my ego and let that unknowable “Good Orderly Direction” (GOD) take the driver’s seat.  My job is to do the best I can with what I have right now.  Figuring out what I’m the best at is the challenge. 

For instance, for the past decade I was one of the head people of a company that recruited technical professionals (programmers, designers, architects).  Please don’t call me a “head hunter” because I feel that we were so much more than just people who found people for jobs or jobs for people. We cared about the “people” we worked with whether they were consultants or clients.  I believe that attitude is what set us apart and allowed us to be very successful.
I loved the fast pace (most of the time!) and having to discover and identify the right people with the best fitting skills, experience, and personality for a job that would also make them happy.  Over the years I met some really incredible people and learned so much about myself in the process. For one thing, I hadn’t realized what huge judgments I’d had about “technical” people, especially programmers!! I’d been pretty much prepared to believe that programmers were arrogant and real linear thinkers who would have no time for my free-flowing very non-linear way of thinking and being.  Back at the embryonic stages of the web, some of the programmers and designers were very confident in their skills and did play hard to get when it came to various jobs that we contacted them about that seemed that they would be a perfect match. However, most of these kind souls were willing to “edu-ma-cate” me to the errors of my thinking and taught me the nuances of various client’s requirements and what they found interesting or not.  Many times, in fact I would venture to say most of the time, money just wasn’t a huge carrot for someone to leave a job for another.  Especially the people getting into the “fun” new web technologies. Money was important, but what they would get to do in their jobs was much more alluring for them to consider jumping ship.

What I learned to do was to relax into being who I am which is a woman who is intelligent and has experience and is good with people, but to know that I am not someone that could necessarily begin and maintain a very technical conversation with someone for extended periods of time! My forte was in letting them be brilliant at what they were and to let them explain to me who they were, while getting out of their way. 
Once again here I am in a career as a Coach where I have to relax into being who I am as a woman, realizing that I have all the tools, experience and skills within me to help people in their careers to discover their own strengths so that they can create a road map for their success. Whatever that is, the success is not the point. That the success they find is because of their own unique spin is the point.
I had a situation recently occur where it seemed as if a prospective client may have been either “put off” or “scared off” by my presentation as a Coach who likes to go “deep”. Meaning that if you’re the CEO of a company or the owner of a small business and you’re feeling “stuck” and are considering breaking into a whole different arena of business or career, then I’m most likely going to want to go “spiritually spelunking” with you to help you discover where you really want to go and how you want to get there.  I believe I’ve always scared some people half-to-death over the course of my life because of this tendency of mine to want to go deep.  The difference this time is that instead of me recognizing my deep-diving skills and reacting like the Madeline Khan character in the Bride of Frankenstein when she and (was it Gene Wilder?) see each other for the first time and scream their heads off, I am willing to accept this fine spelunking skill. I’m willing to understand that this way of being is not for every person out there and that’s okay. I don’t have to make either of us wrong.
To bring the repurpose point to a close, I think I’m actually in the process of repurposing an old “racquet” or story that I have told myself over and over again about the “lie of my belief that I don’t have power or that the power that I have is too much!” and I am willing to claim my power and settle into it even though it might not earn me every popularity contest.
So if you were to repurpose a “life lesson” for yourself, what would it be?