Three years after making what many people close to me called my “insane” choice to leave the comforts and security of my job as a vice president at a television network to start my own executive and life coaching practice, I failed. At age 40, with no money, no clients, and no business prospects, I felt I had “no choice” but to leave my home in my beloved New York City and move in with my parents, who still lived in the small town in Pennsylvania where I grew up. A few months later, feeling desperate to find my way and get my act together, I signed up for a personal development workshop.
After the first 14-hour day of that program, exhausted and delirious, I found myself standing at the base of a 12–foot bed of burning rocks surrounded by 5000 people chanting “Yes! Yes! Yes!” and urging me on to walk across this fire as a symbol of overcoming fear. Feeling immense pressure, I squashed the alarm bells going off in my body telling me to turn and run the other way, and made an actual “insane” decision to book across the flaming coals… barefoot!
When I got to the other side, I felt my feet burning and throbbing. I was terrified to look at the damage I had done to myself. When I finally got up the nerve to peek at my feet, they were smooth as a baby’s bum. Still, I berated myself. What was I thinking? How did I let this happen to me? Why did I let that external pressure overrule my internal truth? This was what I sought to understand and change.
Choice is something we all have access to, yet most of us don’t consciously use it. It gets put on the back burner while we go through the day—and our life—on autopilot. Mindlessly, we speak in “have to’s” and “shoulds.” We tell ourselves we “don’t have a choice.”
How many times have you told yourself…
“I should get up at the crack of dawn and exercise.”
“I have to be in back-to-back meetings all day.”
“I should be making more money!”
“I have to have that difficult conversation.”
“I should not eat that pint of ice cream for dinner.”
When we “should” all over ourselves and operate in this state of “have to,” we’re not engaging with choice. In the subtext of this narrative, we’re either accusing ourselves of not being or doing enough or excusing ourselves from taking ownership or action. This keeps us in a cycle of resistance and reaction. We relinquish our power. This is precisely what led me to walk across the fire. I made up a story that I “should” walk on the fire because if I didn’t, my life was never going to change. I let myself believe that I “didn’t have a choice” in the matter. And I put myself in harm’s way as a result.
After that experience, I came up with a mantra, “Whether you do it or don’t do it, choose it!” Giving yourself permission to make a choice eliminates resistance. It creates space to pause, assess, and make a new and better choice if need be. It puts the power back in your hands. Choosing creates freedom.
I spent far too much time in my life unconsciously choosing relationships, jobs, foods, habits, and thoughts that weren’t in alignment with my core values. It wasn’t until I gave my power away and walked on fire that I finally woke up and interrupted that pattern of thinking I “had to” or I “should” and, instead, began to intentionally choose what was best for me. A big part of that was learning to check IN and listen to me before I checked OUT.
In my coaching practice and in the world at large, I see people operating from unconscious, internal narratives that are small, untrue, and fear-based, which by default, keeps them disconnected from the lives, relationships, and goals they dream of creating. I’ve seen it plague the most high-powered CEOs and executives to the most burnt-out stay-at-home moms and entrepreneurs. Seeing these similarities across the board led me to develop my proven process that helps people connect with their inspiration and purpose and then use their power of choice to curate a life that they love and that serves themselves and others.
We are ALL creators, creating all the time. But what is it that we’re actually bringing to fruition? Not just from a physical or goals standpoint but energetically. Think about it… What are you pouring into the thoughts you think and the actions you take? Is it fear? Worry? Stress? Anxiety? And if so, how is that impacting your experience? This is what you get to transform through your choices. The more intention you bring to the choices you make, the more power you have over the results you create.
In my book, The Choice Is Yours: A Simple Approach to Live and Lead with More Joy, Ease, and Purpose, through client stories and my own, I provide a toolbox for groundbreaking personal inquiry and practical, digestible exercises to help you change old paradigms, narratives, and behaviors so that you can choose to create the life you desire and deserve.
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And ultimately, the choice is yours.
About Stef Ziev:
Stef Ziev is a former TV executive turned certified life and executive coach and author of the book, The Choice Is Yours: A Simple Approach to Live and Lead with more Joy, Ease and Purpose. (May, 2023)
Since starting her coaching practice in 2007, Stef has worked with thousands of successful and driven professionals, executives, leaders, and organizations in the fields of entertainment, law, marketing, financial services, accounting, engineering, and talent delivery at companies including The New York Times, Google, American Express, Viacom, NBCUniversal, Pearle Vision, and many more. She has appeared as a guest expert on NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, On With Mario Lopez on iHeartRadio, and various shows on SiriusXM.
For nearly two decades, Stef was an award-winning senior development executive in the entertainment industry. While serving as a vice president at The Oxygen Network, she developed and oversaw original movies and series for television, several of which won, and were nominated for, awards, including an Emmy. Throughout her life, Stef was always focused on personal and professional development. She studied psychology at the master’s level at the University of Santa Monica and received her coaching certification (CLC) from Coach For Life, an Accredited Coach Training Program (ACTP). She has earned the Associate Certified Coach (ACC) designation from the International Coach Federation (ICF).
Stef’s goal is to help us navigate the ever-changing world with conscious choice and empower us to bring more intention to the choices we make, so that we have more agency over the results we create.
Connect with Stef Ziev:
Website: https://stefziev.com
LinkedIn: @stefziev/
Instagram: @stefziev/
Twitter: @stefziev
Facebook: @StefZievCoach/
By Stef Ziev, author of the book, The Choice Is Yours: A Simple Approach to Live and Lead with more Joy, Ease and Purpose.