Gina Rudan's Blog

Top 5 Lessons I learned from Oprah

This past weekend I celebrated mother’s day with 6,000 women in attendance for O Magazine’s Live your Best Life Weekend and of all the lessons I learned from Oprah and her tribe which included my favorites, Martha Beck, Suze Orman, Adam Glassman and Nate Berkus, the following were the greatest insights.

1.    Live boldly. Not one but three of the speakers, including Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray Love all shared the importance and power of living boldly and I couldn’t agree more. In the last 15 months, I have taken risks, conquered fears and have realized the more chances I take, the bolder my life becomes and the bolder my life becomes the greater the rewards.

2.    Fill your cup first before you fill the cup of others.  “Wow,” I thought to myself, as I listened to Oprah share this simple yet profound piece of advice at Radio City on Saturday night. Both men and women suffer from this but women are the biggest culprits..  Why is it that we take care of our mothers, our husbands, our children, our cats and dogs before we even begin to think about our own needs? Why, why, why? If I could stress one insight the most, it’s this one. Fill your cup first ladies. And remember you are really doing a disservice to everyone you love by continuing the role of sacrificial lamb, so stop.

3.    Your work needs to be your play and your play needs to be work. It’s a simple lesson that I am finally living   and it’s so true. My work is my play and my play is my work and I can’t stress how life changing it is when you experience this shift. This may mean that you have to make a career change and I know that’s scary. But what scares me most is not living my very best life.

4.    Be the master of your own destiny.  In the novel of your life, remember you are the author and no one else. Instead of allowing others to write the next chapter in the story of your life, begin to write it yourself. We give our futures away and leave it in the hands of others. Take your destiny into your own hands and make the choices your intuitive side knows is best. And if anyone tells you otherwise, send them to you know where.

5.    Find time to be still. This year Oprah decided to practice the art of being still and has grown significantly because of it. Yes, I know, Oprah still has room in her life for growth.  Like Oprah, most of us are living a mile a minute life and it really is too much. I am a victim of this overextended disease and am here to invite you in joining me in a “be still” crusade. Every morning I have decided before I start my day of insanity to practice stillness and quiet.  For it is only when we are still that a new idea can be born.

This post is dedicated to my best friend, Katina Rojas Joy and step mom, Melba Olmeda who attended with me.  Ladies, we will never forget that experience. Enjoy the photos

Be Fully Present in Life

What if I write an entire blog post with my eyes closed?

This is exactly what happened last week as I was healing from yet another Lasek surgery. You know you are passionate about something when you can’t stand another second, a day or moment without doing it.  For me, it’s writing and as I healed I was determined to write and I did just that so please enjoy this post.

As I sat up in my bed with my eyes shut with the warmth of my Mac book on my lap I began to feel myself get excited as I begin to type. Actively listening and actually enjoying the clicking and clacking of the keys of my laptop I began to wonder what I should write about.

Like most bloggers, we think, test, research and strategically plan the topics of our posts and this time I had decided not to write about my eye surgery saga but to actually just type and see what messages naturally surfaced.  As I submitted to this creative exploration, words began to decorate the space between my eyes and mind. Words ironically all beginning with P began to fly about giving me insight internally to what I was feeling.  Words like, passion, pain, pleasure, philosophy.

After the 4 minutes of speeding dating with various words, one bold headline almost like a bumper sticker popped into view and didn’t go away. 

“Be fully present in life!”

Wow, I thought to myself, is God trying to send me a message. Laughing out loud of the notion, I continued to write about this notion of being fully present.  It obviously was some kind of reality check and rather than ignore the message, I decided to confront the notion. I, like many of us, find it an ongoing challenge to be truly 100% fully present in everything that I do, especially at this time of my life as an entrepreneur.

Is being fully present almost impossible in today’s day and age because we never stop to do just that? In the darkness, alone, forced to shut off from the world and enjoy my greatest pleasure, I realized what I was enjoying wasn’t only the act of writing but it was the experience of being completely whole-heartedly fully present.

Why is being fully present so important?

So much of our interactions in life, at home, at work and even with your children as parents is in a “half there and half somewhere else mode” The “half there, half somewhere else” approach to life and our experiences is part of the reason why so many of us don’t actualize our full potential at anything.

We have to stop multi tasking and must start valuing the notion of sometimes less is more in our lives, in our relationships, in our communities and in our careers. If we begin to give our undivided attention to one area at a time and begin to approach each area of our lives in a fully present manner, progress will be increased.

It shouldn’t take darkness and eye surgery to get me to realize this in my own life but it did. And because of this insight, I now have made the commitment to slow down and enjoy a mind body state of fully presentness with everything I do.

My eyes shut with subtle pain the insight I was able to garner in this darkness was so much greater than the words I can share while they are open. There is profound truth in darkness and the message was an example of what happens when you are fully present in life. There is a beauty and nakedness about living in the moment. Try it, you just might like it.

 Here are a few Practical Tips to Get you Started

Start every activity by centering yourself first. Taking 3 or 4 slow, deep breaths before starting anything helps bring all of your attention to the present activity. If you find your attention wandering, breathe deeply again and bring it back.

Stop checking e-mail multiple times per day, set times for reading and responding. For example, I wait until noon to check my email and use my mornings for readings. Let your phone go to voice mail, if possible, and return phone calls during a specific time. 

Clutter free your mind. It is said that Einstein wrote everything down to keep his mind as open and free as he could. Do the same, creativity cannot blossom in a cluttered brain. Make lists. I have a huge flip chart where I jot down priorities for the day.  Get organized and create quick lists.

If you have to, unplug Your Internet connection. Surfing, Facebook and Google sometimes can get in the way of quiet along time. Once a day, find the time for bonding with yourself, without any distractions.