In the Elevator and Off the Deep End

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Casey's Rocket Ship

Last Fall, My Casey and a group of his Younglife brothers got together and came up with personal goals called ‘Rocket Ships’. On a whim, Casey proclaimed that his ‘Rocket Ship’ was to run the Austin Marathon, just a few months away. The goals the other guys set for themselves were as equally physically challenging if not more so. I don’t remember them correctly but I think one of them was going to slam dunk a basketball and another was going to ride his bike from Austin to Colorado.

Unbeknownst to anyone really at all, Casey started training. Every now and then I would see a Facebook reference to the #rocketship. Then one day I was working in town and happened to drive up the street where he lives and there he was out running. Running and not to be interrupted to hug his Momma. Light bulb! My Casey is serious and he is going to run the Austin Marathon. All 26 miles of it. His mind was set. He was putting a training plan in place, conditioning himself and he was going to do it.

Casey ran the Austin Marathon last Sunday. The whole thing. I was in a hotel room watching his progress on my computer jumping up and down, praying, jumping some more and praying some more as his orange bubble arrow on the screen told me approximately where he was and which check points he had passed. He finished the whole freaking marathon and he finished it in the middle of the pack. He reached his Rocket Ship. The first and youngest of his group of brothers to achieve their goal, My Casey ‘did it’.

I am beside myself. Seriously and happily beside myself. I drilled initiative into my children. I drilled into them with all my might that they CAN visualize their future and they CAN effect change. I beat into them that they CAN do anything they want to do. My Casey set his Rocket Ship goal before he had any idea how he was going to train for and achieve it. He decided. He visualized. He planned. He trained. He did it!

When is the last time you set a goal? When is the last time you put out to the universe what you wanted. You didn’t know how you were going to get it but you knew you wanted it anyway. Once you set the goal, did you put a plan in place to achieve it talking and visualizing all the way? When is the last time you 'did it'?!

Five years ago I put purple note cards all over my house that just said ‘The Book’ on them. Didn’t know which book as back then I was actually working on the cookbook. Didn’t know how I was going to do it. Didn’t really know why I was going to do it. I just knew I wanted to write and I wanted to write ‘The Book’. Five years and two moves later, on my vision board is the last of the purple note cards. Five years later, my book is about to be released.

My Casey is only 19 years old and in my opinion he has it figured out. He came out an old soul and he is working his life with maturity. He understands that his destiny is his alone to master and he is well on the way. I’ve encountered many people who will argue to their death that they need the plan and the money before they set the goal. How very sad. When Casey set his goal of running the Austin Marathon he didn’t even own a pair of running shoes.

Now, not only does he have the shoes, he has the medal. He and his Rocket Ship can do anything. What is your Rocket Ship going to be?

Outside and over my fear-thank you, Martha Stewart

Admittedly, I totally dig American Idol. I love The Apprentice also. I think Jennifer Lopez is stunning (and Simon’s t-shirts were delicious) and Donald Trump is just a trip. Years ago there were plans for a new show, Martha Stewart’s Apprentice. It actually aired one season, the season after she was released from jail. I didn’t watch any of it. But, full discloser here, I auditioned for it.

My company was doing well. Business was very good. But I wanted to shake some boredom and take things to the next level, somehow, someway. I signed up for an intimate marketing class being taught by a friend of a friend. We worked on things like finding our niche, taking useless headshots and perfecting our elevator speeches. A lot of money spent to spend a lot of time socializing with other entrepreneurs. At the time, The Apprentice was new, Mr. Trump was hot, Martha was riding on his coat tails with a cloned show and my new wacky marketing friends thought that I would be a shoe in. I was probably a bottle of wine or two in before I committed.

I applied to audition and was accepted to interview in person in Oklahoma City. With children farmed out, gas in the car, toothbrush and deodorant packed, resumes copied on bright yellow paper, I drove seven hours non-stop to Oklahoma City to the appropriate audition hotel. I was completely out of my box and into a seriously uncomfortable zone. The experience was an all night one. Sitting, standing, inside, outside in the pouring rain and then the drizzle. Alone. In a group. Big group, little group. Sizing up the competition. Being sized up by the competition. There were beautiful people. A few pit bulls. And every size, age and shape. And me.

The actual audition took about three and a half seconds and boom, my toothbrush, plastic smile and I were in the car for the long drive home. What in the world had my yellow resume and I just done? Seriously? Martha Stewart’s Apprentice? What the heck was I thinking?

I was thinking outside of the box. In doing so, I gave myself a much needed shot of energy. A spark. A conversation starter. Something to put in a press release. I was so silly proud. I was exhausted on adrenaline.

Just like I am so proud of every single American Idol contestant. Some of them are terrifically dreadful and some of them are dreadfully embarrassing but seriously, come on, SO WHAT?! They are out there! Completely outside of their comfort level and functioning in an unknown atmosphere on nothing but adrenaline with huge cameras in their faces. Every one of them needs to be so proud. They are taking a chance, following a hunch, a dream or a dare. They are DOING something!

When is the last time you took yourself out of your comfort zone? When is the last time you did something outside the box? When is the last time you took a chance? When is the last time you challenged yourself and rejuvenated your business plans as a result? When is last time you stepped outside and OVER your fears? When did you last make the decision to live instead of just exist on habit?

Thank you, Martha Stewart, for passing me by. Hope you are doing well. Looks like I was supposed to write the book instead. Thank you wacky marketing friends. Good thing I had a headshot for the back cover.