My Personal Ad (for a fantastic work-life).

On May 4, 2010, In accountability, career, coaching, woo-wooey, By Juli

PHOTO BY: Blimpy

This is brilliance which I forgot about until I hit the button in my reader.

Thanks Google Reader for always saving the good stuff for when I remember. Thanks Havi for being. You’ll find her stuff on personal ads here.

What’s a personal ad for your stuff you may ask?

You do a bit of asking here’s what I want, here’s how I want it to come to me and here’s what I commit to do to make it happen. The gravy part is checking in with yourself to see what you might be learning about how you deal with your stuff.

I’m struggling with my job situation.

I graduated a year ago with my MBA and certainly thought the job fairies where going to be begging me to come work for them. That’s not happening and I’m more than a little disappointed. However, I can’t let it keep me down, so I’m working on stuff. Here’s my personal ad to have a fulfilling and meaningful work-life, right now.

Here’s what I want: I want to love my 40+ hours a week I spend at work. I want to be powerfully moving toward my tangible goals. I want to positively impact the people with whom I contact.

Here’s how I want to receive it: I want it to flow with multiple purpose. I don’t want to work on one thing in isolation. I want my stuff to be layered and thick with meaning. I’d love it if working with Bob and Betty over there gave me something tangible over here. I’m not sure how it looks, but that’s okay.

Here’s what I’d rather not have: A list of shoulds and shame telling me that I should have different work or different goals. I don’t want other people’s renderings of what my work-life should be.

My commitment: My goals will be to take care of me and my family first, but also to provide growth and development to other people in my community.

What I’m noticing: It’s harder than I expected to lift the vale of shame I placed around me, I value stuff harshly and need to be more forgiving. My work is important and I can do it exceptionally well if I take responsibility for being accountable to it and the people I impact.

So what about you? What might you need to create a personal ad around? Got some stuff holding you back? Need some clarity? Are you a SWF searching for same? I shouldn’t type that, because you can’t find it here. But you know what I mean. If you were to do the exercise, what might you ask for?

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3 Words

On January 3, 2010, In Change, behavior, choices, fear, goal setting, learning, mind mapping, self-confidence, By Juli

PHOTO BY: Abulic Monkey

I gave myself the challenge to come up with three words to help build my goals for 2010 for Actuate.

I’m doing it for my personal life too, but I’ll keep it business focused  now.  Again we can thank Mr. Chris Brogan for the suggestion. I swear I could be his guinea  pig for suggestions. I could do everything he suggests for a year and see how successful or frustrating my life becomes.  I expect if I took 25% of his suggestions and mulled them over, I’d be better off.

I have to say, I did my favorite thing for brainstorming. Mind Mapping!

I have loved doing these since I learned about them in some class or another that I took years ago. In the center I wrote “Actuate 2010″ and I set a timer for 10 minutes. I heart timers. I used an online timer because I was too lazy to go to the kitchen and set the one on the stove and this one is particularly good.

Since I was looking for three words/themes for the year I was pretty happy when they popped out.

I came up with Produce, Systematize and Commit.

For each the obvious results are more create offerings, make for smoother machinations (a word I love because of Patrick of Sponge Bob fame) of what I do and show up. Showing up is hard to describe but on the mind map I had “fearlessness, ending self doubt and emotional barriers” that could keep me from doing all I want to do.

Identifying the path or the action items is next.

Produce- is creating classes, workshops, templates, applications of my theories, and book ideas. Also there’s blogging and potentially video blogging. That’s on top of making more one on one coaching connections. I love doing that!

I mean really if I had to say it this year is about brainstorming my business by doing. It’s trying to tap as many avenues as  I can to see what sticks. You know throw the spaghetti at the wall, which is really a bad way to see how cooked the pasta is, but throwing stuff out there and out of my head is the best way for me to move forward; it’s the best way for me to see if it will serve the goal. I’m an extrovert, that’s what Meyer Briggs tells me I do.

The path to systems is doing the work such as create mailing lists, contacts, logging hours, billings, plus templates and book stuff, which aligns with produce.

I’m all about alignment.

Those are some real tangible things which I feel pretty confident about handling. So whew.

The last one, commit is pretty much about not being scared. I know I can talk myself out of anything if I let the evil little voice of fear in my head have control. You know the one that says people will think I’m foolish, silly, stupid, inept, an impostor, etc. if I show up. It is the same one that tells me it’s too cold, too far, too insignificant to spend my time and energy doing. I hate that voice!

That’s going to need a good cop/bad cop kind of approach, I think. There are times when I’ll have to power through the self doubt and other times when I have to be gentle with myself. Does that make sense?  The obvious results will be more connections.

The overriding goal is to make connections and contribute to the lives in my life.

I’m convinced that if I do good work the money will follow. Part of doing good work is asking for the sale, but it’s also proving my value. Doing good work is contributing. It’s kind of a cycle thing, know what I mean?

So what would be three words for your year? What’s your goal or goals? Do you have a mission/vision for what it is that you are doing?

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Self-Confidence Building

On December 4, 2009, In Change, self-confidence, By Juli

birdsPHOTO BY:linhngan/

Most entrepreneurs have a good chunk of self-confidence.

You know this is important. I don’t think I need to expand on why it’s important it just is. But if your self-confidence is a little shaky, you’re not alone. We all could use a little booster shot every now and again. I’ve joked more than once that I’ve got more self-confidence than I should, but I don’t.

I have just the right amount most of the time. What helps when it’s low is remembering the following:

“Perfect” is overrated.

People lose too much energy worrying about being perfect. There are times when there’s not a right or wrong answer. There are complexities to business decisions which don’t have simple direct answers. The best you can to is gather all the information you can in the time allowed, do some analysis of the potential outcomes and then decide.

Live with failure, it’s going to happen.

You’re going to make mistakes, we all do. We all spend countless hours replaying the lists of “what if?” Let it go and learn from the experience. The quicker you lick your wounds and get back into the game the quicker you’ll be working for positive change and success.

Commit to your decisions.

Second guessing your choices is a waste of time and energy. Instead of moving forward with what you’ve chosen to do, you’re working on ways to extract yourself from your commitment. Be positive about your vision and the expectation you’ve made the right choices. You probably did, if you did your homework, right?

Fake it til you make it.

Show courage even if you are quaking with fear internally. We all feel fear.

There’s this thing call “imposter syndrome” where one really doesn’t believe they are qualified to be where they sit, as if they’ve only got there by chance, not their hard work. We’re not talking about that here. Don’t be a fraud. Sometimes it’s stage fright, but you’ve studied your lines. You know your stuff.

Be content in your work.

If what you are doing isn’t making you happy and scares the hell out of you all of the time, you’re probably not doing the right thing for your life. Things are not aligned. Your work should make you happy. Not all the time, not singing in the rain happy, but overall it should leave you energized and excited for the morning. If it’s not doing that, well then shhh maybe you should find something that does.

I love this. Be smart, commit, trust yourself, and take any bumps as ways to learn. I mean there’s bravado which is toxic and I’ll write about that later, but frankly if you’re lacking self-confidence and it’s hold you back, stop. You can build it. It’s like strength training. Start off small and keep adding.

At what times have you missed opportunity because you lacked confidence? Better yet, when did you muster courage through fear and got some pretty awesome gains?

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Behaving Better

On November 22, 2009, In Change, behavior, By Juli

coffeePHOTO BY: Pink Sherbet Photography

Today I talked with a friend about the bits and pieces that make someone happy. 

Eggs, pancakes and coffee were involved.  

I want to find a word other than “ego” to talk about transcendence. I’m working on it but in the mean time let’s talk about ‘happy’. It’s one of my favorite subjects. It’s where I strive to sit and I’m fortunate enough to say that I spend a good deal of time in it.

I think it comes from a universal understanding that one is connected to everything; that we are one living jiggling mass of humanity. I’m freaking myself out here but let me tell you I’m not that groovy but I’ve found a way to make this work for me.

 Recently I heard it said that those who get that we are One, (ick) are comfortable with all kinds of people.

There’s an understanding that we marinate together on this big ol’ rock. The people who are not at the point of getting it are quick to put down those who are enmeshed in the daily struggle and are fearful of being connected to those they deem above themselves.

I’m not proud to admit my bad behavior.

There is no denying I was quick to insult, to slam, to boast of my sarcastic and biting wit. I was also scared of people I thought were better than me. Somewhere in the course of my transformation (and I jokingly want to capitalize ‘transformation’) I jumped from the middle sphere into the other. I remember calling a friend to say, “I went to toe to toe with a surgeon, discussing politics and the economy.” I surprised myself.

 At the same time I started tuning into how I was treating everyone around me. And while I’ll get no prizes, I’m keenly aware that more often than I used to be, I am better.

Are you aware of how you treat the people in your life? Could you treat them better? And to make this business relevant, are you aware of how you treat your customers, current, past and potential? Every time you extend your hand or your card you are selling yourself. Are you proud of the message you are conveying? What might you do to improve?

There’s always room for improvement.

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