Review: The Key To Everything

"Teachablity" - that's the key to everything!

Did you read the caption under that picture?  

Before you get all excited and think you don't need to read the book now that you know teachability is The Key to Everything...take a deep breath.  We're fixin' to dive in deep. I'm going to be vulnerable. You see...

I thought I was teachable.

Read on, my friends....

I was very excited to be part of the launch team and eager to read The Key To Everything.  Who doesn't want to know this secret, right?  I didn't know when I started that I was in for more than I bargained for...in the best way possible! 

You see, I have a dream of publishing my own book that I have been working towards for almost two years now. (For decades if you include all the time I've spent just thinking about it.) The problem was that I had come across some roadblocks that were keeping me stuck in a few places.  They had to do with the technology aspects of having a website as well a place where your readers can input their email address so you can send them emails.  I had a few email addresses, but they were in a Gmail folder and I had no way of accessing them, except manually.  

I had no idea what the solution was, and there were way too many options, and as many opinions about those options depending on whose blog you read that day. So this decision had been postponed...for almost two years. 

While in the middle of reading the book I decided to talk to a mentor.  I confessed that I felt stuck. She challenged me to drill down and figure out what was holding me back from making a decision. The more I thought about it the more my anxiety levels rose about making the wrong decision. There were way too many options out there, and I had no idea how to make sure I made the right choice.  

Then I remembered this "formula" I had read in the Introduction:

DESIRE to learn

X

WILLINGNESS to change

=

level of TEACHABILITY

I knew that I needed a WILLINGNESS to change this one behavior:  procrastination about making important decisions.  I had to quit spinning my wheels and make a decision so I could email my people.  Unless I did that I would never get anywhere as an author. 

Once I became WILLING TO CHANGE...all manner of assistance came my way.

My friend, Rachel, heard me talk about my dilemna one day and offered to come over and help. She had experience with the very decision that had stumped me for far too long! I listened to her go over my options, and the pros and cons for each one.  Then she said the most amazing thing: "If you don't like whichever program you choose, you can always switch to another one. People do that every day.  It's not always easy, but it's doable."  

So between my mentor and a friend I was able to overcome one of the obstacles that was holding me back from my full potential.  That very day I made a decision and haven't looked back since.

As a matter of fact, I decided to be even more teachable and signed up to take a free online class on how to grow my email subscriber list. I started out with just a few emails...was teachable and did exactly what I was told, and am almost 3/4's of the way to my initial goal of 1,000 email subscribers!

My problem now? 

I need to send an email out to all those people who have subscribed this week!

And, ummm... 

I don't know how to do that.  

Yet.  

If you want to know whether my book is one you are interested in, or just to know if I ever figured  out how to send my readers an email, you can click here to subscribe! 

But I digress, this blog is about Matt's book, not mine. 

I have a lot to learn about being a writer and author, but having read Matt Keller's The Key To Everything I am more prepared to be TEACHABLE than ever before!

I want to leave my mark on the world...but first I have some email tutorial videos to go watch.

The Key To Everything is now available from Amazon.  

Learn more about Matt Keller on his website:  MattKellerOnline, on Facebook, and on Twitter.   

For The Love...of Jen & #the4500

This post is part of Jen Hatmaker’s “For the Love” Blog Tour which I am delighted to be a part of along with many other inspiring bloggers.  To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE.

Book trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjyZ91Z0nFs

Link to book:  http://forthelovebook.com/

I have grown to love Jen Hatmaker, the self-titled "Hashtag abusing Jesus girl", more than I believed possible having never met her in person...(yet).

Before March 12th I only knew her from her blog (www.jenhatmaker.com) and Facebook posts (www.facebook.com/pages/Jen-Hatmaker/203920953040241) which are hilarious.

(Confession:  I had never read any of her serious books like Interrupted or 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess...because I didn't know they existed! I have since corrected that egregious oversight.)

In March my life changed.  I applied to be on the For The Love book launch team and was rejected along with 4500 others and #the4500 decided that we would be a launch team anyway with just the four chapters we had been given as a sweet consolation prize.  It's a long story you can read about here:  http://annalebarondavenport.blogspot.com/2015/03/jen-hatmaker-knows-who-i-am-sort-of.html

Life as I knew it became "before the Tweet" and "after the Tweet".

The best way for me to tell you about Jen Hatmaker's For The Love: Fighting For Grace in a World of Impossible Standards is to let her tell you about us.

Jen had this to say about #the4500 (and #the500) in her "thank you" at the end of For The Love:

"These women came together months before this book released, and a community emerged that I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams. What started as a simple rally around For The Love turned into meet-ups, scholarships, prayer groups, trips, parties, parenting threads, writing clubs, group merchandising, and essentially, the entire message of FTL demonstrated in real life.  Friends, I love you with my entire heart. Beyond the beautiful endorsements and encouragement, you showed me that a FTL community is not only possible, it is vibrant and spiritual and unified and entirely irreverent.  You are my best gift this year.  Forever #onmybeam."

That, my readers, is the caliber of women that became #the4500.

Over the course of five months and too many posts and comments in our group to count, we have become each other's IRL (or #InRealLife) friends.  I have welcomed these women into my heart and into my home.

We have called, texted, and hung out with each other using every social media outlet there is.
We have shown up in real life for one another.
We have bonded over a cups of coffee and simple meals served with wine.
We lived the message of FTL before we even knew what the book was all about.
We have laughed together over some of the silliest things you can imagine and cried with one another over devastating news and serious losses.
We let down our guards with one another and offered up our vulnerability in ways that mattered.

As Jen says in FTL, "Simply speaking truth out loud is healing in and of itself. When people courageously voice a true, hard feeling, they've already stolen some of its dark power before we offer one word to fix it." 

We discovered that our commonalities far exceeded any differences we may have found.
We offered each other the grace that Jen talks about that this world needs so desperately.
We now have words, phrases and #hashtags that require an explanation.

Also, Dauntless Grace Ministries (www.dauntlessgrace.org) was born out of some #RealTalk conversations...that originated in #the4500...which originated from a Tweet...on Twitter.  Seriously?!
Side note: I'll be hosting a DGM Group in my home starting in September!

It's like all this awesomeness was just dropped in our laps from above. 

On Twitter Jen referred to FTL like birthing a baby she hoped wouldn't keep her up at night. So I'd like to think #the4500 was like a doula, coming alongside her as she delivered this baby to the world.

Our relationship with Jen will forever be etched on our hearts as an exciting season of life that we lived to the fullest and then some.  I don't know how any of us got any sleep.

I do know that I will take these women with me wherever I go.  Our hearts have been forever knitted together in the bonds of true girlfriend, real talk fellowship. I want them all to be part of my Supper Club and I want my porch to be an altar where we gather weekly for Sunday Night Church.

We, the women of #the4500, launched a book, and a movement.

We have made both Jen and Jesus proud. I couldn't have asked for more.

Are You a Flosser? (Wait...is "flosser" even a word?)

[Note:  For those that read my blog regularly, this isn't quite the departure from the subject matter you are used to that it appears to be...keep reading for the usual fare you have come to expect from me.] 

If you ARE a regular flosser... ***fist bump!***   

If you are NOT a regular flosser, don't tune me out just yet. 

You see, I wasn't a flosser for DECADES.  I know the pain of going to the dentist again and again, knowing you'll hear the same words from the dental hygienist, "You need to start flossing."  UGH!

You reply in agreement but inside your head it sounds something like this:  "Yeah, yeah, yeah...fine, whatever, lady.  I'll TRY. AGAIN."  Deep down inside you know you really won't, even though you have really good intentions to do so.

I went to the dentist in November 2005 (after a lot of years of not going) and was told that I had periodontal disease.  I was told that if I would "just start flossing regularly" (easier said, than done) I could reverse the disease.  Then they served up this nugget of truth, "Either start flossing or plan on losing some or all of your teeth starting at age 50."  I'm embarrassed to admit that their dire warning did not change my behavior.

They tell you how bad your periodontal disease is by measuring the pocket, or the space, between your gums and teeth.  Anything over 3mm is considered unhealthy.
 

That day in 2005 I had some 4's, but mostly I had 5's, and even a 6 or two(!) which is very bad...not to mention painful when they poke around your mouth...or when cold stuff touches those super-sensitive areas.

I had to start practicing self-care by showing up at the dentist every three months, instead of the normal six months between visits, to try and sort this out.  Just going to the dentist was a start, but it cost me.

• It cost me money out of pocket, because insurance only covers twice a year. 
• It cost me time off work for these appointments.
• It cost me my pride having to admit that I wasn't flossing like I should have been.  
• It cost me my integrity, knowing I was lying when I would say I would start flossing.

Fast forward almost 10 years to my appointment with the dentist  March 25, 2015.

The report from the hygienist was as follows:  One 4....and all the rest were 3's!

ALL BUT ONE ARE HEALTHY NOW!!!

If you are wondering how you, too, can get the results I got yesterday hear me on this:  

You will need to change your mind...you will need to think differently about flossing.

For me, flossing is now what I call a "spiritual activity".

I can hear you now:  "Huh?!  Say what?  Flossing is a spiritual activity?  You lost me."

Let me explain.  It's only a spiritual activity if you are using a sermon you heard at church about meditation (of all things) as your jumping off point for beginning a new, healthy habit.

[To hear that sermon by Jimmy Evans called "A Mind Set Free", click here.]

Jimmy told us on November 16, 2013 how he quit smoking by changing the dialogue he was having with himself (in his mind) and with others.  Once he decided to become a non-smoker he would say to himself and others, "I am a non-smoker." and that's how he quit smoking.

I had just been to the dentist that week (again) and had just told the hygienist (again) that I would "try" (again) to start flossing regularly.  After hearing Jimmy Evans sermon, I decided that if he could QUIT a bad habit by changing the dialogue in his mind, then I could START a healthy habit the same way.

I went home that day in November 2013, pulled out my label maker and stuck this label above my bathroom sink where I would see it at least twice a day, morning and night, to remind myself of who I was (A FLOSSER!).

I began to floss every night before bed LIKE IT WAS MY JOB.   

Yes, that is the kind of flosser I now use daily.  I love it!  No more messy, gross, tangled mess.

I continued going to the dentist every three months, and slowly, but surely I made progress.  Each time the dental report would get better.  Finally, in September 2014 I had made enough progress, and had a behavioral track record they were happy with, and the report was so good, they told me I could schedule my next appointment for SIX MONTHS OUT!!!  "You mean I'm normal again!?!"  

I was a little nervous at the time, wondering if I really had it in me to be trusted for THAT LONG without their probing instruments that were keeping me accountable, but hey, if they were willing to trust me to keep up the good job I was doing, who was I to argue?  They are the professionals, after all!  It took me from November 2013 to March 2015 to turn things around but I did it!

All that happened because I changed my mind and changed the dialogue in my head and told myself that...

...I AM A FLOSSER.  

Now I feel like I can change the world! 

***********************  

For more information on changing your mind and the dialogue(s) you have with yourself, check out the following resources:

Bob Hamp's books:  Think Differently Live Differently; as well as Think Differently Lead Differently; available for purchase at: www.bobhamp.com

Dr. Caroline Leaf, author of an incredibly helpful book called, "Switch on Your Brain", available for purchase at: www.drleaf.com; along with that book's very helpful companion App called "The 21 Day Brain Detox" available for download at:  www.21DayBrainDetox.com
 

Jen Hatmaker Knows Who I Am!!! (sort of)

This week I started a ruckus on Jen Hatmaker's Twitter feed with ONE TWEET and a HASHTAG.

The tweet was about her forthcoming book, "For The Love - Fighting For Grace in a World of Impossible Standards", which is set for release on Aug 18, 2015.  

~ You can pre-order at B&N, Books-a-Million, or Amazon ~

You see, I applied to be on her Book Launch Team.  They had 5,000 applicants and only 500 spots, so there were 4500 of us that got the sweetest rejection letter EVER telling us all that we are "still her people"...ALONG WITH FOUR (4) SAMPLE CHAPTERS to read in advance!

I was so excited that I tweeted her:  (Jen loves hashtags and good food, so I refererenced both in my Tweet and made up this hashtag on the fly.)

I cracked up Jen Hatmaker, you guys.

WAIT! WHAT?...Jen Hatmaker REPLIED...TO MY TWEET!?!

That ONE TWEET and HASHTAG (along with a famous person's reply, of course) started what Seth Godin calls A RUCKUS!  The hashtag went viral...(ok, fine...it went viral on Jen's Twitter page)....but then it spilled over onto Facebook in the form of a group (i.e. a non-stop paaartay!...that Jen has peeked in on!) and OH MY GOSH.  I CAN'T EVEN.  

Basically, #The4500 said that while we may not have made the "official" launch team (initially), we are still on your launch team, Jen!  In other words, we didn't take 'no' for an answer. 

Then there was that day that Jen tweeted and re-tweeted my tweets, and called me "The dearest thing ever" and has tweeted "So in love with #The4500".  Even Brandon Hatmaker got in on this deal tweeting "love it" alongside "#The4500".

Then we heard that #The4500 was 'all the talk' (someone discussing it at the water cooler) at Thomas Nelson (Jen's publisher) because THIS KIND OF THING HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!!!

And now Thomas Nelson has gotten involved with our group, and THAT'S KIND OF A BIG DEAL to me!  Katy is on Jen's marketing team and is giving us guidance and direction about how to help promote Jen's book in ways that will actually help her.  (As opposed to all the ways in which #The4500 just went nuts doing our own thing.)  Herding cats is more like how I'd describe Katy's fun, new job duties. 

Katy may need therapy when this is all over with, but I'm dying of happiness, you guys! I don't even know what to do with myself anymore.  

I'm not sure I'll be of any use to anyone for days, maybe even weeks or possibly months.   

AUGUST 18th, 2015 CANNOT GET HERE SOON ENOUGH.

   

Bless The Teachers

God bless the teachers, one and all, today and everyday.  

I definitely went to school to soak up love and acceptance from my teachers.  I always worked extra hard to please them and was crushed if I felt their least disapproval.  I loved every single one of my teachers, but I absolutely adored my third grade teacher.  I distinctly remember the sadness I felt on the last day of school that year.  I wanted that school year to go on forever and ever.

After escaping the cult at age thirteen I was enrolled in a small, Christian school.  My teachers there left indelible impressions on my heart.  They were conduits of His Love to my desperately needy heart. When they found out that the last name I was using (Marston) wasn't my real name, they went through the trouble of changing all my official school records so I could have my father's last name.  That is when I became Anna LeBaron. In a huge way my identity was restored to me.  

My 1st grade teacher once wrote on my report card, "Anna keeps me on my toes!" 
(I'm sure she thought I was just precious...of course she did.  Yes, I'm sure that's how she felt...)

Even though she meant that I was a handful (me...a handful?!) I received those words on that day as a compliment and felt loved and known, but mostly I felt SEEN and NOTICED in a sea of other kids at school and at home.

Today I suggested as much to Holy Spirit, writing in my journal that I must be a handful with my messy heart and with everything I still need to learn...and this is what my heart hears:  

"Anna, you are even more precious to me."

And I'm wrecked. Undone.  

I'm undone in the presence of THE Teacher.  The Teacher that worked through each of the teachers that went before Him and paved the way for me to come to know just how very loved and precious I truly am to Him. 

The Purpose of Pain / Walking in Freedom

It seems ironic that God would use some physical pain I was experiencing to teach me about WALKING IN FREEDOM, but that is exactly what He did yesterday. Here is what I wrote in my personal journal:

"Body, soul, and spirt are designed to experience pain as a signal that gets me to act differently in response to the pain that I am experiencing.  Pain is a message that something isn't right and needs to change.  My usual response to pain is to compartmentalize it/deny it/avoid it and continue on...
By not allowing myself to experience the fullness of my pain I am depriving myself of experiencing the fullness of my joy as well.  Limiting myself in one area limits me in other areas as well.  I cannot selectively compartmentalize my emotions.

My 'normal' has been to brace myself against pain (mental, emotional, or physical) and bulldoze through it as though it weren't happening at all.  

Pretend.  Deny.  Internalize. Keep my chin up.  Be strong for others.  Minimize my needs.  Make myself useful, indispensable even.  Earn my keep.  Earn my place.  Whatever you do, Anna, just don't become a problem.  As you know, problems are eliminated.  Just continue on as though you are okay, because you don't want to be sent back to Denver."

Ouch.

***The light bulb goes on***

I realized through the journaling process that I learned to take on the weight of the responsibility for other people's problems that I was never intended to carry.  I was carrying burdens for others that I was never intended to bear.

I did this because I felt like I needed to earn my place with the people that I lived with.  If I wasn't useful then I wasn't needed.

I learned at a young age to push aside
pain
discomfort
tiredness
illness
distress
fear
sadness
and aloneness.

In other words, I learned to numb myself and PERFORM at all costs, to be USEFUL, even when it is to my own detriment.  

Yesterday, that lie was uprooted.  Here is what Holy Spirit said to me:

"Anna, I am going to work in the lives of others through you; not at your expense, BUT AT MINE."

In other words, I don't have to pay the price for the freedom of others.  I can't.  The price for their freedom has already been paid in full...on the Cross.

The freedom that I have experienced and walk in was very costly to Him.  The difference between me and others is that I have pressed in and availed myself of the freedom that Jesus died on the Cross to provide for me.  It's available to all who ask, seek, and knock for themselves.  Too often I have found myself asking, seeking, and knocking on behalf of others.  I was doing the work for them that they should have been doing for themselves.  I was working harder on their problem than they were, as Danny Silk says.  I was expending myself in a way that did not allow them to expend themselves in this process.  What I was doing was actually not very helpful, even though my intentions were entirely pure (though selfishly motivated...ouch!).

The price for freedom has been paid.  Jesus paid it all.  It is at His Expense that people are saved, healed, set free and made whole.  Freedom, just like Salvation, is a gift that must be received in order to be experienced.  Those who are not free are in a prison that is locked from the inside, and the key is inside the prison with them.  Nobody else can open the cell door for them.  They have to want to be free.  Sure, I could bust them out of prison from the outside, but that won't help them stay free.  They will only be imprisoned again because they didn't learn how to stay free.

Two of my favorite Bob Hamp quotes are:
"Freedom isn't the absence of something.  Freedom is the presence of someOne."
"Freedom is becoming the person that you were created and redeemed to be."

Paul said to the Corinthians, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

The key to uprooting the lies, unlocking the prison doors and to being set free is His Presence.

Coming Out of My Hiding Place

It happened again. 

"The Overwhelm"
"The Paralyses"
"Frozen in Fear"
"A Hot Mess" (This is another blog all by itself....coming soon)

Whatever you call it, it is a real thing. 

It's what happens to me when life comes at me fast, like a tornado that leaves a path of destruction in it's wake and leaves me hiding in the storm shelter long after the storm has passed.  Sometimes hiding looks like too much chocolate, or too much Netflix.  Or too much __________.  (Fill in the blank with your favorite hide out.) 

Important Things cannot get done while you're hiding out in a storm shelter. 

Yeah, that hiding business, it's a real thing all right.

It keeps me from doing the small things that the Bible calls "little". 
(It sounds something like this in my head:  "What good will picking up that one sock on the floor do when my whole house looks like a tornado came through it?"  Sound familiar?)

It keeps me from being found faithful in the Little Things and in the Important Things.
 
It keeps me from listening for that still, small Voice inside.  The Voice that is willing and able to guide me from that place of hiding, "protected" from a the swirling storm that has long since passed...

...to the place of freedom where I am released to act upon Holy Spirit guidance and direction.

It keeps me from looking for The Way out...The Way out of The Overwhelm, The Paralyses, and The Fear that binds me.

Quietly, patiently, and oh so lovingly Holy Spirit waits for an invitation.  For me the invitation goes something like this:

1.  I close my eyes and take a deep breath in. 
2.  I intentionally quiet the noise in my head.
3.  I let that deep breath out and relax my body. 
4.  I repeat 1-3....UNTIL.

Until the noise stops.
Until my belly lets go of the gripping anxiety.
Until I can hear The Voice speaking to the winds and the waves, "Be still."

The winds and the waves obey.  They obey because I obeyed. 

The word obey in the Greek means to attentively listen to the one giving the charge; acting under the authority of The One speaking.

I'm learning that there isn't anything that I have to do today that is more important than Attentively Listening for The Voice that calms the stormy seas in my heart and invites me to come out of my hiding place.

Hearing The Voice, and more importantly, receiving The Message that my heart desperately needs for this day is the key to walking in freedom.

Yesterday's message is not enough for this jumbled, mixed up heart of mine.  I need a fresh message, or fresh manna, for each day.   In Bob Hamp's book, Think Differently Lead Differently, he writes, "...if we try to hang on to yesterday's [manna]...we end up with a jar of rotten food." [In the margin of my copy of the book I wrote the words, "Oh. My".  I do that.  I write in all my best books. Then I had to put the book down and wrap my mind around that nugget of truth for a while.] 

I know I am hearing The Voice when I receive messages that sound something like this: 

"You are fully known, fully loved and fully accepted."
"It'll be okay, Anna.  I have you held securely in the palm of my hand." 
"I love you, Hot Mess and all."

Enough is Enough

I feel like a time waster deluxe.

This feeling causes me to feel a lot of inner stress, which causes me to do things that allow Denial to start running the show in my head so that I can relive the inner stress, which as you know wastes even more time.  Steven Pressfield in his book The War of Art calls this thing Resistance.

The things I do while I'm in Denial mostly involve food, or if I'm not using food for comfort, I turn to a screen.  Any screen will do:  my phone, the television, or a computer.  It's easy to forget about Important Things I need to do when I'm not thinking about Important Things I need to do. Sometimes Denial takes the form of reading yet another self-help book.  I have piles and piles of those waiting for me to start, finish, or re-read.

Denial is a great stress reliever...until...Reality gives you a swift kick in the pants and yells in your face like a mean drill instructor at boot camp.

Things like:

"YOU ARE WASTING PRECIOUS TIME!"
"YOU ARE SMARTER THAN THIS!"
"YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS!"
"WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?!"

Reality is really the words I yell in my own mind, and am mean to myself like this sometimes, which is self-defeating.  Another self-defeating thing I do goes like this:

On Monday I say to myself, "I'll do that [fill-in-the-blank with any Important Thing] on the weekend when I have more time."
On Saturday I say to myself, "I'll do that [Important Thing] in the mornings during the week when I have more time."

The weeks, and then the weekends, fly by lightening fast like always and no Important Things get done.  (Writing is one of the Important Things.)

This rolling pattern of never-ending procrastination causes my chest to seize up when I have the courage to acknowledge it.  This can't be good for my mental, emotional, or physical health and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

This cycle of perpetual procrastination about Important Things has to stop so I set some goals this year with the help of some friends and Michael Hyatt so I could have my Best Year Ever.

Writing and posting a blog once a week is one of my goals for 2015.

This blog is me drawing a line in the sand and saying Enough is Enough.

The truth is I am afraid.  I am afraid of writing the wrong thing, or saying it the wrong way.  I'm deathly afraid of saying I Am A Writer because that would change everything if it were true because writer's write actual words and publish them.  I am currently in the process of writing a book, for crying out loud!  Maybe after it's published I'll stop being afraid of saying I Am A Writer, but probably not.

So far, most of my words have either stayed in my head (which causes me no end of all of the above nonsense) or get written longhand in notebooks where they are never read again, not even by me.  I have stacks and stacks of those notebooks, which I am even more deathly afraid of cracking open and reading.  Afraid of the contents of my heart that they will reveal.