A major obstacle to personal growth and life fulfillment is confusion and discomfort around who we are now. Letting go of the past identity, roles, and routines that we got used to, and purposefully, stretching to become a better, higher version of ourselves can be scary.

In this episode, I share some reasons why I believe it is our responsibility and reward to continue to evolve and expand.

I launched Season Two and this ‘pattern interrupt’ thinking with this episode: 

https://lift-as-you-climb.captivate.fm/episode/passion-unchanged-layc44

Referenced, in part, in this episode, I am pleased to share the entire poem:

“Our Greatest Fear

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of

God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

SOURCE: Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Curious about how and who influences our identities? 

Listen Episode 18 and my story “I’ve Never Been This Me Before” here:

https://lift-as-you-climb.captivate.fm/episode/never-been-this-me-before-layc18

And read more www.WhoAmINowBook.com

BONUS:

If you are ready to take the next steps in your transformation and reinvention journey, one of my fabulous free resources awaits you at: www.MYENCORE.ME  Register for my free download a tool that will help you tally up your accumulated lifetime value.

About the Host:

Isabel Alexander – Vitality Champion, Business Strategist, and Transformation Catalyst

Dynamic, a self-made entrepreneur who overcame obstacles with an unrelenting positive nature, a farm girl work ethic, and a conscious choice to thrive rather than survive, Isabel Alexander cultivated an award-winning, $10 million+ global chemical business and grew it from dining room table to international boardrooms.

Isabel’s strengths include the ability to initiate and nurture strategic relationships, a love of lifelong learning, and talents for helping others maximize their potential. 

An inspiring speaker within both industry and community, she is a driving force behind those with the courage to foll0ow her example of thriving against the odds.

With 50+ years of business experience across diverse industries, Isabel is respected as an advisor, a coach, a mentor, and a role model. She believes in sharing collective wisdom and empowering others to economic independence.

Chief Encore Officer, The Encore Catalyst (www.theencorecatalyst.com) – an accelerator for feminine wisdom, influence, and impact.

[~]

Founder of the Lift As You Climb Movement (www.facebook.com/groups/liftasyouclimbmovement)

[~]

Author & Speaker ‘Who Am I Now? – Feminine Wisdom Unmasked Uncensored’ (www.IsabelBanerjee.com)

[~]

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/isabelalexanderbanerjee/

Thank You for Listening!

It means so much that you listened to this podcast! If you know anyone else who might find this show valuable or entertaining, please help recommend they listen and share it on your favorite social media platform.

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#SharingIsCaring

Hello and welcome back!

This is our second season.

I'm very excited to be back with you, with some great new content

and guests and thoughts and impact.

Today...

Kicking off on the theme of identity.

If you followed along at the end of our season last year...

You know I was in a transition period.

There was a lot of change going on in my life.

If you've had an opportunity to consume episode number one last week, you will

know that I changed my identity also.

Not the essence of who I am, but my last name.

I went back to, I recovered the last name Alexander, which is the name that I'm very

happy, very fond to have that name back.

Because I was known by that name for most of my business life.

It's who I feel I am.

So here I am!

Well, on that introduction, it made me give a lot of thought about how

important is my identity to this podcast, and more important...

to the Lift As You Climb Movement.

And I realized that my name doesn't have a great deal to do with it at all...

But it's who I am, my authentic, in the heart of me...

How I show up in the world.

My essence, my value, my expectations for continuing to become more

and more of the best of me.

Identity is a very critical component of lifting and climbing, because if we

don't know who we are and what our value is, what our strengths are, what our

limitations are, the good and the bad.

It's really important for us to be very conscious and mindful of

that, as we plan our own growth in personal development, and our encores,

as I am fond of talking about.

So that we really are clear about the legacy that we're

going to leave in the world.

Not wait for somebody to write nice things about us after are gone,

but actually be present, and be the person that's influencing the legacy

and refining it, as we go along.

I just think it's so marvelous, to be aware that, just like using the good

China, or wearing your best underwear...

Living your best life is not something that should be saved

for a time after you're gone...

That you're no longer on this planet...

But being present right now, experiencing it, driving it, celebrating it.

That's what we're all about.

Because the more that we are the best of us, the more that we

are able to be a role model...

To be a helper, a supporter, a lifter of others.

There's a quote that I refer to in my book...

Who Am I Now.

That really kinda sets up this theme for me.

And I'm just gonna take a couple of lines from that right now.

But for those of you who wanna read the rest of it, you either will

find it in my book or, go online and look up Marianne Williamson...

A Return To Love.

Two of the lines from there are...

As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other

people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I really think that sentiment says so much about why it's important to

remove the limiting beliefs that we have, figure out what our fears are

and if they're real, or if they're just thoughts that we keep thinking.

That we continue to work on strengthening our confidence in who we are.

But how do you know?

How do you know who you are today?

That was certainly a big question for me.

In fact, it was such a big question in my life, a little over a decade ago,

that I wrote a whole book about it.

Because I realized, suddenly one day, in the midst of what looks

like to the rest of the world...

a perfect life...

I had no idea who I was anymore or why my life mattered at all.

I didn't know properly how to introduce myself, because I had no longer a business

card that told me who I was, that title that, identified me in an introduction so

that there was not much need to say more.

Like me, like my friends, like you...

We are in evolution constantly, and a lifetime of us being something for

someone else, or being someone, because someone else thought we should be.

Told how to behave, how to speak, where to work, who to marry, how to

dress, what kind of house to live in, how many children to have...

What was appropriate to wear after Labor Day...

Who to vote for...

How much money equaled success.

There was a lot of...

doing every day...

Just being busy, keeping up with...

What we thought was the way to achieve success, the way to be our most

happy most fulfilled, most rewarded.

And then suddenly...

Wow...

Things start to fall off that don't fit in there anymore.

Maybe you've retired.

Maybe you've sold your business like I did...

Perhaps your significant relationship ended or your significant role in life

as a parent, a caretaker, a teacher...

Whatever your career that came to an end for different circumstances.

Maybe you've moved to a new community, you're trying to establish new friends.

Your routine changes after you retire or you move, or you have an illness

that affects what you used to do.

Suddenly all of the things that you took for granted, that kind of described you...

Assured you of who you were and how you were going to behave and how

you're gonna show up in the world.

And...

How other people saw you...

All of that changed.

So what do you do when all of the lines get blurred, and the

pictures blend together, and now...

You don't recognize who you are anymore?

You have to do what I did, and what so many of our generation are doing...

You take stock, you do an assessment, and you figure out your

identity for who you are today.

That's part of what I've been perfecting, and testing on myself, and teaching

and coaching many others over the last decade, is this process of

what I call the Encore methodology...

Of appreciating who we are, and all of the stuff that has made us

the greatness that we are today...

Bumps and warts and all...

And who we wanna become next, and reminding us of the foundation that

we have on which to build and go on.

I've talked about trying to figure out who I was...

and feeling like I had been successful...

but now I just seem to be kind of a ghost in my own life.

When I then finally realized...

Nope...

I get this...

I see this clearly as a crisis of my own imagination.

That it's simply that I fell for the story I was told...

That life was just going to be perfect when I retired...

I grew up with Freedom 55 commercials that said I just needed to wear a

polo sweater, and be comfortable in my retirement ... To...

Uh-uh....

I changed that to No...

I'm going to consciously choose to retire, only from the things I

don't like to do, and consciously do more of the things I do want to do.

So I wrote a book...

The great thing is my story's not finished yet...

every day I begin to write a brand new chapter of living and living my legacy.

I've already started some things in that legacy that I'm proud of and I

wanna continue to do more of that.

I've created a community, where women are sharing feminine wisdom

and sharing their experiences...

and not feeling like it's only them that doesn't have it figured out,

or doesn't conform or isn't good enough, but that they can support

each other and they lift as they climb, while they share that wisdom...

and they pass it down across the globe.

I'm very passionate about helping women get more rewards and more

enjoyment out of their businesses.

Having been an entrepreneur and still an entrepreneur...

I'm really passionate about helping others to figure out that it's not

just all grind and stress and fear..

But set up properly, a business can give you a lot of rewards, a lot of enjoyment

and position you to help others...

to lift them as you climb.

Because we know, if you're not financially stable or successful, it's harder to do

as many things as you might want to do.

Mentoring is another way that I volunteered and took on a leadership

role in Rotary International.

Which for me has a lasting legacy for sure, to have been

part of an organization which has such a global footprint.

I hope that I'm leaving a very positive legacy.

I consciously mentor men and women of all ages...

including my grandchildren.

At the same time, the reciprocity of mentoring is fabulous, because

I'm also learning from them.

Which again, adds to my accumulated lifetime riches...

for lifting and climbing.

I started the Lift As You Climb Movement, and although in its infancy, I have

a dream for that to become one day the lift as you climb foundation, so

that we are a contributor to economic autonomy and empowerment of women and

their families around the world.

I'm the leader of an amazing group and a chief cheerleading officer

Women reinventing retirement on their own terms.

And it's a joy to be part of that group because I can share

in real time, my own learnings..

And my mistakes?...

well, there are no mistakes.

Right!

There are no mistakes.

There are only opportunities to do something a different way.

So that's my current legacy plan or part of it, and I'm not done yet.

I am a woman in progress and I'm glad of it because...

I feel like if, if I've reached a point where I think I've figured everything

out and there's nothing left for me to learn or room for me to grow, then...

then what's the point, right?

So if some of my story and my journey resonates with you, then

I know that you're starting to see that once you know who you are and

who you want to become next, all the decisions flow up from there.

And there is a methodology and there is a process that makes it a

little easier to get to there, but you can start very simply by just

asking yourself a few questions:

What's meaningful to you?

What sets your heart to smiling?

What lights you up?

Who and what really matter to you now?

Not the past, not anybody else's script for what they think

is important, but for you.

Who, what, really matters?

Why does your life matter?

How will you be remembered?

And remember, it's not too late to change that because it is never too

late to start to make a difference.

So when you know who you are, or at least you're committed to the

process of figuring it out...

what I call my Encore evolution process.

Then, then you're on track to be your strongest and highest self.

And as long as you have a desire to constantly grow and evolve, you're

just going to continue to be more for yourself and more for everybody else.

Does it sound like a lot of work?

Maybe it does, but what's the alternative stagnating and becoming

dust or being that grumpy person that nobody wants to be around because

you're always complaining and dwelling in past memories and self pity.

Remember, you're not starting from scratch...

You're starting from experience.

So give some thought to your identity.

I have a tool, that I offer with my compliments, that may help you to

start to formulate the incredible gem that you already are and the

resources that you have to start.

I call this my personal capital evaluation, and I think it's a very

good tool to help you take stock in a, in an objective manner what

you've already got to build on.

As I say, you're not starting from scratch.

You're starting from experience and a lifetime of tacit knowledge.

Very easy to find this, go to the URL..

My encore.me.

And you'll get the free download.

It's a PDF and you can fill it in.

And I really recommend, just like going to your financial advisor, that you do

a regular review of this document, and just marvel at the fortune that you are!

I'll put the link in the show notes for you.

Before I sign off today, I just like to remind you that life is your stage,

and you are the script writer, the director, and the executive producer

of every role that you experience.

Even if you think that somebody else is directing the show.

That's the choice that you need to make, who you're going

to take the direction from.

So each time you choose to step into the spotlight and star in your life,

you become more of the best of you.

As you build your success ladder, on your terms, you empower others to build theirs.

As Maryanne Williamson says...

You liberate others.

If you need help to create your next Encore plan, visit

The Encore Catalyst.com.

There's lots of resources there to help you get started today.

I'd like your help.

If you have suggestions for topics, or guests to interview

for this podcast, please email me, hello@theencorecatalyst.com.