News

Gail Blanke & Living the Life You Want

October 5th, 2007

Monthly column for www.rasaspa.com written by Anne Marie Cummings.

It’s one thing to be noted as a celebrity, but it’s something entirely different if you hold the key to empower men and women to live the lives they want. And that’s what this best-selling author, renowned personal and executive life coach and motivational speaker has. I read her book, Between Trapezes: Flying Into a New Life with the Greatest of Ease (Rodale), in one night almost a year ago and haven’t forgotten many of the valuable messages she effortlessly passes along. Sitting across from the founder, president and chief executive of Lifedesigns, Gail Blanke, I feel a nervous kind of excitement. After all, she has advised everyone from CEOs and presidential candidates to working mothers, career changers, empty nesters, job seekers and people who are just plain stuck and want to reinvent their lives. She’s the author of two other books: In my Wildest Dreams: Living the Life You Long For (Simon & Schuster) and Taking Control of Your Life: The Secrets of Successful Enterprising Women (Mastermedia). Gail has a most amazing presence, a petite figure and charm which makes you think of Audrey Hepburn.

 

How do you define success?

One of the problems with this is that we buy into other people’s ideas of success. I highly encourage people to define success for themselves and then follow through with that. Many people have given a good part of their lives doing what others view as success to later discover their unhappiness because they’ve been living someone else’s dream.

What does success mean for you?

Success for me is making a difference in other people’s lives. When I was a young girl I figured I would be an entertainer, but interestingly enough, I always had the feeling that I was supposed to make a difference somehow. I was brought up and taught that I could do anything if I worked hard enough and tried. So my job is to pay it forward and give back. That’s my mission.

As a mother what advice would you give parents raising children?

The greatest gift parents can give their children is to encourage them to live their dreams. Once they do that, they give their children the permission to do the same. How will they know if we don’t do it?

My parents generation and still to a large degree, this generation, believes in security – landing that job that you know will give you and your family benefits for the next twenty years. As a motivational speaker and a personal and executive life coach, what are your thoughts about security?

We need to learn to thrive on the insecurity of security. Suppose you take a job that offers security only to find that if you loose that job for no fault of your own, where will you be? We have to learn to be entrepreneurs, even within a company. The security is not the job, it’s in the playing of the game. If security is your goal, then you’ll undoubtedly be unhappy. Change and unpredictability are good. Charles Darwin was right when he said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

Is there a particular culture that you feel views life and change the way you teach?

The changes that have taken place in our country are stunning. We are the entrepreneurs and the inventors. Think of the great things we’ve created in the last two hundred years. We’ve had to thrive on change and people come here with that spirit in mind. It’s all possible here. That’s the American dream.

Since so much of what you do is inspirational, how do you handle watching the news which obviously can be very depressing?

We have to be brilliant editors of the visual input in our lives. I don’t watch every news segment and I don’t want everything out there cluttering my mind. We have to remember the saying, “We are what we think.” Within our thoughts we create our vision of the world. You get to choose what you envisage. On the other hand, I do consider myself to be very well informed, but there are times when I turn it off. This is very important. I don’t want to have certain impressions in my psyche. We forget that we get to choose. This is part of designing your own life.

You have worked with, and continue to work with politicians…if President Bush called you for guidance, what would your advice to him be?

I work with politicians on their presentations, yes, and I may not necessarily agree with all of their persuasions. I don’t think however that I could work with someone who’s fundamental beliefs are antithetical to what I believe in, so I wouldn’t be able to work with President Bush; I don’t believe we should have gone to war.

Who influenced you the most?

My father, with my mother right up there! He taught me what charisma was about. He also taught me to appreciate how good I already was. He taught me to stand for something and trust my instincts and that absolutely anyone could be motivated and inspired. He was the motivator in my life.

And that’s where you got the name for your column in Real Simple magazine?

The Motivator, yes, no question about it.

While you guide individuals primarily through career changes and presentations, do you work with individuals having relationship issues? Is your approach any different?

Work and life are intricately intertwined. With everyone I meet, we touch upon both. One woman I happen to be working with right now is reinventing herself after a divorce. She’s coming up with a whole new view about herself. I also work with people who are going through career changes and figuring out what they want.

Bodywork such as massage is extremely important to those going through changes in their lives and even when they’re not. When you treat yourself to a massage or any kind of bodywork, what do you do to get the most out of it?

I give myself up to it. I want to let go and I think of this time as a healing mechanism. This actually helps me breath differently. I happen to also love fragrance and find that scented candles can really change my mood, so I light them often.

What activity or non-activity do you recommend for someone going through a major shift in their life?

I really think that people should do whatever their favorite version is of working out. We need to aerate our bodies and our minds. We need to do more physical aerobic exercise, everyday. It’s import to also lift weights for our bones. In general working out is what clears your mind and it’s where I get my best column ideas - on the treadmill.

What is your opinion of therapy?

I think therapy is very worthy as long as it focuses on the future and what’s possible, not just the past and what’s happened.

There are many road blocks we overcome when we are going through life changes. Sometimes we overcome certain things with ease and then we hit a wall along the way. What walls are the most difficult for the majority of your clients to get past?

I think that people with anxiety take more time to get to the place of answering the question, “if you could do anything with your life, what would that be?” Also, the idea of “letting go.” This seems to be very difficult for many people, especially letting go of that first trapeze and moving on to the next. In the movie, "A Beautiful Mind," I love that scene towards the end where John Nash, the brilliant mathematician, but at the same time a troubled person who suffered from schizophrenia, and who often was accompanied by people who existed only in his mind, is in the dining hall with a gentleman who just informed him he is being considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. During their conversation John Nash says to him, “I still see things that are not here, I just choose not to acknowledge them. Like a diet of the mind, I choose not to indulge certain appetites.” And as John Nash often did, there are many times we need to tell ourselves this same thing. When these negative voices flood our minds; voices that drag us back or weigh us down – old resentments, regrets, anger, the fear of failing – we can, at any given moment, choose not to acknowledge them; not to feed those fears. It’s hard and it takes practice, but it can be done.

If you had to sum up what the key to creating your own life is in one or two sentences, what would you say?

The key is you get to decide how good it’s going to be. That it isn’t written until you write it and you’re in charge. It’s absolutely yours to design and you don’t need to wait for permission as to when you can start. You can step forward now. So many people are waiting for the planets to align or the starts to connect before they do what they want. What they don’t know is the time is now.

To schedule a session with Gail Blanke and to learn more go to her website: www.lifedesigns.com. Gail is a popular and frequent speaker at corporations, professional women’s organizations and educational institutions. Also, read Gail’s column, The Motivator, in Real Simple magazine. Gail also offers career advice on the AOL Coaches channel.

 

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