President-Elect Barack Obama is left-handed. Only 10% of the population is left-handed. It is my observation of left-handed folks in general that they tend to be less prone to listening to others and more prone to follow their own convictions, whether those convictions buck the trend or conform with it. (Right handers can certainly be mavericks, too! It’s just that given the smaller population of lefties, there appears to be a larger population among them that has that desire to stand out from the crowd and simply do things differently.) They think creatively about situations and do have maverick streaks. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman are all lefties, too, for whatever that’s worth.

In the above picture, Obama’s little finger is curving in a bit towards the palm which indicates a fear of being too vulnerable and seeking protection. He works toward tremendous self-control to not show his vulnerability. The finger is also a bit curved, like a crescent moon, indicating trust issues, possibly relating to early abandonment by his father.

His heart line, which starts beneath the little finger and curves up between the middle and pointer finger. This is the Big Heart heart line, indicating that Obama is a nurturing, generous and caring person. He has a non-negotiable need for connection. His heart goes out to the wounded birds of the world – the less fortunate.

His head line, which begins on the palm between the pointer finger and the thumb, is separated from his life line, which happens in about 20% of hands. It indicates “independence of thought.” Obama absolutely thinks for himself and comes to his own conclusions. Because of this, he is unlike to be bought or sold very easily.

His head line is also a gift marker, know as the “Hal 9000″ – named after Hal 9000 in the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. This type of head line goes almost all the way across the hand, but stops about a ¼ inch from the edge of the palm. This gift indicates that Obama’s mind works like a super computer, able to parallel process huge amounts of data quickly. He is the grand synthesizer. He needs a job that is big, complicated and important. Being President of the United States would certainly satisfy this headline.

Most folks who have this thinking ability have a mind that is chronically underemployed. If YOU have a gifted problem-solver head line, you need a large, world-scale issue to solve or your mind will create large problems, particularly in your personal life, to keep itself occupied.

You can choose: solve a world-scale problem or create tangled webs all over your life to try to untangle. (If you want to find out more about the Hal 9000 head line, why not join our Master Mind this month which focuses on this gift? You can find out more here.

The vertical line extending upward toward his little finger is a “line of insight” indicating that Obama is introspective and interested in the deeper meaning of life. He asks questions such as “Why are we here?” and “What is our purpose?”

Our finger zones indicate our business niche. Obama’s two largest zones (in the photo) on his right hand are the middle zone of his pointer finger (goals) and the bottom zone of his middle finger (nature, the environment, values and moral code). Obama’s personal goals are goals that improvequality of life, particularly as it relates to open space, undeveloped land and natural resources. He is likely to be a big advocate for environmental protections and conservation. (I also get the sense that Obama said as little as possible during the campaign about his BIG plans for the U.S. in terms of being an energy leader. Time will, of course, tell.)

The tip of his thumb is very large, indicating enormous drive and will power. The way his fingers sit on the ridge of his palm indicate he is a teacher and leader called to the spotlight. The mounts of Venus (at the base of the thumb on the palm) and the Moon (across from the Mount of Venus) are large, indicating that Obama is a phenomenal storyteller with a romantic bent and love of culture. He is a sensitive, thoughtful person who is more likely to become sad than angry when he sees injustice in the world.

Baeth’s Coach’s Challenge: What is YOUR large, world-scale issue to solve? If you didn’t see it as a ‘problem,’ who would you have to BE-come to make inroads to change?

Baeth: Welcome, It’s In Your Hands readers. This is Baeth Davis, the Hand Analyst. I’m calling in today from my Tucson, Arizona office.

I have on the line with me Dorene Lehavi, a magnificent woman who we’re going to find out more about in just a moment.

This is the inauguration of my client interview series, which explores how my clients have taken the information from the life purpose spiritual blueprint that’s in their hands and used that to create a transformational experience, not only in their lives but in how they view themselves and who they’re becoming in their everyday life.

Welcome, Dorene. Before you had your hands read and had that experience, what prompted you to have a hand analysis session? What drew you to the experience?

Dorene: I was very satisfied with the kind of work I had been doing, but I always felt that there was more. I didn’t know what it was, and I really wanted to know. You came along and you were perfect.

Baeth: What did that “more” feel like emotionally for you? How did that affect you?

Dorene: For me, it’s really a matter of knowing that I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing on this earth. I don’t want to leave without fulfilling my purpose and my passion.

I felt that I could only know so much on my own. There was more. What I understood that you did was really zero in on things I had no clue about.

Baeth: Your hands revealed that your life purpose is to be the passionate, creative artist with an audience that loves your work. What did you feel or experience when you heard that was your life purpose from your own hands?

Dorene: You threw me into a shock. I never thought of myself that way. I’ve always been a lot more serious and heavy about helping people. I’ve been a therapist and a coach, and I still love to do that.

The art was brilliant, bright, gorgeous, fun and very warm, and it reached me at a heart level. I never knew that about myself.

Ms. Geiss, my sixth grade art teacher, still loomed heavy over me and was very discouraging. Now I’m showing her. I got the last laugh.

Baeth: That brings us to the life lesson. People will show up in our lives that trigger a certain emotional response in us. With our life lesson, it’s usually something we might term negative or uncomfortable. Would you mind sharing what your teacher said to you?

Dorene: It isn’t so much what she said. I was always a very good girl. I never misbehaved, got into trouble or dared. I was really a good girl. She’s the only teacher who called my mother in. She told my mother that I made a bad face at her, which is so not true.

Baeth: You were probably thinking about what was for lunch or something.

Dorene: I have no clue, but I would never do such a thing. I was scared to death of this woman. Of course, she was also teaching coloring inside the lines and things like that.

Not only was she negative about my artistic ability, but certainly never encouraging. She never said a good word. It was a subtle message there that came on very strong to me.

Baeth: This leads in perfectly to what your hands revealed about your life lesson. Your life lesson is emotional authenticity.

The learning with emotional authenticity is essentially to express what you feel regardless of the expectations of others. Therein resides the explanation or highlight to the story you just told us, which is marvelous.

Dorene: Maybe I did make a face at her?

Baeth: It’s not about the face, but the fear of being judged. You were judged as making a face, even though that isn’t what happened.

The fear of judgment made you shut down not just something you enjoyed doing, but you made a decision at that young age to not fully pursue your art. Do you see how that works?

Dorene: Absolutely. I didn’t even have a clue.

Baeth: Most of us structure our entire lives to avoid the discomfort that the lesson is asking us, in a sense, to confront.

What you’re here to learn is that if people make faces at you, whether they mean to or not, it’s not about you. People’s opinions of what you’re doing or not doing are essentially none of your business. Your inner work is to love yourself fully and to express what is true for you.

Dorene: That’s so releasing and freeing. It’s wonderful to hear that.

Baeth: It’s the key that will open the door to the next level for you as a passionate artist in the spotlight.

This is the connection I hope everyone reading this is intrigued by and reminded by, whether they’ve had an experience of having their hands read or not.

There’s one final thing, Dorene. Your life school is love.

I believe that each of these life schools has a spiritual promise. The spiritual promise of the school of love is unconditional love of self. That’s the prize that you experience. It also is a spiritual promise in your work that when you put your creative artwork out in the world, it moves people into an experience of love.

Dorene: That’s been my experience with it so far.

Baeth: There’s a heart connection created. In order for this heart connection to be felt by you, it means that you’re called to commit to and continue with your artwork, regardless of the expectations of others.

Dorene: I’m loving it!

Baeth: Would you be willing to make a commitment to our audience here? It’s okay if you don’t want to. If so, what would your commitment be around your creativity in the next 90 days?

Dorene: I’m not sure what you’re asking me. Do you mean something concrete?

Baeth: Yes, something concrete.

Dorene: I’m actively pursuing my own language with my art and what I’m about. I’m really looking inward to understand more about myself so that I can deeply connect with the person that I am.

I’m tending toward doing biographical collages so that I capture the essence of the person I’m collaging.

I love people, and I love connecting with them. Because of my gift as an intuitive and having been a therapist, my connection with people is deep. I see beyond what they see for themselves. I really want to develop that part of my art so it comes out at a very deep level when I get into doing a biographical collage for somebody.

Also, I’m just finding ways to express my language and find what my particular language is in my art. I commit to keep doing that and really go deeper and deeper, and hopefully just doing better work.

Baeth: I want to up the ante here, if I may give you a coach’s challenge. I’m going to challenge you to have three of these biographical collages commissioned in the next 90 days.

Dorene: That would be lovely.

Baeth: Yes, but it’s only valuable if it’s something you’re willing to commit to.

Dorene: I will commit to doing three in 90 days.

Baeth: And paid for.

Dorene: That’s wonderful. I commit to that.

Baeth: For everyone listening, you can have a gander at the incredible biographical collage that Dorene did for me in the newsletter, and we’ll also be posting that online.

Dorene, how can people reach you if they’d like to find out more?

Dorene: Probably the best thing to do is to call me. I will have a website having to do with my art, but my website right now has to do with my coaching business. They could go there and find me at www.CoachingforYourNextLevel.com.

My phone number, which is probably better if you’re more interested in the art, is 323-931-7204.

If you’re in a business partnership and you don’t want to be in those miserable statistics that you will fail, I will show you how not to.

Baeth: Thank you again for today.

Dorene: Thank you, Baeth. You’ve set me on a track that’s bringing me such joy. You’ve just confirmed it for me. Frankly, it didn’t even occur to me.

Baeth: You’re like most of us. Finding out who we are, we’re usually the last to know. That’s the way it goes.

Thank you, everyone, for reading. If you’d like to have this experience for yourself, please consider attending my Life Purpose Spiritual Summit this June 4 through 7, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The web address is www.LifePurposeSpiritualSummit.com.

At the summit, I will be doing live coaching and life purpose hot seats where you get to have the energetic and emotional experience of living in your life purpose, which for many of us we’ve never had.

Once you have it, you can’t forget it. It’s like learning how to ride a bicycle. Once you have that skill, you never forget. Hence, your life purpose can be expressed in every area of you life for fulfillment, purpose, passion and profit.

Thank you again, Dorene.

Baeth’s Coach’s Challenge: What will YOU accomplish in the next days? Go for it – and be sure you get paid for your passions!

That’s my beloved daughter by marriage, Hannah Richter, learning some new chords on her dad’s Martin D-28 acoustic guitar. Mark figures he’s put in about 5,000 hours on the guitar since he started playing in his teens. Hannah just started last year. If she plays 10 hours a week, 52 weeks a year for the next 10 years, she’ll accrue 5200 hours of practice by the age of 31.

And if she ups it to 30 hours a week, she can do it in 3.33 years. But if she plays 30 hours a week, 52 weeks a year for 6.5 years, she can pass the 10,000 hour mark! Yes, nearly a full time job… and the path to MASTERY.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his new book, Outliers, shares his discoveries about what really contributes to exceptional individual accomplishment in one’s profession. (I read this book at Michael McLean’s suggestion. More about Michael in a minute.)

Gladwell’s research discovered a remarkable thing – most folks reached a MASTERY level of expertise after approximately 10,000 hours of practice.

H. Jackson Brown said, “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

Michelangelo said, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”

Michael McLean, friend, mastermind buddy and winner of the “Marketer of the Year” at the 2009 SuperConference, won because of ONE thing: his mastery. He marketed his insurance business consistently, fervently and over a longer period of time than the contest competition.

While at the conference, each contestant was given a new task to determine the final winner. This is where Michael’s exceptional mastery came into play. Michael used to own and coach a hockey team in Canada. Before that, he played hockey competitively for many thousands of hours. He took the mastery he acquired playing and coaching hockey and applied it to his insurance business.

At the competition, Michael rounded up a bunch of his insurance associates. He and his five supporters locked themselves up in a hotel suite for 48 hours, without sleep, and did research, set up new web sites, got video testimonials and more… in 48 hours!

As for the other two contestants, one was convinced he was the winner (but didn’t use his actual business expertise in the competition… ooops) and the other was having a good time and either didn’t play to win or just didn’t care.

Michael relied on HIS MASTERY to win the competition.

Michael reads marketing books, takes marketing seminars and implements marketing ideas like no one I’ve ever met. He’s original, uplifting and humorous. His lovely partner, Krista Hearty, a healer and teacher who you’ll be hearing more from in the coming months and years, and their Golden Retriever, Avery, are frequent guests in his marketing. He also offers free pizza to new clients and his competition doesn’t. In fact, his competition is so envious of Michael’s marketing prowess, they actually advertise, “No Free Pizza,” which drives even more business to Michael’s company! Michael puts in the time and wins. Consistently. Joyfully. I dare say, masterfully!

While enjoying Angus Young wail on his guitar at the recent AC/DC concert in Ottawa, Michael leaned over to Mark and I and said, “I bet he’s put in his 10,000 hours, eh?”

I’ve noticed a trend over the past 15 years or so in all sectors of public life of looking for “man’s easy way to riches.” Show me a successful person and I will show you 10,000 hours plus at their profession before they hit mastery.

After doing some rough calculations, I figure I’ve logged 7,000 hours reading hands, 6,000 hours coaching folks, 5200 hours writing and over 8,000 hours reading (primarily non-fiction books at 15 hours a week) over the last 11 years of being in business for myself. There are also untold hours of researching, attending conferences, being coached and implementing, organizing and marketing in my business. Also, I do not watch television except the occasional weekend movie. If you are watching more than one hour of TV per day, you are losing massive time that could be dedicated toward your desired mastery.

We may live in a quantum universe but that doesn’t mean instant manifestation. What it means is that when you commit to something with passion, you release other opportunities, increasing your success in the reality you have chosen and are essentially creating. Beethoven and Mozart may have died young – but they’d logged their 10,000 hours as musicians before they died.

There is a direct connection between money and time. The more time you put in toward your mastery, the higher the fees you can command. Why? Because you are an expert and your clients know the difference! You can accrue your expertise quickly or slowly, but accrue it you must! There are other ways to manifest money, of course, but if you’re playing the business game, you need to have expertise to contribute to others.

If this discourages you, congratulations! I have laid out for countless clients the amount of time, capital and energy their particular business goals will require and I often hear, “But Baeth, that’s discouraging. Can’t it be easier?”

Ummm… no.

Ease is a matter of perspective. If by ‘ease’ you mean with little effort and little time, you may as well get a job – or keep buying lotto tickets. But if by ‘ease’ you mean with joy, enthusiasm, persistence, and dedication, then YES, the keys to the kingdom are yours!

I love what I do, so it’s ‘easy.’ Does it take up most of my time? You bet! Besides, what would I be doing instead? I’d be searching for a purpose (like 98% of the human population!) that I wish would consume me with passion so I could commit to it, absorb it and master it. Once you master ONE THING, you gain access to ALL THINGS (including money, luxury and fame if you so desire it).

Why would you do something if not for the passion of it? If you’re going to log 10,000 hours at anything, I would suggest you don’t just ‘like it,’ I suggest you love it. Have you noticed that Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Oprah, Angus Young, Tom Cruise all seem to enjoy what they are doing?

They can’t help but put in their time. It’s their LIFE PURPOSE! Are you MASTERING YOURS?

Coach’s Challenge:
#1 In the past 10 years, what is one thing you’ve spent 10,000 hours mastering? Is it being a parent? Surfing in Hawaii? Writing? Reading? Coaching? Dancing? Traveling? Studying? Everyone has done at least one thing for this amount of time. Calculate it and write it down.

Marcia Bench, my recommended expert this week, shares the story of two women who loved to watch soap operas. In fact, they watched thousands of hours of soap operas. They decided, “How can we get paid to watch soap operas?” They decided to do weekly compilations of the soap opera highlights and before long, their work was featured in publications all over the country.

#2 Now that you’ve identified your 10,000 hours, how can you combine this with your Life Purpose for a winning combination?

For example, let’s say you’ve spent 20,000 hours running a family business. You now want to start your own business and express your Life Purpose as the “Big Shot Mentor and Healer in the Spotlight.”

Imagine the resources you could provide to people either wanting to start, sell, dissolve or heal their family business. And that’s just one combination. You could offer tele-classes, workshops and private consultations for folks wanting to create their dream business. Perhaps you want to coach folks creating businesses that allow them more time with their children or allow the children to participate in the business. Let your mind go wild.

I shared earlier how I love to read hands, coach, write and read books so my business is primarily structured around those activities. Those activities also allow me to express my Life Purpose as the “successful spiritual business owner with an inspirational message for a large audience.”

My process goes something like this: I read someone’s hands, reveal their Life Purpose, coach with them to make that purpose a reality, write about my discoveries and read, read, read out of insatiable curiosity to learn more about the world around me. I then integrate all of that information and bring it to audiences around the world via live speaking events, television, radio, print and the internet. The sharing of the message: “Your Life Purpose is in YOUR Hands (literally!)” is the summation of the countless hours of doing activities that I love to do.

YOUR Life Purpose is expressed fully when your mastery merges with your passion.

Are you READY to CLAIM Your Mastery and bring it alive through your Life Purpose?