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RENEWAL

Reclaim Your Life Energy Through Frequent Renewal

What arrogance human beings have to act like life goes on forever! Don't waste a single day …

SARA DELANY, 107 YEARS OLD

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Plan for reclaiming your life energy in the same systematic way you plan your career.

VICKIE L. MILAZZO

When it's your first time, everything is exciting. Sure you're nervous, but that's a good thing, like the way you feel waiting in line for a gigantic roller coaster, the one with the 418-foot drop that reaches 128 miles per hour. “Oh, I don't know if I can do this.” Then you go on the ride and squeal, “Whoa! That was fun! Let's do it again.” When you first start a new job, a new quilt, a new marriage, even the little things are exciting.

Imagine with me your first day on the job. It's 5:00 a.m. on a Monday morning. You spring out of bed, no alarm necessary. You hardly slept the night before, but you're somehow refreshed. You're looking forward to your first official meeting, the stimulating interplay of ideas and collegiality.

You stroll into your kitchen and make a cup of healthy green tea. Your spouse comes in and flirtatiously tells you, “You're glowing.” You flirt back, your eyes holding promises of something fun to come later. Yum! Mysteriously, your new career has even improved your sex life.

Fast forward a few years. You have yet another early-morning meeting, a product launch discussion—two hours of bad coffee, boredom and email withdrawal. You didn't sleep the night before. Not because you were excited, but because you never made it to bed. You were up all night working. You rush to the kitchen, chug down your tenth cup of coffee and mentally count the Starbucks drive-thrus between your house and the office.

Then, “Oh my gosh, who is that strange man in my kitchen? He sort of looks like my husband—but he's balding. The man I married had a full head of hair, and what is with that beer gut?”

Then, “Ahhhh! Who do those two teenagers belong to? They couldn't be my kids. My kids don't have tattoos.” But they must be your kids, because one of them says, “Mom, are you okay? You look like crap.” Actually, “crap” is a compliment considering how you're really feeling today.

As years roll by, it's easy to forget the excitement we felt the first day of a new career, or just after the wedding vows or when we held our first newborn. Along the way, successful living came to mean more stress, less time and less fun.

Today's woman has taken on a wondrous carnival of life crammed to overflowing with options. We want to sample every possibility. No wonder we feel depleted. We give our all on so many levels—family, friends, career—then expect to have energy left over to help the kids with complicated homework assignments and still enjoy great sex. Your life is energy. Every moment of every day you're burning energy, energy you might otherwise use to pursue your passionate vision.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

You wouldn't expect a battery to keep going forever without recharging. Don't expect it of yourself. Revitalize your mind, body, emotions and spirit frequently and you'll find the energy abundantly available when you need it. Depletion of one energy pool negatively impacts the others. If you're 50 pounds overweight, that not only affects your physical energy, it's probably affecting your emotional energy too.

Symbolically, the circle of life starts and stops with us, and women who invest in renewal have the energy to enjoy the ride long after the carnival has left town.

RENEW YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF

If you stepped back and looked at your daily routine objectively, as if it were happening to your best friend, what would be your advice? Slow down? Take a few deep breaths? Spend a few moments enjoying one day before another day crashes in with new demands?

We need to give ourselves such loving advice—and listen to it. We need to thrive, not just survive. To have healthy, exciting and fulfilling relationships with others, we must first have a healthy, exciting and fulfilling relationship with ourselves.

When you're your own best friend, this is easy, but too often our practices sabotage what we need, and we act instead as our own worst enemy—repeating behaviors we know are bad for us and not taking renewal steps to restore ourselves. If we don't renew on a regular basis, we'll slip further and further into the state we're seeking to escape.

When you renew, you recharge your batteries to gain the energy for your big goals while still juggling the daily challenges of your career and life. It's okay to take care of yourself. If you don't, the odds are nobody else will.

Your body, feelings, mind and spirit are passengers on your journey through life. Renewal is the process of refueling these passengers. Renewed, you have the energy to accomplish your Big Things and juggle the daily demands yet feel centered, even in the unrest. Renewal lightens your load, and while the world around you may be chaos, you can remain solid in the midst of it.

Plan for Your Renewal

When you're young, you can spontaneously dash off and play for a day—remember how instantly renewed you felt? But as you add layers of responsibility to your life, the only way to reclaim the energy you burn is to do it with consciousness.

Starting my business while still employed as a hospital nurse meant working extra hours. There wasn't enough time in a day to honor my commitments and also take time for renewal. At least, that's what I believed. When my energy became depleted, I drank another cup of coffee to keep going. After a few months of becoming progressively more exhausted and less productive, I had to make some changes. I wrote myself a simple but effective rejuvenation prescription: exercise, good food, quiet time and daily doses of fun.

I now plan for renewing my energy in the same systematic way I plan to manage and grow my company. I set renewal goals and strategies and formulate action steps. I schedule vacations and other Vickie-enhancing activities far in advance, to guarantee that no one (including me) overbooks my calendar. Unless something urgent arises, I say no to anyone attempting to disrupt this schedule. For example, Monday is massage night. Even Tom knows to back off on Mondays.

Dealing with the recent recession for years, not just a day or week or month, required the stamina of a teenager. Fortunately, my renewal practices sustained me along the way.

After 29 years in business, people continue to ask me where I get my energy, as if I'm mixing up a secret potion in my kitchen and refusing to share it. Yet when I share it, they refuse to believe my “secret” formula can be as simple today as it was 29 years ago.

1. Exercise daily.
2. Eat good food daily.
3. Stop for a few minutes of honest quiet time daily.
4. Have fun daily.

More details lie ahead, but those are the basics.

Life is meant to be lived to its fullest, and for women who live passionately, sometimes that means spinning out of control. For passionate women, a totally balanced day is not only unachievable, it's undesirable, boring. As much as I strive for a balanced life, sometimes that balance can take extremes. You can't always measure it on a day-to-day basis.

While writing this book I have been working 16-hour days, between the office and writing, so that I can leave for Provence to celebrate my wedding anniversary right after turning in the manuscript. And I am loving it. But even for passionate, unbalanced women, renewal is necessary.

When I'm in Provence, I'll be off—completely disconnected. My office knows they can reach me if the office is on fire, but they also know I'm not calling in unless I need a ride from the airport. When I return home, my fire for my business will blaze, just as it did 29 years ago.

Only you know when your life feels off balance. Your personal and professional lives are clashing and you feel little satisfaction in anything you do. Your inner fire has died to a pile of cinders. Your intuitive vision is a hazy memory.

Because women are good at masking it, your boss or family may not notice you're overwhelmed when they ask you to do one more thing. It's only when the volcano finally blows that people look back and see the warning signs.

RENEW YOUR PHYSICAL ENERGY DAILY

Growing up in New Orleans, I never gave a thought to the food I was ingesting. In Louisiana, if it fits in a skillet—with or without a fight—we fry it and eat it. I also thought nothing of emptying three bowls of my grandma's spaghetti or spicy seafood gumbo.

As I grew older those eating habits left me fatigued, and my bathroom scale showed a weight gain. The habits that had worked fine when I was young no longer worked for me. I had to change my habits to reclaim my physical energy and maintain my weight. Thank God for vanity. It really does have an upside.

Physical energy is essential, not only for a healthy life but for any success. It requires exercise, nutrition, sleep and a health maintenance plan. My travel schedule means exposure to lots of different types of food, over which the quality is often out of my control (sort of). No matter how hard I try, I can't control the amounts of sodium and trans-fats in it, or even get real extra-virgin olive oil for a salad. I have my own vices and do occasionally wrap myself around movie popcorn, fried chicken or a good bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.

To compensate for my precarious road diet, plus my personal vices, Tom and I eat organic when we're at home. Healthy and clean—one friend says I'm practically fascist about it. We consume lots of veggies (what Tom lovingly refers to as “weeds”). We try to avoid pastas (heartbreaking cold-turkey withdrawal for an Italian girl) and empty calories. Red wine stays. Tom's come up with all sorts of medical reasons—improves eyesight, decreases heart disease, relaxes muscles. My favorite Tomisms are: “Tastes good to me.” and “Are you going to finish that?”

The more empty calories we eat, the more we crave and the unhealthier our bodies become. The fewer empty calories we eat, the less we crave and the easier it is for us to stay healthy.

I've always been a hearty eater. One of my friends calls me the “eating machine.” Self-deprivation diets are demoralizing. I'd much rather exercise so that I don't gain weight every time I look at a bag of movie popcorn. I exercise six times a week, first thing in the morning. My workday starts early and it ends when it ends, whenever that may be. If I don't work out at the beginning of the day, chances are I won't get to at the end of the day.

I once naively scheduled Pilates lessons at the end of the day. Paying for more no-show classes than those I attended persuaded me to face facts: I'm more energized for exercise in the mornings and if I don't jump in and get it done early, life gets in the way. I learned to put exercise at the beginning, not end, of my day.

10 Strategies for Renewing Your Physical Energy

1. Gas up! Without being fanatical, give your body the fuel it needs. Boost your energy and immune system with vitamins, antioxidants, green tea and ground flaxseed mixed with natural Greek yogurt. Refined carbs and sugars deplete energy; replace them with fruits and vegetables. Eat small amounts every three or four hours. Maintain your weight at the optimal level. Think of the excess weight as a bag of groceries you have to carry all day long.

   A big mistake is skipping breakfast or lunch. Your body will compensate and you'll lose steam later in the day. Another big mistake women make is avoiding fat altogether. Healthy fats such as omega 3s are essential for physical energy and a strong immune system.

2. Move it. Find a type of exercise that sparks your fire. You need to enjoy what you're doing in order to keep doing it. Create a plan that includes variety. Start with aerobics, such as walking, jogging or biking; add weight training three times a week to increase lean body mass and boost metabolism. Build core strength and flexibility.

   Try working out with a trainer. It's mental of course, but I always hold that plank longer when my trainer Jerome is watching.

3. Sleep it off. Eight hours every night is a restorative elixir. When you're sleep deprived, you'll notice a big difference in your physical condition, mental attitude and ability to cope with stress. Sleep research has shown that with less than eight hours sleep you are working at increasing levels of cognitive deficits. Less than six hours of sleep and you're considered tantamount to DUI—driving under the influence. Skip that late-night TV show and regulate your sleep schedule, which will help you avoid energy imbalances.
4. Clean up. When you're as addicted to coffee as I was, good strong New Orleans coffee, you don't quit cold turkey. First I replaced one scoop of regular coffee in my coffee pot with decaf, then two scoops and so on. Then I started drinking green and white tea. Now my energy doesn't sag in the afternoon. I still have one cup of coffee in the morning, but enjoy tea all day long, without all of the highs and lows.
5. Rub it out. Get a massage weekly. If that's not realistic for you, start with once a month. My favorite is deep tissue massage. Manage cost by getting discounts at a massage school or by trading massages with a friend. For me massage is maintenance, not a luxury.
6. Indulge. Treat your body like the temple it is. Carve out a time when you can pamper yourself with a facial, pedicure or soak in the tub. Even if it means skipping a TV show, you'll find the extra time spent on yourself well worth the investment.
7. Breathe. Breathe consciously at least once an hour. Expand your lungs. Practice diaphragmatic breathing, consciously taking that diaphragmatic breath all the way into your lower back. Oxygen is energy.
8. Shed your skin. Your largest organ, your skin, is responsible for much of your body's elimination and detoxification. Give yourself a dry brush massage before showering. In minutes you'll feel wonderful. Start at your toes and work upward, brushing in small circles.
9. Just say no. Avoid depending on drugs for a quick fix or cure for what ails you. Drugs (even herbal remedies) have side effects and often divert you from making changes toward healthy living habits. Before getting on the drug bandwagon, seek healthier, safer alternatives. Better yet, be your own doctor and prescribe for yourself a no-drug lifestyle.
10. Aim for attainable fitness. Having a healthy, energetic, trim body at 50 is a perfectly realistic goal. Looking like a hot 20-year-old in those low-riders won't happen, and aiming for that latter goal will rob you of the enjoyment of your healthy body.

Susan's story is a testament to how powerful replenishing your physical energy can be.

Like Susan, get healthy and stay healthy. Your life and love of life depend on it.

REPLENISH YOUR EMOTIONAL ENERGY

When my mom died from breast cancer, I knew I was at risk, but at only 35, after my first biopsy, I was stunned to find myself facing my own mortality. Three benign biopsies followed. I lived in an emotional battlefield, with fear impacting every moment.

Along the way, I collected the battle scars on my breasts, physical reminders of a possible outcome I could not control through vision, passion or engagement. This experience put life in sharper perspective—for a while.

Then, as my business began to prosper in a big way, I found I wasn't enjoying my success as I had imagined. I was showing up edgy and grumpy. It made no sense to me. Attaining my goals was supposed to equal happiness. What had I worked for so long and so hard?

Managing my business and the 23 employees that go with it is challenging and potentially exhausting. There's one of me and 23 of them. I'll readily admit there are days I might prefer to just zap them with an Epi-Kit, defibrillate them back to life or just holler “Off with their heads!” from the throne in my office. I know when they have problems they naturally think they're worse than anyone else's, but when you're the boss, their problems are magnified 23 times—plus I've got my own! I need emotional renewal to joyfully come back for more of this punishment day after day after day.

Applying my nursing assessment skills to myself as I would to a patient, I saw that I was always pushing. I had an unhealthy sense of urgency that prevented me from enjoying my life or my success. I needed time for emotional renewal.

I've learned to temper the unhealthy sense of urgency so I don't have to be in a frantic state to be productive. I've learned to temper my whirlwind pace with occasional pauses. Calm and achievement are partners.

To be wickedly successful and emotionally intact, we have to be kind to ourselves. Because my busy schedule may not grant me a break later, I wake up 30 minutes early to a quiet cup of tea. In Nepal, Tom and I picked up a renewal habit called “bed tea.” Every morning of our trek, a Sherpa came by at dawn and thrust a cup of steaming hot tea into the hand extending from our sleeping bag. It eased the transition from our warm cocoons into the cold, thin mountain air. Today, wherever I am, and no matter what time my busy day starts, I have a cup of bed tea. Starting my day with a break eases the transition from bed to boardroom. That cup of tea helps me to step into my office with a “Come on, bring on the madness” attitude.

I also end each evening with a break, reading in bed or my favorite chair, with a glass of healthy red wine in hand. My bedroom is my sanctuary, free of clutter, food and television. No matter what I've experienced that day, these quiet minutes anchor me deep in relaxation and guarantee a good night's sleep.

Being kind to ourselves emotionally includes getting away from it all. It's a challenge for me to take even a week off and not connect with my office, but I have to create an environment that allows me to escape my business, my responsibilities and even myself. I love my business, but I love it more because I squeeze out 12 weeks of vacation per year for myself. Every time I leave, I come home new and different.

And I've stopped making vacation a competitive sport. While biking in Puglia, Italy, a realization about myself and my emotional state unfolded. Picture this: Breathtakingly beautiful bougainvillea covering a 15-foot wall. Brilliant sprays of orange, red and fuchsia against a background of deepest green. Only I scarcely saw them from the corner of my eye as I sped by at 20 mph, pedaling as fast as I could to keep up with the peloton of riders ahead of me.

They were all faster riders than I, which meant I had to work hard just to keep the last rider in sight. I had to move fast, catch up, keep up and get ahead. And to think I'd come here to play, see the countryside and relax my usually rapid pace.

Acknowledging to myself that this pace was no fun, I braked to a stop. When Tom came pedaling back, I was easy to find—sitting under an olive tree, staring at that wall of bougainvillea and breathing its heady bouquet. He parked his bicycle and sat down beside me. For the rest of the trip we never rode faster than 12 mph. We reveled in my discovery—not only the flowers but the peace and the emotional peace. That Puglia lesson was the best souvenir we've ever brought home.

19 Strategies for Replenishing Your Emotional Energy

1. Get away. Take one day off with no responsibilities, like Melissa, who assigns Saturday child-care duty to her husband, sends them to the zoo or park and enjoys a renewal day.
2. Take a virtual vacation. My second mom, Blanche, vacations in her bathtub with candles, bath oil, a glass of wine and her favorite CD. Maybe you'd prefer to lounge in your backyard or hammock with a favorite beverage or curl up in bed with a deliciously light book.

   Women are sensual creatures. We enjoy rich fabrics, exotic fragrances, music, dance and art. Yet, as we reach for wicked success and attainment, sometimes we leave these restorative sensory pleasures behind. Indulging in the occasional sensory banquet is second only to an actual getaway.

3. Hug a tree or an iceberg. Getting off the grid is not always an easy thing to do. (You don't just hop onto the 5:15 train to Bhutan.) But I make it my goal at least once a year to get far away, into something so different that it forces me out of my regular relaxation routine into one that entirely disconnects me from my day-to-day life, and I allow myself to completely relax and renew.

   Nature and wildlife provide two of the most powerful tools for relaxation that I've ever found. As an example, when I was in the Arctic, kayaking, hiking, riding a zodiac raft, seeing a blue whale and worrying about nothing more than getting too close to the business end of a large, hungry, white-furred mammal, renewed me in ways that a massage just cannot. Renewal lightens my load; my batteries get fully topped off.

4. Renew with music. Play music that energizes or relaxes you, depending upon what's called for. Choose classical for intense projects. Rock and roll for cooking, household chores or packing suitcases. At night, play slow music to unwind and relax.
5. Choose happiness. I love the comforts of my home and my cozy neighborhood. Being home is like experiencing a steaming cup of green tea—it just feels right. I also love traveling to new places and have hiked and biked all over the world.

   And then there's the business travel I do for eight weeks a year. The hotels I stay in don't come close to the comforts of home, nor do they rival the remote and adventurous places I've been.

   I'm not one to advocate “Barbie-dolling” it (don't you just hate that?), but one thing I've learned is that the happier I am, the happier I am. Happiness is not only contagious to others, it's contagious to ourselves. My grandmother Pearl (“MaMa”) had multiple sclerosis and spent most of her adult life in a wheelchair or confined to a bed, yet she was one of the happiest people I've known. I always wanted to be in her happy space. MaMa taught me that happiness is not a condition—happiness is a choice.

   I don't always wake up happy, but wherever I am physically or emotionally, I try to focus on the part of the experience that is good. For example, I might not like the bed in my hotel room, but I am passionate about teaching and mentoring women in person. That requires sleeping in the occasional uncomfortable bed.

   Life will always throw us curveballs, fastballs and, just when you think you know what's coming next, the occasional change-up. Being happy to the core helps us hit them back—no matter how fast they come or how many come our way.

   People enjoy being around happy people. I recently mentored a woman who refused to move out of the drama of a negative experience. For two weeks she dwelled on something that was easily solved in three minutes. My advice to her was: “Move on and choose happiness.” How many opportunities did she miss during those two weeks because she chose to grouse?

   Happiness is more important to wicked success than success is to happiness. Decide every day that nothing will get in the way of choosing happiness.

6. Monitor your intimate companions. Your passionate vision will not live inside a negative house, and nothing drains energy faster than negative thinking. Your thoughts do control your life. They are your most intimate companions. When I notice I'm wasting energy thinking negatively about someone, the realization that I'm only attacking and harming myself with such thoughts helps me temper them.

   Create an emotional house that invites the vision already inside you to reveal itself. Banish negative thoughts. This is not to say you ignore your feelings or reality. But when you learn to control your thoughts about the experience, you touch new places of feeling that are even more real.

7. Turn off the critic. Do you find your inner “critical voice” rears its head way too often? “Is it me, or was that secretary less friendly than usual?” Stop being the critic. It robs you of your success energy.

   My excellent assessment skills can bring out the critic in me. I can walk into my office and, in an instant, zero in on everything that's wrong—the messy lunchroom, the missed deadline. But allowing the critic to be my dominant communication style would negatively impact my employees. Instead I intentionally notice and comment about the good things.

   When that negative voice in your head gets loud, take a brisk walk or clean out a file cabinet. Let it go! Let go of the critic.

8. Be nice and watch how nice people will be in return. There is an economy of emotion with niceness. Few things will give you more energy than the rewards of being nice. Conversely, nothing will drain your emotional energy faster than not playing nice with others.
9. Dump toxic clutter. Because I have huge professional commitments, I try to eliminate toxic or emotionally draining relationships and other social clutter, just as I dump the clutter that accumulates on my desk. This gives me time for relationships that matter—husband, family and best friends.

   Tame the news ticker running in your head. One morning Tom and I were sitting in our favorite Starbucks casually eavesdropping on some of the conversations around us. Soon the conversation at one table came around to the death of Michael Jackson. One of the women mentioned how upset she was, and that she'd cried about Michael's death. Another woman told the group how her mother had called the night Princess Diana died and that they'd cried together over the phone. One of the men said he'd been upset first by Heath Ledger's, then by Patrick Swayze's death; and the one who cried about Michael Jackson said she also sadly remembered when Ronald Reagan died.

   News programs thrive on the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. Would we really want to watch Osama bin Laden being shot? We may not have control over how the media reports these issues, but we do have control over where we direct our attention.

   Start your day on a negative track, and which way do you think your emotional output will go? Avoid the negative news tickers.

   I understand feeling a certain amount of sympathy for the family of a deceased celebrity, but call me heartless, I'm not going to spend my time crying over a celebrity's death (unless it's Richard Gere), and I'm certainly not going to stand vigil outside the house of someone I've never shared time with.

   As a nurse, I've been there for grieving families on many occasions, but nurses know that to pretend to feel what that family feels will not ring true. We support; we don't collapse. When, at age 23, I was at my mom's funeral, I was personally put off by a hysterical woman who wasn't even that close to Mom. Some might disagree, but I believe that mourning is a right earned, not a privilege for the masses. Is this misplaced energy and emotion a way of not dealing with the real-life emotions we face every day?

   Each minute is a precious gift. I am often as guilty of squandering this gift as the next guy, but I always strive to keep my energies within my “circle of influence.” We can spend our days railing about this politician, that TV program, or some anorexic actor or we can get to work on our own lives. I don't want to sound trite, but if you're not part of the solution, don't rail about the problem.

10. Detach. When I was taking a dance class, a classmate told my friend, “I don't think Vickie likes me.” Christine responded, “You don't know Vickie. She just doesn't think about you.” Harsh, but true. I wouldn't choose to socialize with the woman, but I didn't dislike her. That takes emotional energy.

    Why put your own precious emotional energy into something or someone else that doesn't provide a positive return? Detach from emotional unrest that doesn't serve a purpose in your life and feel the increase in your own positive-energy charge.

11. Lighten up. Since I'm Italian, everything is intensely important to me. But unless I let go of some of that intensity I'm emotionally exhausted. When I find myself making mountains out of molehills, I ask myself, “In one year, will this be significant?” Lighten up. If you push, you get resistance. Be less serious about the outcome.
12. Learn a new language. As soon as you label something “bad,” it limits your ability to have fun. I used to “hate” the cold, and then one day in Iceland a woman said to me, “There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.” I've explored the Canadian Rockies, the Antarctic, the Arctic, trekked the Everest and Annapurna sides of Nepal, and stood among prayer flags on a 13,000-foot-high mountain pass looking across Bhutan's Haa Valley and the Himalayas into Tibet, and loved it because I brought the right gear.

    When I substitute the right mental gear for the word “hate,” I am amazed at how much emotional energy I gain. Take all negative words down a notch in mind and voice, and notice how different you feel.

13. Let it go. Do you suffer from dissatisfaction and frustration? Do you find yourself whining and complaining instead of acting on your passionate vision? Try letting it all go and see the difference that makes in your day. Appreciate what you have. When frustration happens, take a breath and let it go.
14. Enjoy the moment. How often do you hear or say, “Thank God it's Friday”? Do we want to enjoy only two days out of seven? Why not “Thank God it's today”? If you are living for the weekend, you aren't living. You can't repeat a day or even an hour or a minute. You'll never get that time back. Treat every moment as a precious gift.
15. Practice gratitude. For happy people, gratitude seems to outweigh desire. For unhappy people, it's about want, want, want, with little gratitude in return. There's nothing wrong with desire. Desires fire your passionate vision. But gratitude must always be greater. Otherwise, you're never satisfied, never happy. Daily, acknowledge three things you're grateful for, small or large.

    Express gratitude to others. I stay in a lot of hotels and I love to express gratitude and appreciation to the housekeepers who clean my room. Their gratitude for mine is so expressive it makes me wonder if few people ever do this. Express gratitude big and small, especially to people who don't often receive it. You can transform their day.

    Every Friday we turn our company phones to voice mail and share lunch together. Each week one employee expresses gratitude to someone in the company who has helped him or her in some way. Some have gotten very creative with poetry, skits and video. All share in the joy of gratitude.

16. Accept yourself as you are. How often do we let the comparison game rob us of joy? I'm five feet two inches tall, with sturdy ankles. I could long to be a lithe five feet seven inches, but some things we can change and others we can't. The things you can't—let them go.
17. Find the fun. Fun is healing and laughter keeps us sane. Laughter raises T-cell counts, relaxes blood vessels, eases muscle tension and reduces psychological stress, which enhances learning. Laughter can happen when you least expect it—if you let it.

    My sister Karen had a stroke, and one night we showed up at the hospital after visiting hours. My dad, Tom, two friends and I slipped past the nurse's station and tiptoed into my sister's room. Just as we got inside we heard the nurse coming. Tom whispered, “Quick, into the shower!” and all five of us crowded in. As soon as the nurse left, we burst out of the shower, laughing so hard we were on the floor, except for one friend who said, “How can you laugh with your sister in that condition? You're so insensitive.” At that moment, Karen, who is also a nurse and was much improved, gave us a thumbs up and joined the fun by doing her impression of a gorked-out stroke victim, waving around the stuffed animal we'd brought her. That's when my “sensitive” friend got it. Fun happens even in the middle of a stroke. Laugh every day.

18. Create your own party. Growing up in New Orleans taught me that you can have a party anywhere—at your house, in your mind or, as my dad says while chowing down on a good muffaleta, in your mouth. Embrace life with energy and joy. Wherever you go physically, emotionally or mentally, take the party with you.
19. Eat dessert first. Sometimes we treat renewal like a dessert we have to earn by first eating our vegetables. Mardi Gras taught me to celebrate before the hard work. Before the sacrifice of Lent, we would party hearty for two weeks. That's Mardi Gras, feast before fast, eat dessert first.

NURTURE AND RENEW YOUR SPIRIT

As a child I was deeply connected to my Catholic upbringing, but after college I felt I didn't need religion, that I was happy without it. Then I befriended a woman who had a spiritually enlightened peace I found fascinating. She had no successes to write about or riches that people would envy, but she had so much more. She had a completely centered way of interacting in a world that had thrust profound challenges her way, including a husband suffering from severe, debilitating depression and a series of strokes that left him requiring constant, physical care from her.

Hers was a quality I wanted. I didn't want to attain success and wake up wondering, “Is this all there is?” I wanted peace and enlightenment, too, and just going to church once a week didn't satisfy that need for me.

I noticed that my friend practiced her spiritual discipline daily; and more important, I noticed the calming effect it created within her. I began practicing a few minutes each morning and evening. I'm still on my spiritual journey, and I'm nowhere near to perfecting my spiritual discipline, but I feel closer every day.

3 Strategies for Renewing Your Spiritual Energy

1. Quiet down. I confess, meditation doesn't work as well as for me as it does for others. I fall asleep. My strategy is to start my day in quiet and spiritual study over a cup of steaming hot tea. A time to reflect on who I want to be, how I want to show up and what is really important.

   Whichever you choose, a quiet moment or meditation, you'll feel more balanced all day and more tuned in to your spiritual source. Refuse to rely on the oldest excuse in the book: “I don't have time.” It only takes a minute.

2. Affirm life. I can give myself a boost just by remembering what my minister says: “Life is good—all the time!” I admit that my prayers used to focus on asking for something, perhaps freedom from a health concern, getting paid by a client so I could pay my mortgage that month or the end of the recession. Today I focus on affirming life. Quoting a friend, “It's a good day if I wake up.”
3. Study a spiritual discipline. Whether you choose the Bible, another religious text or a spiritually uplifting book, study that discipline a few minutes daily. Spiritual renewal can be the most empowering and renewing practice of all. Mix it up a bit too. We can all learn from other religious practices. My trips to Bhutan, Japan, Thailand and Nepal introduced me to different versions of Buddhism and taught me the best of those practices while still retaining my Christian values and practices.

RECHARGE YOUR MENTAL ENERGY

A woman can feel mentally depleted for all the same reasons she feels emotionally depleted. When I shared with a woman who owns horses that I don't watch TV, she said something I'll always remember: “You wouldn't feed a million-dollar thoroughbred potato chips all day long. So why do people do that to a million-dollar mind?” What we feed our brains influences not just our thoughts but our way of thinking, the things we concern ourselves with and where we apply our energies.

How often do we feed our brains mental garbage? We're drawn into the hypnotic effects of television, bad romance novels with bare-chested men on the cover, talk radio, or FarmVille on the Internet. None of those activities is bad in itself, but they're all negatively seductive. We turn on the television to catch a favorite show, and before we know it we've sat through hours of mind fluff. Those activities don't renew mental energy; they deplete it.

That said, we do have to take a break. For a few years, everything I read and studied related to business. I thought I was helping myself succeed. Instead I was coming up drier and drier, and my mental output was declining. I was smarter than ever, but it wasn't revealing itself in my work. Looking back, I can see that I was mentally exhausted, even though I didn't recognize it at the time.

Mental energy is needed for creativity and ingenious decisions. I started renewing my mental energy by banning all business books from the bedroom, then expanding my reading to include literature and good, relaxing “trash.” My business grew and I was more relaxed.

6 Strategies for Recharging Your Mental Energy

1. Eat like a thoroughbred. Your brain and memory depend on food to function. Eat well and eat regularly.
2. Spark your intellect. Read a thought-provoking book unrelated to your career. Listen to a thought-provoking audio recording.
3. Enjoy mental junk food occasionally. When I first met Tom I was reading only business books and serious literature. He brought me a frivolous book and said, “If you put yourself on a diet of nothing but turkey, rice and broccoli, you'll soon lose your enthusiasm for eating.” Sometimes we need a book like Stephenie Meyer's Twilight or Stieg Larsson's Dragon Tattoo series: books that are like eating a bag of salty, hot, buttered (real butter) popcorn. Once you start, you can't put them down.
4. Challenge your senses. Enjoy a gallery, arboretum or museum you wouldn't normally visit.
5. Create something new. Creating anything, whether a new recipe in the kitchen, a new product or a sculpture, renews and improves your mind. Every time we link two ideas that we never before connected, we form a synaptic bond between two neurons and these synapses literally equate to brain growth.
6. Change your mind-set. A negative mind-set focuses mental energy on the wrong thing. I'm usually on time, but rarely early, so it was a big deal one morning when the hotel's room service was 20 minutes late. I was about to speak to 300 people, yet I was freaking out over a missing bowl of yogurt instead of mentally rehearsing my presentation. My focus was totally in the wrong place.

We're all human, and we're going to lose focus at times, but we need to rein ourselves in. The wrong mind-set depletes mental energy necessary to perform at our best.

CELEBRATE TO INTENSIFY RENEWAL

People often ask me what it was like growing up in New Orleans. One word captures New Orleans perfectly: celebration. We know how to celebrate. It's in our blood.

Most visitors don't realize that the intrinsic message of Mardi Gras is “feast before fast.” Outsiders see only floats, parades and colorful beads. But anyone living in that predominantly Catholic city knows that Mardi Gras prepares you to cope with the sacrifice of Lent.

To honor Lent you give up something you enjoy for 40 days. Knowing Lent is coming, we party hearty for the two weeks before Lent. Celebration, celebration, celebration, that's Mardi Gras.

What would life be without celebration? Endless to-do lists, tasks, accomplishments. Celebrating doesn't just feel good; it's the best free antidepressant on the market. The moment you experience the sweet spell of wicked success, it's time to celebrate. Even 30 seconds of celebration colors the day differently. You can give yourself a “woo-hoo!” or a moment to enjoy the view outside your window.

One evening, crammed in my tiny home office while I was packing the day's business away, my eye fell on a huge framed certificate that Tom had hung on the wall as a surprise. He was celebrating my first million-dollar year in revenue, and at the bottom of the frame was a faux million-dollar bill.

That was the moment it hit me. “I've made it! Why am I packing and unpacking my office on my kitchen table every day? I can afford office space.” Then he opened a bottle of champagne. Toasting, acknowledging and celebrating my success together made that accomplishment all the tastier.

How often have you reached a goal or passed a milestone without experiencing a single moment of satisfaction? If you make a habit of celebrating your smallest victories, even those that fall short of fantastic, the big goals seem more attainable.

Celebrate before the win. Just being considered for a promotion is worthy of celebration. Even if it doesn't work out as planned, celebrate your willingness to step out into the unknown. Whatever the outcome, enjoy the possibility.

Make a celebration list. Include Big Things (a weekend vacation) and small ones (a single red rose), and celebrate every day.

RENEW YOUR ENERGY WITH THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE

Who are the people you love to be with? How often do you spend time with them? When was the last time you made a new friend? Love and life don't happen in a vacuum. Women need to make time and seek opportunity for expressing this most powerful emotion. Surrounding ourselves with people we love guarantees more positive experiences. It puts more life in our life.

5 Strategies for Renewing with the People You Love

1. Spend time together. Women who enjoy an intimate relationship live longer, and strong relationships generally require time. Share a hobby. Walk or bike together.

   Leigh has been married for 30 years, and every year she and her husband Tim renew their commitment to their marriage. At the hotel in San Antonio where they honeymooned, they reserve room 734. Their tradition begins on the balcony, where they exchange cards and gifts while a bubble machine fills the air with cheer. They toast each other and hang a wildly colorful wind sock off the railing. Later they look up from the pool and watch the bubbles and festivity happening on their balcony. Talk about renewal!

2. Create traditions. You've heard the phrase, “What do you expect, a song and dance?” Tom and I have a silly tradition. If one of us completes a task but feels unappreciated, he or she can ask for “a song and dance.” The other must make up a song on the spot, along with some dance steps. It usually goes something like this: “Thomas [or Vickie] is my hero; he took out the garbage; it was really smelly. He washed out the can …” You get the idea. Perfection is not necessary.
3. Create memories. Engage your friends, coworkers and people you love in experiences you can enjoy now and remember fondly as years pass. We all love to sit around and tell stories. Things don't bring happiness, but experiences keep giving and giving.

   Jan admits she's terrible at remembering dates, whereas her husband Larry is a romantic for whom dates are important. One January he called her at work and invited her to dinner at their favorite restaurant. He ordered a bottle of wine and she began to wonder what they were celebrating. What had she forgotten? Finally, he glowingly announced they'd gotten such a late start getting married they would celebrate their anniversary twice a year to catch up.

   The best gift I've ever received was a big digital photo frame already loaded with photos of friends, family and vacations. Through all those photos I can relive my favorite memories.

4. Hang with your women friends. Remember to make time for your friends. We all like to be spontaneous, but let's face it, we're busy. So schedule, schedule, schedule: an early morning walk, lunch or a glass of wine after work. Even a weekend sleepover might be fun. (Your husband will love you for this one.).

   When one of my best friends Missy and I traveled to Miami for a girls' weekend, we freed ourselves of work, family and responsibility. We never left the hotel grounds and did nothing but talk and talk and talk. We simply celebrated each other and totally reconnected, renewing our friendship along with our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual selves.

5. Celebrate passages and milestones. When Tom and I received our bar exam scores, we took champagne and our test score envelopes to our favorite outdoor water sculpture to read the results. When we bought a lot on which to build our house, we celebrated on the site with close friends. Susan, the master of ritual, celebrates menopause with her women friends as each one of them reaches that passage.

   Even death is worthy of celebration. Coming from a world that practiced tearful, whispering wakes, Tom was shocked at his first New Orleans funeral. He sure wasn't expecting a boisterous party with lots of donuts and coffee cups of 90-proof “tea.” Realizing we weren't celebrating that a person had died but rejoicing that the person had lived, Tom got into the celebration—and the “tea.”

   Celebrate every milestone in an inventive manner that creates lasting memories. Don't wait for the big win; start celebrating today.

RENEW BY GIVING BACK

As author Hada Bejar said, “The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.” Whether you donate to favorite charities or simply make a habit of being emotionally generous to others, giving is a gratifying and renewing act. When you give, you disconnect from yourself and your own problems. Fresh perspective and renewal are the benefits.

Giving does not always mean pulling out your wallet. Time is a valuable gift. Mentoring is a valuable gift. Spiritual or emotional support is a valuable gift. Sending a person positive thoughts costs nothing and benefits you as much as the people you're thinking about. Jackie takes care of her aging father. Missy is a “big sister” to a disadvantaged young girl, Emilio coaches youth soccer and Jan takes severely learning- and mentally disabled children on rafting trips. The joy they receive exceeds the joy they give.

One of my favorite things about social media is that within seconds you can lift up a person's day, and in doing so lift yours up too. One of my best friends will often post on Facebook, text or leave me quick voice mail messages reminding me she's thinking about me. She always ends them with, “Love you.” I get a big smile from each one. She makes my day.

If there's something you want more of, give it away. If you want more money, encouragement or love, give it today and you will receive it tomorrow, but not necessarily from the people you give to. It comes through other manifestations. By giving back, I have received more abundance in every aspect of my life than I ever dreamed possible.

After Katrina struck, I was lucky enough to be in a position to give financial support to my family and friends. One of my best friends who lost everything asked me to help her family instead of her. I was in awe of her generosity toward her family when she herself was in need.

Despite the loss, I never heard her complain about her situation. She moved forward, staying in the same area, rebuilding her life and keeping her “New Orleans spirit.” Anytime she'd visit me in Houston, we'd go shopping as she rebuilt her home. One piece at a time, she would buy a lamp, outfit or other item. I would joke with her that her car looked like a homeless person's, packed with all the treasures she'd picked up while traveling between New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Dallas and Houston, and she'd joke back, “Vickie, I am homeless.”

Throughout her own rebuilding, she helped and supported her family while they rebuilt their lives. Her selflessness stays with me today. She is a model to me of leaving a positive legacy even in the most difficult of situations.

The legacy my mom left me is the realization that the time to enjoy life is now. Although she never traveled past the front porch of our shotgun house, she made sure that our corner of the world was the greatest. She taught me that it is a trap to think life would be better with more money, more business or more free time. We must make the most of every moment—we'll never get back that moment, ever.

Whichever corner of the world you're on, whatever you're doing there, make it the greatest corner ever. Enjoy and appreciate the important people in your life at every possible moment. If you leave no other legacy, you will be remembered for that.

6 STRATEGIES FOR TOTAL RENEWAL

Recognize that to live a passionate life you must attend to all of your needs, not just one or two. Energy in one area (emotional) powers energy in another (physical). Here are six strategies for pulling it all together.

1. Set renewal goals. You are just as important as your career and family. Plan your renewal. I include everything in my renewal goals, from maintaining a daily fitness regimen to destinations I want to travel to. Regularly assess and update your renewal plan.
2. Start small and do one thing at a time. Enjoy 5 minutes of quiet, then 10. Add 1 vegetable a day, then eat 2. Turn off the television for 1 hour, then 2. Eliminate 1 fast-food trip a week, then eliminate 2. Eliminate 1 trip a day to the office candy bowl, then 3, and you'll lose 7 pounds a year. It takes 60 days to turn your lifestyle change into a habit.
3. Banish all excuses. I know a woman who works 70 hours a week, and her excuse for not getting away for a weekend is that she's too spent when the weekend comes. Yet a relaxing weekend away is probably the perfect prescription. Renewal often takes a little time and effort, but wicked success and career are nothing without a renewed spirit.
4. Accept wherever you are in your life now and start from there. Know that you can always start fresh. Wherever you are in life, there was “before” and there is “now.” Maybe you haven't exercised in 3 years or 30. Start now—and forget before.
5. Take a day off from discipline. French fries in place of one serving of broccoli won't kill you, but unrelenting discipline will make you wish you were dead. Pass the ketchup!
6. Create a Female Fusion. As you'll learn in Chapter 10, this is like supercharging all facets of your vitality.

What renewal strategies will you put into effect for the next 60 days?