What's Your Programming?

What’s your programming?

Have you ever really looked at it? How does it impact you today? How does it impact what you do for a living? When you start to unravel your stories, you start to see how you've been programmed. Here is one of my stories.

When I was about 12 years old, my best friend Valerie and I decided to start a lemonade stand. She was always looking for ways to create fun adventures and I was always willing to participate. It was a pretty hot summer day. We didn’t do the old, put the stand up outside your house, thing. No, we decided to go the movie theatre – where the people were, because when people were either going in, or coming out they could get a cold drink – and it would be way more lucrative. Can you see my seed of entrepreneurship? So, we happily set up our stand outside of Claremont theatre.

But late in the afternoon, a car pulled up. It was my Dad. He was not pleased.

“We do not sell in the street” he said. I looked at him and asked, “Why?” I was so surprised. I thought he’d be proud of our initiative. But he was not happy.

You see, my father had experienced obvious discrimination, while seeking work in Canada - because he was a Black man and an immigrant. He said over and over again “Don’t let anyone think you are beneath them. Nobody is better than you.”

My sister and I weren’t allowed to do any jobs where we could be seen as serving. No cleaning. No waitressing as a summer job. His desire was for me and my sister to be seen as professionals, as university educated young women. And it was really important to him that we never, ever be seen as “less than” – which is what he feared with the lemonade stand.

I didn’t like it. It was fun doing the lemonade stand with my best friend. But we packed up shop. I thought that whole story was behind me - just a childhood incident.

Then, when I shifted careers, left the corporate world and started Life Coaching – which meant that I was offering my services to individuals, for the first time – rather than contracting to businesses, I didn’t know what made it so hard. I couldn't understand the resistance I had to selling my services.

As I unraveled my stories, I found that deeply hidden was my programming – entrepreneurship is frowned on, it's NOT what we do.There it was - the deep programming that was holding me back.

Unless you take a real look at how you’ve been programmed – you’ll never know what’s truly impacting you – and you won't be able to figure out why you're stuck - creating the life and work you really want.

Even if the programming was designed to keep you safe, it's probably outdated. Who did your family of origin expect you to be in the world? And is that still your truth?

Maybe it's time to unravel your programming too!

Big love,

Bev