Got into an elevator today. On the first floor. This particular elevator only travels between two floors. One and two. I was going to two. Got in, pushed the button and then just checked myself out. My mind went on a spin of its own volition. Jolting back to present I realized that I had pushed floor one, hadn’t moved to two and had actually been ‘gone’ for almost five minutes.
Yes, you would think, this chick has gone off the deep end and you would be right. I am on overload. Do you ever check back in to realize that you are sitting in the middle of a red light intersection? Do you ever have a conversation with someone only to realize later that you have no recollection of what was said? Or of what you promised in follow up? Do you ever read and reread and still not grasp what you may have read? Do you ever multi-task so heavily that your brain just does an elevator black out?
I am thinking about times I haven’t been present. Present in the moment, in my life. Lost moments just trying to exist instead of really living. Lost moments that have turned into days, weeks and probably months. I have a dear friend who has six children. One day many, many years ago we were talking on the phone about what was up and she told me a colorful story about playing Barbie’s on the floor with her daughter. With six children, her house was a wreck and she had laundry piled up for days and yet she was spending time one on one playing! I was the one who couldn’t go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink and here she was leaving dirty dishes for days just so she could spend time with her daughter-playing.
She was present in her life. I want us all to be both successful AND present in our lives!
How many promises have we made to our customers that we don’t realize we failed to come through on because we don’t even remember having the conversation? How many opportunities have we lost to develope a relationship with a vendor for thinking they were just there to sell something instead of thinking they might be there to partner with you? To help YOU grow YOUR business?! How many conversations have we had with an employe and instead of focusing on them, we were thinking about something or someone else?
How much time have we spent in a multitasking existance, instead of living in the moment? How much time have we wasted not managing ourselves and not having a plan of action in place?
Next phone conversation, I challenge you to not email or doodle draw at the same time. Next time an employee or customer comes in to visit, you are challenged to turn off your computer screen and put down your pen and invite them to sit for a spell. Next time you sit at your desk to get some work done, you are going to have a plan in place and accomplish what you need to one task at a time. You ARE going to be present in your work within your business.
Next time I get into an elevator, I am going to skip the mini-stroke.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Obnoxiously Oblivious and in a Bikini
There is no excuse for being obnoxiously oblivious. I know I am not the only one out here that has a problem with the rudeness of oblivious people. I am easily irritated by people who walk through life with no clue as to how their actions or words may impact the universe around them.
I am lounging on my beach. One whole mile plus of sugar white sand and crystal clear water are mine and mine alone. There are no waves and the seagulls are loving the calm as much as I am. Not a person in sight. No noise but the sea, the sandpipers and the occasional pelican. I was desperate for this beach respite and am so thankful to be here. It is 65 degrees outside and I am comfortable sitting in the sand like it is my second skin even though I have clothes on.
Deep into meditation I hear voices. Two squealing obnoxious female voices. Regretfully, I open my eyes to see two size 4 bleach blonde thirty something’s in bikinis and expensive sunglasses. Wide open beach, again, not a soul in sight and these two supremely idiotic women are screaming like lunatics braving the cold water in their little Victoria Secret band aids with ruffles on their butts RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Are you freaking serious? So oblivious to ME that on this EMPTY and wide expanse of beach they literally stop not 10 yards from ME and my meditative and fully clothed state?
As I watch these two bimbos shriek as they dunk their long highlighted tresses in the salt water, I have to wonder about the times I have probably done the same exact thing. (Not the shrieking in the salt water in a band aid thing, the being rude thing.) Wanting to dance in the waves, was I oblivious to what was going on with someone else’s personal space? Was I in a place of intention with my business and my goals that I didn’t open myself up to the needs of someone meditating right beside me? Have you so lost yourself in your business and what you wanted that you forgot what your customer needed? Forgot a promise you made to an employee? Have there been times when you have been oblivious to the golden rule in business that the customer is indeed, your Boss? That you just might need your employees to help take care of The Boss?
With my peaceful state interrupted, I left the beach, walking through the sand, over the dune to the beach house. Under the stairs, I stripped to my panties and bra (no, not from Victoria Secret) and used the outside shower hose to wash the sand off of my feet, up my legs and off of my arms. Shaking out my clothes and preparing to manage the stairs up to the balcony, I noticed the gaggle of construction workers having lunch on the balcony of the house next to ours.
Yes, that would be me. Fifty something in my panties and bra being obnoxiously oblivious. Damn it.
I am lounging on my beach. One whole mile plus of sugar white sand and crystal clear water are mine and mine alone. There are no waves and the seagulls are loving the calm as much as I am. Not a person in sight. No noise but the sea, the sandpipers and the occasional pelican. I was desperate for this beach respite and am so thankful to be here. It is 65 degrees outside and I am comfortable sitting in the sand like it is my second skin even though I have clothes on.
Deep into meditation I hear voices. Two squealing obnoxious female voices. Regretfully, I open my eyes to see two size 4 bleach blonde thirty something’s in bikinis and expensive sunglasses. Wide open beach, again, not a soul in sight and these two supremely idiotic women are screaming like lunatics braving the cold water in their little Victoria Secret band aids with ruffles on their butts RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Are you freaking serious? So oblivious to ME that on this EMPTY and wide expanse of beach they literally stop not 10 yards from ME and my meditative and fully clothed state?
As I watch these two bimbos shriek as they dunk their long highlighted tresses in the salt water, I have to wonder about the times I have probably done the same exact thing. (Not the shrieking in the salt water in a band aid thing, the being rude thing.) Wanting to dance in the waves, was I oblivious to what was going on with someone else’s personal space? Was I in a place of intention with my business and my goals that I didn’t open myself up to the needs of someone meditating right beside me? Have you so lost yourself in your business and what you wanted that you forgot what your customer needed? Forgot a promise you made to an employee? Have there been times when you have been oblivious to the golden rule in business that the customer is indeed, your Boss? That you just might need your employees to help take care of The Boss?
With my peaceful state interrupted, I left the beach, walking through the sand, over the dune to the beach house. Under the stairs, I stripped to my panties and bra (no, not from Victoria Secret) and used the outside shower hose to wash the sand off of my feet, up my legs and off of my arms. Shaking out my clothes and preparing to manage the stairs up to the balcony, I noticed the gaggle of construction workers having lunch on the balcony of the house next to ours.
Yes, that would be me. Fifty something in my panties and bra being obnoxiously oblivious. Damn it.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Third Stop- Coyote Ugly
For as many years as I can remember My Daughter Lia and I have spent her birthday weekend in San Antonio. For many of those years we brought her ‘other one’ best friend Brittany with us and we stayed in the same hotel room, ate dinner at the same fancy steak house and did the same traditional San Antonio Riverwalk things. Life grew, plans changed and then My Lia turned 21. To heck with the trip to the Rivercenter Mall, The Limited and Express and bubble gum panties at Victoria Secret. To heck with getting our nails manicured and to heck with eating gummy candy and playing dress up. This year, the universe dictated the birthday celebration was meant to be absolutely different.
Ha. I had no idea. The hotel changed and we added theater tickets to our annual birthday weekend bash. And just for fun, we added in a completely spontaneous evening at Coyote Ugly. I think it was an evening at least. It was lots of hours that admittedly felt like just a few. Yes, completely spontaneous.
Coyote Ugly was our third stop. My Lia and I had been talking about playing together on the Riverwalk when she turned 21 for a long time. How fun it was going to finally be to order pretty Margareta’s together and watch the tourists walk by. Zero pressure, no phones, no manicure appointments to keep. Just two ‘girls’ having a well deserved Happy Hour. Stop one was just this. Stop two was just to check out a new wonderful place and have a much needed eye-appealing appetizer. Stop three was totally on a dare and, ‘let’s just go in check it out just for fun’ and curiosity. Lia wanted to be able to say, “I bought a shot for My Momma on my 21st birthday.” Mr. Billy Bad Ass Bouncer at the door checked My Lia’s ID and mine. Big red flag. We were in for an experience. Just one watered down shot. Promise.
Don’t know how many shots it took this old non-shot drinking Momma, but I danced. I danced with some really young guys like a cougar wanna-be in my old Momma tennis shoes. I danced like I haven’t danced in a hundred years. I danced like I was 25. I danced like I was free. I danced hanging onto the bar for dear life. I danced with my daughter. I danced all by myself. Once, I started dancing, I didn’t stop. My hips and my old broken knees, refused to let me stop moving.
I’ve tried to function the last 2 decades like dancing wasn’t important to me and like I didn’t need it. What a terrible awful lie I have been telling myself. I need to be dancing! I need to be dancing physically, spiritually and emotionally.
When is the last time you danced? When is the last time you took something you love to do off of the shelf and experienced it again? I bet if you started dancing, you would feel better about working your business as hard as you do. I bet if you started doing something you enjoyed and that energized you, you wouldn’t resent having to get up early to get to work the next day and that you might just arrive with a smile on your face.
Thank you, My Lia. Thank you, Coyote Ugly. Thank you, Hot Dancing on the Bar Girls. Thank you for reminding me that dancing is what I am supposed to be doing. (Just not ON the bar.) Thank you for the smile on my face and in my heart. And thank God, my knees didn’t give out.
Ha. I had no idea. The hotel changed and we added theater tickets to our annual birthday weekend bash. And just for fun, we added in a completely spontaneous evening at Coyote Ugly. I think it was an evening at least. It was lots of hours that admittedly felt like just a few. Yes, completely spontaneous.
Coyote Ugly was our third stop. My Lia and I had been talking about playing together on the Riverwalk when she turned 21 for a long time. How fun it was going to finally be to order pretty Margareta’s together and watch the tourists walk by. Zero pressure, no phones, no manicure appointments to keep. Just two ‘girls’ having a well deserved Happy Hour. Stop one was just this. Stop two was just to check out a new wonderful place and have a much needed eye-appealing appetizer. Stop three was totally on a dare and, ‘let’s just go in check it out just for fun’ and curiosity. Lia wanted to be able to say, “I bought a shot for My Momma on my 21st birthday.” Mr. Billy Bad Ass Bouncer at the door checked My Lia’s ID and mine. Big red flag. We were in for an experience. Just one watered down shot. Promise.
Don’t know how many shots it took this old non-shot drinking Momma, but I danced. I danced with some really young guys like a cougar wanna-be in my old Momma tennis shoes. I danced like I haven’t danced in a hundred years. I danced like I was 25. I danced like I was free. I danced hanging onto the bar for dear life. I danced with my daughter. I danced all by myself. Once, I started dancing, I didn’t stop. My hips and my old broken knees, refused to let me stop moving.
I’ve tried to function the last 2 decades like dancing wasn’t important to me and like I didn’t need it. What a terrible awful lie I have been telling myself. I need to be dancing! I need to be dancing physically, spiritually and emotionally.
When is the last time you danced? When is the last time you took something you love to do off of the shelf and experienced it again? I bet if you started dancing, you would feel better about working your business as hard as you do. I bet if you started doing something you enjoyed and that energized you, you wouldn’t resent having to get up early to get to work the next day and that you might just arrive with a smile on your face.
Thank you, My Lia. Thank you, Coyote Ugly. Thank you, Hot Dancing on the Bar Girls. Thank you for reminding me that dancing is what I am supposed to be doing. (Just not ON the bar.) Thank you for the smile on my face and in my heart. And thank God, my knees didn’t give out.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
It Was a Very Long Walk to the Taxi Stand
This post was actually written last week just after I first saw Recipes From A Life online for the first time. Thank you for reading...
I can’t leave the soft neutral cocoon of my hotel room. I’m paralyzed. I’m on the 16th floor with an over the top mountain view. I’m afraid that if I leave this space, the bubble will burst. I’m not ready for the real world. I don’t have a new plan.
I’ve written and talked ad nauseum about plans and goals and dreams and how integral they are to the fiber of your being. As you know, my biggest goal over the last five years has been ‘The Book’. As you also now know, ‘The Book’ went live online for sale and I went unlive and into shock. I can’t leave my room without a new plan. The wind is out of my sails and I have no breath.
Last night after seeing Recipes From A Life online for the first time, I sat in the princess chair in front of my floor to ceiling window and watched the mountains change color with the setting sun. I ordered room service. I took a really long scalding bath in the huge contoured bathtub with a double amount of lavender and eucalyptus bath salts. I got cozy in the bed surrounded by a dozen pillows and watched American Idol AND all its commercials from one comfortable position without moving. Without breathing. I operated the automatic drape and sheer drape control from my bedside buttons opening and closing them in rhythm. Open the drape. Open the sheer. Mountains still there. Close the sheer. Close the drape. I wouldn’t let turn down service come in because I was afraid that they would bring the outside world in with them. Missed out on the exquisite pillow chocolates because of that. Is this shock?
I can’t leave this womb like hotel room without another big dream. Sure, I have lots of little plans. Get a new car. (A green convertible Porsche to be exact.) Move to a house surrounded by trees. Spend more time with my nieces and nephews. Buy myself flowers. Take myself out on dates. But what is the bigger plan? Work on a flat stomach? Building things and biking somewhere seem to be taken.
Lou was in a 4 day national shooting competition last summer. He was ready. Equipment working the way it needed to and his mental state was prepared. Then he went out on day one and won the events of that day. Day two, he fell apart. His goal was to win. Once he won and got the heavy wall plaque, he lost it. It was tough for him to realize that he didn’t have a back up goal or alternate plan. He lost sleep, chastised himself and gutted it up the rest of the competition doing well but not nearly as well as he could have. Well wasn’t okay because he has the natural ability and the want to be of superior, national championship caliber.
What is your back up plan? How are you going to get out of the comfortable hotel room? You have a plan in place to grow your business. You have a working and flexible business plan on paper and in place. Are you prepared with a plan ‘B’? Do you have in the recesses of your brain a back up goal? Your kids may not want your business. Your partner may not want to buy your portion when the agreed upon time comes. Your landlord may change his mind about leasing you the space next door that you were planning on using for your expansion. What are you going to do now? Lock yourself up in paralysis? What are you going to do to replace the wind in your sails and keep moving along course and on task?
My suitcase is packed. My little pieces of paper with notes on them have all been consolidated. The flowers from my mobile room service table are wilting. My email inboxes are clear and clean. Time for me to get a grip and take a breath. The walk from my room through the lobby to the taxi stand and my ride to the airport is a very long and tedious one. My goal is to have a new plan in place by the time I get there.
I can’t leave the soft neutral cocoon of my hotel room. I’m paralyzed. I’m on the 16th floor with an over the top mountain view. I’m afraid that if I leave this space, the bubble will burst. I’m not ready for the real world. I don’t have a new plan.
I’ve written and talked ad nauseum about plans and goals and dreams and how integral they are to the fiber of your being. As you know, my biggest goal over the last five years has been ‘The Book’. As you also now know, ‘The Book’ went live online for sale and I went unlive and into shock. I can’t leave my room without a new plan. The wind is out of my sails and I have no breath.
Last night after seeing Recipes From A Life online for the first time, I sat in the princess chair in front of my floor to ceiling window and watched the mountains change color with the setting sun. I ordered room service. I took a really long scalding bath in the huge contoured bathtub with a double amount of lavender and eucalyptus bath salts. I got cozy in the bed surrounded by a dozen pillows and watched American Idol AND all its commercials from one comfortable position without moving. Without breathing. I operated the automatic drape and sheer drape control from my bedside buttons opening and closing them in rhythm. Open the drape. Open the sheer. Mountains still there. Close the sheer. Close the drape. I wouldn’t let turn down service come in because I was afraid that they would bring the outside world in with them. Missed out on the exquisite pillow chocolates because of that. Is this shock?
I can’t leave this womb like hotel room without another big dream. Sure, I have lots of little plans. Get a new car. (A green convertible Porsche to be exact.) Move to a house surrounded by trees. Spend more time with my nieces and nephews. Buy myself flowers. Take myself out on dates. But what is the bigger plan? Work on a flat stomach? Building things and biking somewhere seem to be taken.
Lou was in a 4 day national shooting competition last summer. He was ready. Equipment working the way it needed to and his mental state was prepared. Then he went out on day one and won the events of that day. Day two, he fell apart. His goal was to win. Once he won and got the heavy wall plaque, he lost it. It was tough for him to realize that he didn’t have a back up goal or alternate plan. He lost sleep, chastised himself and gutted it up the rest of the competition doing well but not nearly as well as he could have. Well wasn’t okay because he has the natural ability and the want to be of superior, national championship caliber.
What is your back up plan? How are you going to get out of the comfortable hotel room? You have a plan in place to grow your business. You have a working and flexible business plan on paper and in place. Are you prepared with a plan ‘B’? Do you have in the recesses of your brain a back up goal? Your kids may not want your business. Your partner may not want to buy your portion when the agreed upon time comes. Your landlord may change his mind about leasing you the space next door that you were planning on using for your expansion. What are you going to do now? Lock yourself up in paralysis? What are you going to do to replace the wind in your sails and keep moving along course and on task?
My suitcase is packed. My little pieces of paper with notes on them have all been consolidated. The flowers from my mobile room service table are wilting. My email inboxes are clear and clean. Time for me to get a grip and take a breath. The walk from my room through the lobby to the taxi stand and my ride to the airport is a very long and tedious one. My goal is to have a new plan in place by the time I get there.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Milestone Moments!
Recipes From A Life: Essential Ingredients for your Business Success went ‘live’ today. Live as in it is finished, for sale and ready to work for business owners everywhere. I am in shock. I can’t feel anything. Is this the feeling that comes with reaching a massive milestone in the middle of a life changing journey? My hands are shaky, my mouth is dry and my stomach is jumping.
I think back to milestone moments from when I was in business for myself. I remember the day the sign hangers came to hang my last building sign. It was a beautiful sign, full of colors and of life and oh, so BIG. I remember standing in the middle of the parking lot with tears streaming down my face from pride. I had already been in business for 15 years or so, but I felt as new and fresh with that sign as I did with my first signage-cheap white frosted four inch lettering on my front door glass.
I remember hiring my first employee. I remember the first night my babies spent the night on my office floor and we had sugared donuts in the morning to celebrate before they went off to pre-school. I remember when I accepted shipment of my first shiny new special ordered convection oven. I had to drive around the block a dozen times while they unloaded it because I was too jumpy from nervousness to watch.
What milestones do you remember? What experiences have shaped you as a business owner? What memories warm your heart and give you the lift you may need to go on when you are exhausted? What goals have you reached that leave you reenergized and invigorated?
I challenge you to work on some new plans. Reach out for milestones. Fuel yourself with memories. Make great out of not-so-great. Drag up that feeling you felt when you were still in love with your business and the ideas that energized you in the beginning. STOP and allow yourself to remember your first sale, generous customer or big shipment… Challenge yourself to feel the feeling you had when you opened your original bank accounts and the paint on the walls was still fresh and tacky to the touch.
My stomach is calming down and my hands aren’t quite so shaky. Next challenge-celebrate!
http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61739-710-3
I think back to milestone moments from when I was in business for myself. I remember the day the sign hangers came to hang my last building sign. It was a beautiful sign, full of colors and of life and oh, so BIG. I remember standing in the middle of the parking lot with tears streaming down my face from pride. I had already been in business for 15 years or so, but I felt as new and fresh with that sign as I did with my first signage-cheap white frosted four inch lettering on my front door glass.
I remember hiring my first employee. I remember the first night my babies spent the night on my office floor and we had sugared donuts in the morning to celebrate before they went off to pre-school. I remember when I accepted shipment of my first shiny new special ordered convection oven. I had to drive around the block a dozen times while they unloaded it because I was too jumpy from nervousness to watch.
What milestones do you remember? What experiences have shaped you as a business owner? What memories warm your heart and give you the lift you may need to go on when you are exhausted? What goals have you reached that leave you reenergized and invigorated?
I challenge you to work on some new plans. Reach out for milestones. Fuel yourself with memories. Make great out of not-so-great. Drag up that feeling you felt when you were still in love with your business and the ideas that energized you in the beginning. STOP and allow yourself to remember your first sale, generous customer or big shipment… Challenge yourself to feel the feeling you had when you opened your original bank accounts and the paint on the walls was still fresh and tacky to the touch.
My stomach is calming down and my hands aren’t quite so shaky. Next challenge-celebrate!
http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61739-710-3
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