How many of you feel in the flow? The truth is, even when life isn’t going the way we expect — and Lord knows many times it seems that way — we can be in the flow.

Everyone and everything is here to teach us something. It’s up to us to glean the learnings or they will reappear in a different way, shape or form. Challenges are merely opportunities for us to spread our wings when we’re ready to fly.

Since I left my day job nearly 10 years ago to be in tune with my passion, which I express through my nonprofit, Go Inspire Go, I’ve started to be more in my flow. This flow also led me to my podcast, TruthDare, to interview people who have found their truth and are daring you to find and live yours.

Recently, I launched my very own modern-day talk show with my soul brother, Lonnell Williams. “YOLO With ToLo” is an innovative LIVE social media talk show hosted by me (Toan) and Lonnell, a.k.a “ToLo.” “ToLo” also stands for “Transforming Our Lives Organically” through lively banter. This weekly interactive experience on Facebook Live “lifts and shifts” viewers through conversation and crowdsourced wisdom every Wednesday night (10 PM ET/7 PM PT) at facebook.com/yolowithtolo.

Talk about flow, you’ll have to watch to see how we met and how Lonnell became friends with Oprah. As Oprah told Lonnell, “There are no coincidences, just divine order.”

Imagine that — if you flipped the script and thought, “Whatever I’m currently experiencing, I’m supposed to experience. It’s a part of my story and it’s here to help me grow.” What would your life look like? How would you feel? I hope you’ll feel the shift I felt when I asked myself these questions.

Most of life’s whispers come to me in stillness, and the messages amplify as I spend time in nature. One of my goals this year is to spend more time outdoors, so I’ve been scheduling time daily to focus on it. I’ll go on morning walks to the water when I have the time. I live near the San Francisco Bay, so it’s right in my backyard. But when I don’t have the luxury of me-time, I try to focus on a flower in my home or neighborhood, or stare up above into the clouds to reconnect with God.

I love being in nature as much as I love analogies, so how natural of me to use nature to explain “flow.” Did you know a butterfly needs to struggle in its cocoon before emerging? If it doesn’t, the fluids won’t push through the body into its wings to become strong enough to break free and fly.

Think about the struggles you’ve encountered in your life. Release the expectations and just stay in the present moment. In time, what should happen will happen. How did they help you spread your wings? Talk about metamorphosis!

If you look at a swan walking on land, it waddles and walks funny. But once it rests upon the water, it floats and it flows.

Are you going through something that is knocking you off balance? It’s OK, go through your human emotions, cry, work out and talk it out if you need to. Just know that you can and will find the effortless flow that only you know how to find.

While on a walk with my neighbor and spiritual friend Patience, an elderly woman who is a psychotherapist by trade, we talked about the idea of “being in the flow” or “beating to your own tune and not apologizing about being authentically you.”

So now, when I freak out when my expectations aren’t turning out the way I want them to, I think, “Are you flowing?” For me, exercising, writing and talking to trusted people in my life help me remember to get back in the flow. The key is to breathe, be in the present moment and ask yourself, “What is this lesson I’m supposed to learn?”

Nothing makes me feel more alive than helping people discover and use their power to help themselves and others. Most of the time, I’m in that space and don’t let my ego get in the way because of doubt and negative self-talk.

I know we are not alone in this. You aren’t either. The key is to find what helps you be in your element so you can go and flow. Are you glowing and flowing? We’d like to know. Leave me and Lonnell a message at YOLO With ToLo. You only live once, so it’s time to do you, be free and flow.

Onward,
Toan

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The post The Secret to Being in the Flow appeared first on Go Inspire Go.

Moving away meant missing important dates, celebrations and soirées with my family and friends back in California. I remember working the weekend shift during Christmas and calling home, only to be passed around from family member to family member to say hello. I could almost smell the yummy turkey mixed with the Chinese and Vietnamese food my mom and aunties would bring. Staring outside the station’s newsroom window at a cemetery across the street, I had an epiphany — life was way too short to sacrifice so much. But I knew this was the part of the deal when going into the news biz — working crazy hours and holidays.

Eventually, I moved on to Midland, Texas; Fresno, Calif. and San Francisco to chase my dream of being a TV reporter in a big city. Check. Though I had finally achieved my goal, I ended up leaving it during the down economy. I didn’t want to report on bad news anymore.

Oprah said, “God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can for yourself.” I always tell my students and mentees, “Be careful what you think — your thoughts become your words — and be careful what you say, because what you say has the power to influence yourself and others and it can become your reality.”

Now that I am close to four decades old (wow when put like that, it seems like a lot of time has passed) I only want to take on projects that bring me joy. Things like Go Inspire Go, a nonprofit I founded that allows me to meet and tell inspiring stories about everyday heroes — stories that have sparked the hero in readers/viewers across the globe to help the featured person or cause.

I also yearned to work with children and inspire them to be better and do better for themselves and others. Then God/Universe brought me to Kala Shah, my co-hero, to create “Community Heroes,” a youth program helping raise the next generation of heroes.

The latest development for Community Heroes is an exciting new partnership with the Institute for Spirituality and Health in Houston to develop a dynamic, open framework “Community Heroes of Houston” program. This video-based curriculum highlights everyday heroes and leverages social media platforms to exercise “the compassion muscle.” It’s essentially the building blocks to spiritual identity and will help kids grow to their fullest potential.

I also fulfilled my dream of being an instructor at the university level. I teach storytelling at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and have taught at my alma mater, the University of San Francisco.

My passion work also includes a project that nearly completes my list of career dreams — doing something with elders. Aside from working with kids, this is something I’ve always wanted to do. My paternal grandmother inspired the values, spirituality and a huge shift in me as a person, so I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the elderly.

Last fall, my friend Richard Lui, an NBC and MSNBC anchor, introduced me to the folks at AARP. I teamed up with the organization to create three short documentaries on caregiving heroes in the Asian American community. Stay tuned for more as we launch the doc in New York and San Francisco later this year!

Which brings me back to the topic at hand — chasing, chasing, chasing — something. Recently, I’ve had conversations with friends and mentees that revolve around the idea of letting things come to you. That doesn’t mean sitting on your booty, saying “omm” and thinking things will just come to you on a silver platter. It means doing what is in your power. It might be sending out a resume, making a call or simply telling others about what you are pursuing. When you put it out into the world and if it’s aligned with your authentic self, it will manifest. I’ve stopped trying to go to every networking event, emailing and calling and running around wasting my energy.

I’m trying to go with the flow and if I feel my gut nudging me to do it, I listen. The hard part is being in tune with yourself and honoring the feelings of “No, I don’t want to go” or “I should just check it out really quick.” As I write this, I’m feeling another chill, another “A ha!” and realizing many of the concerns I had when I was younger were nothing. I was able to check off the goals on my list because they aligned with who I really am.

Growing up poor with an immigrant “can do” attitude, I have been on the go for most of my life. I wanted to be everywhere and do everything. I felt like an awkward swan walking on land when I worry. So I choose to step into a lake and flow.

When I catch myself worrying these days, I do the following:

1. Trust that when the time is right for me to meet someone or do something, God will connect us. I remind myself I’m supposed to be exactly where I am right now. From time to time, I still have to remind myself that it’s all good, but I have trained myself to immediately go to that place in my mind when that little worrywart in me comes out.

2. Talk about what I want to do with myself and others and write them down. It really does come together.

3. Time is important, so when I start stressing or worrying about something, I remind myself, “All the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” That’s one of my favorite quotes from Paulo Coelho.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and concerns about why things have or haven’t manifested in your life.

Onward and upward,
Toan

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The post Chasing After Your Dreams? Slow Down and Savor the Ride appeared first on Go Inspire Go.

Recently, during several conversations with friends about keeping hope alive, I found myself sharing this remarkable story about how Coelho’s book, “The Alchemist” — a story about Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy in search of his dream — went from selling two copies and being dropped by his publishing house to setting a Guinness World Record for being the most translated book by a living author.

Coelho told Oprah during a Super Soul Sunday interview that after cutting ties with his publishing house, he went to one of the biggest publishers in Brazil and told them that this would sell. They said, “OK” and the rest was history. According to Oprah.com, the book has sold more than 65 million copies, has been translated into more than 80 languages and has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 300 weeks.

Like a caterpillar that climbs into a tree and forms a cocoon, something bigger is guiding us. We just have to struggle and strengthen our wings as the butterfly emerges. How does this happen when the caterpillar has never done this before? We are guided by something bigger than ourselves.

In the prologue of “The Alchemist,” Coelho admits he doesn’t know the secret to the book’s huge success. “All I know is that like Santiago the shepherd boy, we all need to be aware of our personal calling…. It’s God’s blessing,” Coelho wrote. “Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our [personal] legend.”

I believe that we all have a calling. That’s why we’re here breathing. The goal: to find your power so you can not only feel your potential, but go beyond it by using it to uplift and help others. There is no better gift you can give than the gift of you. Share your story, lift someone’s spirit and shift them forever. The challenges you face are here to guide you.

Take action: Three things you can do to keep the hope alive

1. Share your story. I’ve done keynotes for Coca-Cola, Rotary clubs and many other nonprofits about having the courage to tell your story. Many people have since come to me, crying, telling me they didn’t think their stories mattered. The truth is, everybody’s story matters. Have the courage to discover and share them. You give others permission to do the same. This raises compassion, leads to action and inspires hope and change for the storyteller and the listener. Don’t know what story to share yet? Share Coelho’s!

2. If your dream, business idea or project is authentically you, the people, the opportunities and signs will come. My mantra: Trust and action = traction.

3. Trust that the opportunities meant for you will open doors, while the doors that close aren’t meant for you, after all. See all obstacles as blessings and be grateful for what you have right now. Abundance will follow. The Dalai Lama said, “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. Not everything that you desire will be necessarily good for you in the long run. If something just seems to not work out continually, in such a way that it seems almost like fate intervened, consider letting it go or coming back to it at another time. The Universe works in mysterious ways and should be trusted. Just be sure you are not mistaking your own failure as the Universe telling you something.”

If you have any other action tips on how you’ve kept hope alive, please share in the comments section.

Onward and upward,
Toan

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The post Don’t give up. Yes, YOU. Keep going… appeared first on Go Inspire Go.

“You seem so passionate about what you’re doing with your life. How do you find your passion?” That is one of the biggest questions I’ve been asked during my career as a journalist, founder of Go Inspire Go and university instructor.

I have a woo-woo and practical answer. I’m part spiritual — I believe in trusting in God (some call Universe) but also taking action. Start by taking baby steps that lead to your big goal. Here’s what I came up with in a simple equation:

Trust + Action = TRACTION

In college, I would’ve never believed the trajectory in which my life unfolded. I definitely didn’t believe in the magic of positive thinking/believing. This happened through opportunities and people who have showed up to guide me.

When I was a student at the University of San Francisco, I wanted to be a TV reporter. I remember my old school journalism professor Michael Robertson asking my News Media class, “How many of you want to be TV reporters?”

Statistics show about two percent make it. I was an unlikely two percent. The odds seemed stacked against me. I didn’t have a big network of journalists, I wasn’t born into a family with any journalists and financially, we were poor.

I remember wondering if I would ever achieve my dreams — getting paid to be a TV reporter and host a show on PBS. Unclear about how I would hit my target, my gut told me to TRUST. I am spiritual and knew that I could trust God would use my life for a bigger purpose than serving myself. I knew that I would regret it if I didn’t try to tell peoples’ stories as a news reporter. I’d rather try and figure out that it wasn’t for me than not have the courage to take those baby steps. I said prayers, practiced gratitude and wrote down my goals.

I also applied ACTION. I interned five times at various production companies and local TV stations. I was in it to win it. I recall logging tapes for a whole semester during one of my internships, wondering how this would ever help me with my job as a TV reporter. It did — it helped me identify good soundbites while interviewing people on the street — a critical time-saving skill to have for breaking news situations.

Still not convinced? Here’s one thing you can do NOW to help you reframe your state of mind:

Instead of focusing on how a future job, beefy paycheck or status will make you happy, focus on what you can control. Keep up the hard work, network and be around people you want to be like (I joined the Asian American Journalists Association). Your experiences and hard work will add up to the sum of what you’re supposed to do. Here’s to you being part of that two percent too!

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The post This Equation Will Point the Way to Your Future Success appeared first on Go Inspire Go.