Evan Sanders's Blog, page 56

Dare To Be Ourselves

I’ve been searching for a little bit of magic. I’ve been looking to capture that lightning I can feel inside and bottle it up for a special moment. I’ve been waiting, calmly, patiently…giving this feeling inside the chance to build up to a point where I knew I was ready to take those first steps.

This week, I made the decision to go head first into my coaching practice and to build it from the ground up. But the decision to do that is far more than just seeing what I am capable of in this arena…it’s actually answering a call. This deep calling came to me over a year and a half ago and I spent a lot of time on the phone with it but too nervous to put the phone down and get going. There was never a click sound…until this week. Then it came.

Click.

There weren’t any more questions. There wasn’t a desire to stall out anymore. There was just…the dream. The vision. The deep purpose that resonated with me so much at my core I couldn’t really explain to anyone just how rooted this decision was. It didn’t just come at the right time, it showed up at the perfect time.

I spent this past week sitting with this decision and really beginning to understand exactly what I needed to do to make this all a success. Truth is, I’ve been preparing to do this for some time now I just didn’t know that at the time. The countless hours of training, reading, studying, and development molded me into the type of person who could sit with another, connect with them on a level beyond words and listen to them in a way they’ve never been listened to before. I had been shaping myself in such a way that was guided by a deeper current than just a goal or “something I wanted to accomplish.”

I guess it all makes a lot more sense when you are looking back…much easier to connect the dots that way.

We are often so paralyzed by our fear of things not working out that it stops us from going for what we really love. I’ve been there. I’ve been there countless times actually. But in the end, if we are brave enough to really see it through – to give it our best effort and to try time and time again even though we are failing – what is there really to doubt when we get to the end of the road? Nothing. We gave it our all and when the odds were stacked up against us, we believed in ourselves so much that we proved it to be possible.

The impossible has been a achieved time and time again.

But you have to believe in yourself more than anything. No one else is going to believe in what you are doing as much as you. That’s just the way it is. And honestly, how could they? They don’t see what you see. They don’t feel what you feel. It’s ok that they don’t truly understand…that doesn’t mean you have to give up on your dreams as well.

I stalled out slightly on a project that I had been working on for a couple of months straight because of a touch of burnout and a little bit of “oh my god it’s actually working…what if?” That fear of light…the potential of something really catching fire and changing everything is present as well. It’s funny how seemingly contradictory things can all exist as “true” at the same time.

There must be one thing though that never changes – your faith.

Faith in what you are doing. Faith in what you believe in. Faith in yourself. Faith that even though you can’t see what is exactly happening right now, that it will all work itself out exactly the way it’s supposed to.

I’m at a place right now where I have to deeply dig into that faith and continue pushing down a road that hasn’t been forged yet.

It takes a hell of a lot more work to do it this way…but I’ll tell ya, in terms of the vision I have in my head for where this is going…it’s going to be worth it.

So get dirty, get messy, get uncomfortable. Work hard. Work incredibly hard. But never lose your faith. Never lose sight of your “why” and move forward constantly…not matter how badly you want to stop.

– Evan Sanders

What’s your biggest goal? What’s your grand vision? What are your toughest challenges right now? I will block my time out for you on a call and create a life-changing coaching experience for you. All you have to do is email me at aykmecoaching@gmail.com and we will set up a time to chat. No catch. No obligations. I’m here to help you change your life. So don’t wait another minute and email me as soon as possible.

Need some more encouragement? Dive into The Words Of Encouragement and get lost in these life is too short quotes

How I Love

I love before, I love during and I love after. No conditions. This has been the biggest change in my life. I don’t grip things too tight, I let them come and go…and with that, I let things be free. I know full well it all comes back around in one way or another and that the good energy I put out there will find me.

I let it leave when it needs to go and come back when it feels it’s right. But I do have positive boundaries, out of respect for myself. Those never used to exist and I spent a lot of time getting walked all over. Now, pieces of my life change every day…I am an explorer of my soul, and if you disappear for too long, don’t be surprised to find a completely different man. Even I don’t understand the mystery of it…and I love it that way.

– Evan Sanders

How Bad Do You Want It?

It’s going to take everything you have to achieve this

It’s going to push you to the max

It’s going to demand your commitment…not just your interest

It’s going to change you

It’s going to shape you

It’s going to tear you down and bring you right back together

It’s going to make you suffer and teach you the lessons you need to be taught

But in the end

You can do this…

If We Can Shift Our Mind

“There is nothing as powerful as a changed mind.” | T.D. Jakes



What if we could make that one big change…the massive change…the one that we needed to make our entire lives but was too scared to actually do it?

If we fail to change our own lives we will fail to reach our dreams and our goals. Most of the time achieving our grandest visions has to do more with allowing ourselves to be free of the things that hold us back rather than putting in massive amounts of effort. Don’t get me wrong, effort is a huge part of the equation…but fear can be such an incredibly powerful deterrent and disruptor of even the greatest efforts ever given.

You have to change your mind first to change your life. If you can start there, everything will begin to shift.


– Evan Sanders

Moving Mountains

A little over a year ago I experienced the worst failure of my life. As much as others say, “It wasn’t a failure because you learned something etc etc”… I failed. I failed miserably. I had taken the biggest risk of my life in moving down south to LA a year prior with opportunity glowing in my eyes and the willingness to work my butt off, but for one reason or another everything fell apart. When I knew it was time to go, I was heartbroken. With tears in my eyes, I had to tell one of my best friends in what will probably remain for the rest of my days one of the hardest moments I’ve had to go through…that I had to leave and it was time for me to rebuild my life from the ground up. I packed up my stuff into a gigantic suburban and drove home. What I’ve never told anyone was what that drive home was like. I cried for 3 hours straight until I had nothing left in me to even shed out…and spent the other 3 hours in absolute head-hanging shame. I was humiliated. I had failed in business, I had to leave people I love dearly, I tore my body to pieces and my heart was in a very bad place. That failure ripped me to shreds, and when I got home, I made a decision that day to never again turn myself into a failure because I had failed. In a little over a year, everything has changed. Everything. Body. Mind. Soul. And here I am tonight, after making a decision this afternoon…another big risk…that I’ve been thinking about for months on end. I’m going all in, fully answering my deepest calling to help change the lives of others. This time though, I’m betting on myself. This time, it’s my own sweat equity that’s going to make it all happen. My dream is right there in front of me and I’m going to reach out and take it. It’s a risk…a huge one…but it’s either live to tell the story or die trying. Time to move mountains.

For What It’s Worth

I’ll tell you a little bit of a secret…I’ve failed, tried again, reinvented myself, and started over more times than I could ever tell you about. But this one quote kept everything in perspective for me…”Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill. So when you are failing…keep bouncing up. Keep going. You’re going to nail it one day. You’re going to get it right. No one may give an absolute damn about you right now, but trust me, when you start following your dreams and things start catching on…everyone starts to pay attention. Show the world how great you are.

– Evan

What’s your biggest goal? What’s your grand vision? What are your toughest challenges right now? I will block my time out for you on a call and create a life-changing coaching experience for you. All you have to do is email me at aykmecoaching@gmail.com and we will set up a time to chat. No catch. No obligations. I’m here to help you change your life. So don’t wait another minute and email me as soon as possible.

The Silent Draw

“Let yourself by silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” – Rumi

Incredible…the journey of our life eh? We are capable of so many things. We truly need to trust ourselves and the path we are on if we are going to cross our current boundaries. It is fear that is going to stop us from taking the steps we need to take. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Want to know a little bit more about what coaching is all about? Have a dream or vision that you want to build but need some support? “Stuck” or in a mess? Let’s jump on a free strategy call and chat. Email me: aykmecoaching@gmail.com

A Different Way

I’m sitting here in bed on a Friday night covered in ice packs and taking care of myself after a long day working with coaching clients. I have some nagging injuries from before I started my prep for this next photo shoot that I am working with and instead of going out tonight, taking a minute to honor my bodies request for rest. This isn’t something I usually would do.

Every morning during the week I wake up at 4:30 am sharp and am on my way to the gym for a couple of hours. Being up at this time actually thrills me instead of acting as a de-motivator. I love blasting my music in my car, throwing down my pre-workout and vitamins before I get to the gym…but that 15 minute drive to the gym watching those night lights fly by serves as a time for me to check in with where I am at.

I often take that time pretty seriously…it’s my time…where I get to start my day off right and there are literally no distractions (not even cars on the road).

So where am I at?

This evening, I’m in a pretty good place. The fact that I’m even sitting here tonight writing makes me feel good, the ice on my legs feels amazing, having spent the entire day offering people who I care about and coach new ways of looking at the world and watching the little shifts in them as I spoke touched me deeply…but there was more to today than that. There was something that really came out of today that I felt compelled to write down.

Sometimes it’s not about adding things into your busy life and task list…sometimes it’s about addition by subtraction…sometimes it’s about taking the time and space throughout the day to really take care of yourself and to slow yourself down.

For a while now, I’ve realized that by simplifying my life, I can actually let go some of the complexity that evolved from having the wrong people in my life, too many things, doing things that I didn’t believe in – the list really goes on and on here. The more I got down to the core of why I am here on this earth the more I realized what I had in my life at the moment wasn’t congruent with that deep purpose. So I kept the people I absolutely adored and who took amazing care of me, I looked at the things I only needed and got rid of the things I simply wanted…and started down a path of expressing what I felt deep inside instead of falling into a place of trying to make everyone happy.

I unplugged myself from my own story and slowly but surely began to build a new one for myself.

I never wanted to be that scared, pissed off, loner, single-minded kid I was…I wanted to be a great adventurer/ explorer who was magnetic to those around him, could tell grand stories and walk as a expression of love. I wanted people to never forget the way I made them feel and to touch hearts in a way that could send positive ripples around the world with a few words. I wanted to be that man, and as time went on, whether I felt like I knew what I was doing or not…I started manifesting that reality.

You have to do the dirty work before you are really ready to get down to building the grand vision.

Of course you can do them close to the same time, but in reality, you have to unravel your past and all of the pain you are in to start accessing your deepest gifts and reasons for why you are here. You must work with your emotions instead of run from the. You must go to the places that hurt and allow your heart to heal. You must do this…because if you are on this planet and have grand ambitions and a desire to change this place…you have a responsibility to see those dreams through.

Begin the healing process and take care of yourself. Nourish yourself. That will unlock your love for life. When that happens…you never really know what amazing things are about to come your way.

– Evan Sanders

Come To The Dark Side, We Have Cookies

Going to the dark places in your life is scary. It’s hard. It’s exhausting at times. But in spite of all of that it’s one of the most worthwhile adventures you can undertake. Why you may ask? Because going into theshadows allows you to uncover deep seeded pain experiences and events you truly haven’t come to terms with yet and emotions you tend to avoid. When go to the shadows with love and compassion and truly seek to understand the parts of you that may be in pain you give yourself the opportunity to heal.

How amazing would that be?

How amazing would it be to finally heal the holes in your soul that have been eating at you whether you know it or not for years and years?

But how do you take this journey?

The best way to get to this place the shadows is by putting yourself into a peaceful and safe state meditation. When you begin to breathe into this place naturally your deepest fears worries and anxieties about life will come about. Continue to breathe. The major skill that you need to develop when you go to this place is getting close enough to these events and emotions so you can truly feel them but not getting so close that you become completely overwhelmed by them. This takes some serious practice and a commitment to work through thehard stuff.

There’s really no telling you what will exactly happen when you consistently do this exercise but the fact that major pains and worries will release from you over time. That in of itself is what makes the entire journey worthwhile. The secondary benefit is that you truly get to unravel your past which allows you to get into the present moment. Take a dive into doing shadow work. See what happens It could be one of the greatest adventures of your life.

Have a vision for yourself and need help building a plan or stuck in a mess and need help getting out? Email me at aykmecoaching@gmail.com

You Must Love In Such A Way

When the shifts came, everything in my life was uprooted. In one way, it reminded me of a time where I burned down to the ground…but in another, I knew it was something completely different. I knew all those months ago that I wasn’t falling apart, but I was falling together. I was falling into something great. No one else could really see it but me, but there was that deep feeling in my gut that this was different. I wasn’t going to be in pieces stringing one day filled with impossible emotions to deal with after another. I knew that despite the anxiety of my situation at that time…all of the tectonic shifts happening…that everything would soften.

It did.

All of the pieces came together and I found myself rooted…belonging…and having a place in this world. I went from being an imposter and a stranger to someone that was meant to be here. I felt like I had a home. Not because I had a location called home, but because I found home where my heart was. I could make any place my home. I belonged exactly where I was…because I was there…and because I was there…I was at home.

That’s a very very different place from where I lived before. I lived in the place of always trying to get to the next place because I didn’t feel like what I had right now was good enough. Deep down, I didn’t feel like I was good enough for all that life had to offer me. That’s a pretty open and honest moment right there…for me to fully admit that. But it’s the truth.

The past few months have been titled “Reclamation of Heart.” I’ve gone in, searched through the shadows…become really close with things that terrified this soul…and done it over and over and over again until I could go there with love, compassion, and courage every single time. But I struggled at the beginning. I suffered in those months that I went there time and time again. The anxiety of being in that place was unprecedented…but I knew I had to do what I was afraid to do. I reclaimed my heart…my home…and changed my world because of it.

But here’s what I learned about love.

You have to love people in such a way that they are free. You can’t hold them too tight. That doesn’t mean you don’t love them with your heart…or pour out the unconditional love that you have access to…it just means that you have to finally grasp the fact that there is a natural coming and going of life and you can’t control when people decide that they need to leave. You have to love them when they arrive, love them when they are with you, and love them when they are gone. The one thing that remains constant through all of this…is your love.

When you love people and life in such a way that it can come in and out of your life at its own pace…in its own unique way, you are open to everything. You can soak it all in. The good. The bad. Everything. Then you’ve really learned how to cherish each and every aspect of this life. Because deep down at the core of it…the thing that runs everything – at least in the world I live in and the worlds of many who I revere…is love.

Love passionately. Love deeply. Learn to love without conditions.

When you get to this place, you finally start living instead of surviving.

Email Coaching

Stuck? Have a mess on your hands? Need some direction?

Perhaps, there are just a couple of small adjustments you need to make to turn into an A-Team competitor. Maybe you could be right at the tipping point – ready to turn your life around and start reaching all your goals – with just a few little things needed to turn you into one of life’s success stories and some simple guidance could be the key to YOUR success. Sometimes all you need is a clear path – personal to your journey – to propel you towards the finish line in the shortest possible time. Whatever your roadblock might be, I’ll take a close look at your situation and we’ll find a way through. Book Email Coaching Here http://btrman.me/1Hy8ZOk

1 on 1 Phone Or Skype Coaching

Sometimes, you need some help finding a solution. Sometimes, you need more than email support to look at YOUR situation. Sometimes, you need to offload your ‘problem’ and let someone else offer you a different path of travel.

That’s why I offer a handful of personalized coaching sessions delivered face-to-face – either by phone, Face Time or via Skype – to help you move forward quickly. These sessions are for people who are stuck on the side of the road of life and need a new plan or a boost to get going in the right direction, whatever direction that might be. So don’t sit around wondering if someone is going to come along and make a decision for you. Take control. Book your call with me today and let’s find the solution you need. Book 1 on 1 Phone or Skype Coaching Here http://btrman.me/1Hy93h1

Two Wolves E-Book

I wrote Two Wolves as a tribute to the greatest lessons I have learned over the past 5 years of writing. Honestly though…it’s far more than that. It’s a deep dive into discovering how both light and dark can exist at the same time. The book seeks to explore questions of happiness, sadness, success, failure, and many other topics, including ones that most are too uncomfortable to talk about. This story, a journey about becoming who you are and taking control of your path, has been an amazing one to write and reflect on. And with over 1,300 downloads…those who have read it have something to say about it as well…(read on for more) Purchase Two Wolves Here http://btrman.me/1CKn7oE

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Let’s start building something great together!

All the best,

Evan Sanders: AYKME Life Coaching