For those of you who think you might be the only one who can’t stand to live and work in the normal way anymore. Where the default “shoulds” and rules of society don’t work for you – they don’t make you happy or satisfied or give purpose to your life – and even more, living life that way is making you miserable, dejected, broken.

Yes, this program is for those of you who are still in that stuck, broken place.

But this program is also for those of you who already made the big change.

You already quit the job or started the business or left the relationship or pulled your kids out of school or moved to a hut in the woods (with high speed internet, of course) … and while it’s sometimes been awesome and fulfilling and powerful …

It’s still hard.

And occasionally, you still have trouble having faith. You still feel crazy and scared and alone.

This program is to help you remember that you are not the only one.

That there are others just as crazy as you, who are figuring out how to live an extraordinary life, questioning all those default rules of society, and creating an existence that works for them.

This is a program for you to learn from and connect with your people. People crazy like you. 

As you know, I rarely recommend programs. I’m picky and know that most stuff is bullshit. And I’m protective of you guys – I don’t want you to get screwed.

But as I said when I originally reviewed this program when it came out two years ago, the Question the Rules program is different.

I’m listening to this program myself. And I’ve actually learned stuff. Stuff I’ve already applied in my business today.

I recommend that anyone who resonates with the Live Your Truth message consider Question the Rules 2.0 … and decide if it resonates with you.

Click Here to Get Question the Rules 2.0

If you have any questions about the program or whether it’s a good fit for you, ask in the comments below or contact me directly – and I’ll make sure your questions get answered asap.

Watch the Updated Video Review:

Watch the 2010 Review: I did a screen-capture video review of the program (see below), including a sneak peek of what’s actually inside. Check it out.

I’m sharing my recommendations of who should consider the program, what’s missing, and ideas of how to decide if it’s a great match for you.

(summary: if you’re scared, weird, and/or need to network, check this out.)

Click Here to Get Question the Rules 2.0

The above link are affiliate links — because you could pay them, or you could pay both me and them. If you don’t like that, just do a google search for what I’m talking about. I would *never* recommend something unless I have used it myself or have a relationship with the creator such that I am confident that the service/product is awesome. If you don’t like something that I have recommended, please let me know.

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She stepped forward, intuitively working the room, making introductions between new friends, negotiating what toys could be explored before morning meeting, finding a place for her posse on the carpet.

Without me.

Surpassing me.

And I am left alone in my apartment, stretched out on my bed with a MacBook on my lap and a pan of Betty Crocker fudge brownies tucked in besides me, and as proud as I am about her being excited about school, I wonder.

So. Now.

Who am I without her sitting beside me?

As an INFJ, I want to have it all figured out.

I feel safe and comfortable and in control with a really complex system providing clear and predictable answers. With well defined rules that govern how I should be and what I should do. With the future analyzed and decided and scripted re what program I’m launching next and where we’ll be for Christmas break and how my website will be formatted in 2014.

But when I give up all the tests and rules and systems and bullshit and just accept what’s going on in this moment, all I’m left with is the only thing that’s true.

I am me.

And really, no one can know who the fuck that should be.

Yes, I do have some ideas. I do have some plans.

I’m in the middle of a master’s degree and a few unfinished LYT programs and a website relaunch. I have ideas for new businesses and websites and blog posts and videos. I dream of travel and more learnings and to get certified in bookmaking or hand analysis or how to fly a plane.

Yes, I’m still a mom for the rest of my life.

Even when she’s not with me during the day. Even when she’s out on her own and has better things to do than text with her mom or whatever replaces texting in 2024.

But in the meanwhile, right now, I’m just going to focus on being myself.

(Whoever that is.)

And I’ll try be patient about what this being will end up doing.

—

Have you gone through a transition, sent a kid off to school or to live on their own, quit a job or business, leave a long-term relationship, and wonder … who are you without that role?

Who are you without that relationship or position as your identity?

I’d love to hear from you below!

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The answer is … I don’t.

But to really answer the question, here is how one day happened for me.

It’s not a typical day – I don’t have typical days. Some days I work a lot more, some days I don’t have my daughter with me, some days I’m more or less insane.

This is just a snapshot of my life, as it was, one summer day when I was 36 and a half, running a business and getting a master’s degree while living in the Silicon Valley with a six year old girl and a cat.

Thursday, August 4, 2011.

5:22 AM. I wake up alone in my bed.

No alarm set. It’s quiet. Suburbia.

I grab my iPhone vibrating next to my pillow and answer the early morning texts from two of my favorite people, who are awake, elsewhere. I laze in bed, checking Instagram and Twitter and my personal gmail account, reading my message from the universe for the day.

5:50 AM. I need coffee.

While the Tassimo is making its magic in my Gracie-designed coffee cup, I cook my breakfast, the same thing I eat every morning – one scrambled egg with sauteed onions and one piece of whole wheat toast with real butter. The cat watches me from her perch as I sit down at the dining room table, my blue journal before me, and I write three morning pages with my blue felt-tip pen, brain dumps about what’s upsetting me, and the outlines for two new videos.

6:45 AM. Sit down at the iMac.

Check Twitter and business email, ask people on Facebook for advice about an interior plant that’s less resistent to death. Set up an SQL database and finish a WordPress install for a test site of the new ElizabethPottsWeinstein.com web design.

I realize that I’m still writing July on everything.

6:57 AM. Stand up and go into mom mode.

Pack Gracie’s snack for nature camp, with a mini-love-note from her to me, as requested. Realize that Adia the cat peed all over the floor underneath the litter box and she tried to cover it up by pushing half of the litter onto the floor. Oy!!! Litter fail!!!

I make more coffee.

7:09 AM. Gracie announces her awake status from her room.

Get her started on her day (apple juice, Wheat Thins, PBS) and I start tidying up toys and clutter and cleaning the apartment – today we are getting a visit from the Head of the new school she’s attending in the fall. I don’t want the lady to think that I’m an incompetent housekeeper.

Make a list of everything I forgot to get at Target and the grocery store.

I have been to both stores twice in the last two days.

7:25 AM. Get me ready for the day.

While in the shower, rehearse a video I’m planning to film later in the day. I would totally make videos in the shower – if it was not for the wetness and the naked.

7:59 AM. Get G ready for the day.

She “texts” me on her new Barbie phone that she’s decided to wear a long sleeve sweater dress to outdoor nature camp. As such, I pack a short sleeve shirt and shorts in her backpack.

Drink a glass of water to combat post-two-cups-of-coffee insanity.

8:13 AM. Drive G to nature camp.

9:27 AM. Home.

Paranoid. Decide to clean the house more, so the Head of G’s school does not think I’m a bad mother. Move boxes, vacuum, sweep, try to damp mop the floor with the new mop but realize it’s ineffective. I can’t figure out the best way to clean these slightly-squishy matte-finished wood-looking floors.

I think the floors are pourous. #flooringfail

10:00 AM. Back at the iMac.

As I set up the video, realize I am shiny in the wrong places. Powder. Lipsick. Do the record, edit, export, upload, post the video blog, send to social media, reply to comments/replies/retweets thing.

Switch laundry to dryer.

11:00 AM. Oy! It’s time to leave to get G from camp!

11:57 AM. G meltdown on the way home.

She thinks I don’t do a good job packing snack because it’s not what she wants to eat that day. I respond that I am not magical and cannot predict the future about what she will want on any particular day. So if that’s important to her, she needs to pack her own snack. After a large quanity of tears and pissyness, she agrees to do so. #EPWwin

12:25 PM. G is eating spicy hummus on crackers for lunch.

She does not yet know that unlike mac & cheese and chicken nuggets and cheese sandwiches, hummus is not a typical kid food. Please dear god don’t anyone tell her.

Gracie suddenly asks, “how did the dinosaurs die?”

12:51 PM. Inadequate housekeeping paranoia increases.

More cleaning.

G watches PBS while I do the email/social media/comment thing until the Head of school arrives.

2:00 PM. “Home Visit” with the Head of G’s new school.

She’s very nice, asking G about her summer, what camps she has gone to, if she went on vacation. G uses Harry Potter as an example for a point that she was making and the Head is surprised that she’s seen such a “scary movie.” G matter of factly answers that it is not scary because she watched at home with her mommy.

2:20 PM. Order a twirling baton.

2:33 PM. Research for two papers due on Saturday.

Have to use peer-reviewed journals to support my arguments, which the syllabus says are more reliable and important than other sources. I find this entertaining because in law school I was a editor of two law reviews and am not impressed by said peer review process. But is required, so I research in journal databases about the trolley problem, the hippocratic oath, and oaths taken by army officers.

3:23 PM. Sort through a box of old clothes from the basement of G’s dad’s house (was our old house).

Find 6 sweaters that fit me! It’s like shopping without the spending of money! Win!

Text Alli re said sweater success.

3:50 PM. Don’t know what to do with myself.

Make coffee.

Play with the Canvas theme from WooThemes. Omg. This theme framework is freaking powerful and easy and I think I can actually use it to create the site I imagine! Love.

4:25 PM. G wants to go swimming & I agree as long as I don’t have to get in, so I can use the time to outline chapters for Ethics class.

5:21 PM. As G takes a bath, I eat my dinner, reading Eddings’ Crystal Gorge book.

I used to multitask while eating – eat at the computer, in front of the TV, or while studying for class. But a few years ago when I changed how I ate (and thereby lost 40 lbs), I created a new practice of no work/studying while eating. I either do nothing, write in my journal, or read a book.

5:59 PM. We watch Harry Potter together and eat Tootsie Roll Pops.

Neither of us make it to the center via just licking.

8:39 PM. G is in bed. I’m at the iMac.

Look for hex code color families & google fonts, play with the layout and design, using the Canvas framework. Am so excited! I think this will work!

9:46 PM. I need to get off the computer & go to bed.

9:49 PM. No. Seriously. Get off the fraking computer, EPW.

I go into my bedroom with a snack of Cheezy Cheese Its and some water so I don’t wake up hungry at 3 am.

Read Pride & Prejudice yet again. Text. Get a yummy late night phone call.

Sleep.

#thatwasall

–

How do you spend your days? How do you balance all of your roles and responsibilities – and still get work done? I’d love to hear from you below!

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Can the right pen improve the quality of your life?

I say yes.

Here’s my story of two different pens.

Now I ask you … what are you tolerating in your life?

What’s just “good enough” but isn’t great?

What little irritations are you putting up with … instead of getting what you actually want, what would actually make you happy?

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There is a calm. A grounding.

An ability to see things how they are, not that which my worry imagines they could horribly metamorphosize. Not how they should have been if I had know better, if I was a good mother, if they had treated me right, if I could write all futures.

I’m here.

Yes, there were tactics I used to bring this calm into my life.

Accepting that I am Highly Sensitive and, as such, living in a high-rise in San Francisco a block from Fire Station No. 1 and riding in packed & smelly public transit system all day was not healthy for my body or my soul.

Allowing myself to be healed not only of the injury that was on the surface, but the damage done to me by the tumor my daughter carried in her brain. Healing of the meanness the Ideal Woman in my head pounded me with over the last few years. Healing of wounds I had suffered for so long, I forgot what it was like to be undamaged.

Deciding. Moving. Buying. Signing. Starting new projects, registering new domain names, beginning a certification program in the MBTI and a Master of Arts in Human Behavior.

Writing three pages in my journal each morning, to dump out the crap and the drama and to spread out what’s underneath onto the page, so the truth can reveal.

Playing with a new business plan, a new daily schedule, a new way to arrange my desk. Playing with room for the current iteration of Live Your Truth, room to expand into what Live Your Truth will become, room for entirely new projects that are inviting me forward.

Practicing. Touching. Being. Living the feeling of grounded as I rest here on my sofa entering characters into OMM Writer with my eyes closed, letting the words flow from my insides out onto the screen.

But this transformation didn’t magically happen because of any one of these pills.

Transformation happens in the nexus.

The nexus of these tools and this moment. The nexus of what you do now with all the good and bad and powerful and traumatic that has happened in your life, up until today. The nexus of the pill you practice and the truth that you are.

It is true, that I invite you to find out if your environment supports your temperament.

I invite you to heal injuries that continue to wound you.

I invite you to decide, to move forward, to expand.

I invite you to write.

I invite you to create a schedule with space for where you are going.

I invite you to practice being grounded in this moment.

But I remind you.

What you do this weekend, what you experience in that program, what you write from that journal prompt, what you fix with that healer – the results from those tactics may happen all at once.

Or they may not show up for years.

Just like social media campaigns, constructing a new two car garage, or conceiving a new member of your family, transformational results do not flow immediate from a tactic.

Transformation flows from the strategy.

Do the Work.

Pay Attention.

Love.

Live.

Accept.

Take the Risk.

Have Faith.

Trust.

Trust that the dividends of our investments of work and attention and love and living will reveal themselves in their own time.

When we are ready.

We just have to keep showing up.

—

Are you still waiting for peace to arrive? Are you frustrated because you’re doing all the right things and it hasn’t happened yet?

Have you done work where the results showed up for you years later? Are things finally coming together for you?

I’d love to hear from you below!

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Tears of suffering from the harsh lies of the bitch in the corner. Tears of hopelessness, tears of trapped, tears of working, pushing, forcing, trying to make it happen so hard, for so long, so many times that it seems pitiful, idiocy, failure to continue.

And with deadlines looming ahead of me, of when I will no longer receive support, of when debts will be called, of when it must happen or else …. I wonder.

Is the fear right?

Maybe this is impossible.

Maybe continuing this thing is throwing good time, good money, good energy after bad.

Maybe, even though I change people’s lives, even though I’ve experienced more joy and connection and freedom in the last few years than I thought was possible, even though I know there are people that I have yet to help …

Maybe this venture is doomed.

So I wonder … is there another option?

Another option that seems more reasonable.

More likely. More endorsed by society and logic and the bitch in my head.

Well yes. There is another option.

The other option is to go back.

Back to safety, to stability, to a guaranteed paycheck with a great 401(k) and health package and a few weeks of vacation every year.

Back to becoming that girl.

Well … that’s only sort of an option.

You see, that 401(k) menagerie has been ruined for me forever.

Now I know that there is no safe, that the stability is an artifice, that there are no guarantees.

Now that I know, going back would be the foolish choice.

I wish there was some third choice.

Something real but not scary.

Something changing the world, but not risky.

Something following my purpose, without having to face my lessons.

But that’s not how it works, eh?

It’s feel the fear, or it’s be the fool.

We can choose to live in uncomfortable, to take the risks, to grow past our boundaries … or we can choose to push our heads back inside the sand, to chicken out, to shrink our souls.

There is no in between.

#fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

That is all, my loves. Goodnight.

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Would you like to try out the 18 Days to Live Your Truth ecourse before you make the commitment?

Today I’m sharing the first “pre-unit” class, exercise & experiment from 18 Days (this is the actual class that I just posted on the password-protected membership site) so you can check it out & see if it’s your kind of thing.

Even if you’re not into 18 Days, these are great questions to think about to get you started on the right track for any program you’re joining!

Pre-Unit: Before 18 Days – Get Unstuck Before You Start

In this unit you will learn:

• What questions you need to ask yourself before you start any program – and which answers mean you need to stop now.
• How to troubleshoot sabotage … before it starts.
• The best way to track success at & keep going in any program.

Don’t forget to download the Before 18 Days Exercise pdf & the Experiment pdf!

In the actual 18 Days to Live Your Truth program, you also will have an opportunity to share your experience with the other members of the program, get their feedback, hear my post-exercise/experiment follow up information, and ask questions.

But in the meanwhile – feel free to share your answers & questions here, below!

Also – 18 Days to Live Your Truth closes to enrollment on Monday, June 6th at 9:00 PM Pacific time – so don’t wait to learn more and ask your questions!

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Here’s what hand analysis has done for me, and why I’m including it in my practice!

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Because I learn so much from posts where people share the behind the scenes & lessons learned from their launches – I’m sharing here why I’m doing what I’m doing for the 18 Days to Live Your Truth launch.

1. Why the Long Form Sales Letter?

I’ve tried other ways to communicate what you need to know to buy something – cool websites with sliders and tabs that all the marketers (who, ahem, are not clients or customers of mine) thought were awesome.

But those new-format sites don’t convert as well as the old school long form sales letter.

Maybe people don’t click on the tabs, or there are too many places to stop, or they get confused, or because it seems like less information so the offer looks less compelling or you just don’t get enough information to buy.

I don’t know for sure.

What I do know is that for the exact same program, the long form sales letter (even horrible ugly poorly written ones!) get a greater % of my visitors to make a decision and buy.

When I was writing this sales letter, I came across a wonderful email article about this from Naomi Dunford (of IttyBiz and now making something else). Among other things, she said — “fonts don’t have a morality.”

The thing is, I can write a sales letter that is the truth.

That’s not slimy. That helps you make a powerful decision that is right for you.

And if a red header fonts and red pointy arrows, break-out boxes and tables, a P.S. call to action and check mark bullets … if those things help you make the right decision … then frak, that’s what I’m going to do.

BTW – the sales page video is 20 minutes (my longest ever sales page video!) because it’s a parallel track.

In other words, the video has enough info to make a decision, and the sales page has enough info to make a decision.

I assume that people are either reading people or video people – so each one stands alone.

I also tried to make it possible to buy just from the headers & bolds & tables … which is how I buy. (Ironically, I don’t watch sales videos unless they are demos. Lol!)

2. Why the pricing?

Well … I could give you a bunch of calculations and charts of why I picked these prices.

I did do some calculations, comparing them to how much email/phone consulting costs, what I needed to sell to pay the bills, etc.

Yes, I have historical reasons for my pricing. I’ve found that $97 is a price point that converts well for my people on a new program (and then typically I can raise it to $127 or $147 the next time around, when there is more buzz and testimonials). I also have found that people are willing to pay a lot more money for one-on-one coaching with me.

But the real reason for these prices is that it’s what felt right in my gut.

I didn’t do payment plans on the $97 because I want to help people. If someone can’t afford that price then they would have more success in the program if they first take care of their money emergencies before they join. I do offer payment plans for the coaching upgrades, since those are higher price points.

I didn’t do an early-bird sale because lowering the price felt off, and raising it in a few days felt off. Not a scientific reason, but that’s the truth.

3. Why 18 Days?

I’ve done a bunch of four week and six week programs – and it seems that a bunch of people fall off after week three.

So my theory is … let’s see what happens if the program is just three weeks long!

To make the 18 Days format work and make it more easily digestible, I split the program into six small units instead of a big weekly class.

This also works better since I imagine that June is a hard month for people to plan (with schools getting out and vacations) & I’m moving in June, making it hard for me to schedule streaming video classes.

And … 18 Days sounded good.

4. Why the eCourse?

I picked the eCourse format because it was the best of two worlds.

Classes are great because the inherent deadline makes people more accountable, there’s a community of people doing the class together, and it makes the promotion have a natural deadline.

Information products are great because people can do on their own time and consume it easily from any time zone.

So I combined the best of both worlds by creating an eCourse that’s based on time (with content released on a schedule) and is all pre-recorded, so it’s convenient for everyone in everywhere.

I have no plans to make this into an information product, because it would lose the time aspect and the community aspect.

5. Why this promotion?

Well, this is not going exactly as I had envisioned.

Things are crazy for me right now – I’m finding an apartment and buying a car, G is graduating pre-school and getting set up for Kindergarden, I’m dealing with an underwater/unoccupied rental property, I only have a few hours of childcare each week, I keep getting sick, a few other personal things I’m not discussing here … and I completely underestimated how much all of the above would take from me.

I didn’t plan that the sales page would go up less than two weeks before the class starts. But really, that’s probably better.

Historically, shorter sales periods have worked better for me than longer ones.

In the upcoming week I plan to release more information and resources to help people make a decision, including a video tour of the membership site, some examples of what we’ll be doing in the program, an explanation of the hand analysis extra (included in the upgrades), and whatever else strikes my fancy.

G and I will be in Portland (at WDS) the last weekend of the launch.

So I’ll be closing out the sale in a hotel room with a 6 year old running around.

That will be interesting.

Hope you got something out of my brain dump of what’s behind the scenes at 18 Days to Live Your Truth.

I’ll update you afterwards to let you know how it went!

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Yes, as I wrote in my last blog post, I have many unfinshededs that need to be closed before I have the space for next.

But that wasn’t the reason I flipped out and had to give myself a time out in my bathroom yesterday afternoon so I wouldn’t scream at my kid for doing nothing wrong besides being a little kid.

As an INFJ, I like certainty.

I need things to be known, to be decided.

Even to the point where I don’t care what the decision is – which apartment I’m living in or where we’re going to eat or what’s the price of the new program – as long as the choice is behind us and we can move forward.

(Yes, the adventurous, scared-of-being-bored person in me is turned on by being surprised and off balance. And that’s kind of inconsistent with what I just said. Sigh. I’m such a confusing person to be.)

Right now I have So Many Undecideds.

What format will I use for the 18 Days to Live Your Truth sales page, will I bring my kid to WDS in Portland, will I go back to school and will it be for a Masters or PhD and when would that be, do I ever want to live w/ a man again, what’s the long term big picture for LYT/EPW, what car loan should I get, should I rent a 2BD or a 3BD apartment, which rental management company should I hire, should I get the Civic LX or EX, should I switch to a new bank, should I switch website layouts, how should I design my new header & graphics, what after school programs should G do in the fall, where should I workout after I move. Etc. Etc.

But when I was worrying about it this morning I didn’t have an actual list.

All those undecideds were just amorphous whorls in my head, pinging me in the shower, pinching me on the bus and keeping me from relaxing or being gracious or writing as myself.

So I did the only thing possible when plagued by whorling.

I wrote it down.

Made a list of everything undecided.

And made a decision about each one.

Deciding the thing right now, or deciding what info I need so I could decide, or picking a date to make the decision (for things that are not a high priority or can only happen after something else is finished/started).

::deep breath, relaxing in my coffee house chair::

Ah. Decided.

I feel so much better.

–

Do you have tons of stuff pending in your life? Major decisions you’ve been putting off or you have not finalized yet? What do you need to make the decision? What’s stopping you?

I’d love to hear from you below!

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