No. Thank YOU.

I received an email this morning from my kids' dental office thanking me for our business and saying we were valued customers. Ha! My immediate reaction was, "No, thank YOU." The message was obviously autogenerated. No one working in that office yesterday would have naturally felt inclined to thank us for coming in yesterday.  24 hours is simply not enough time for any normal person to recover and feel "ok" about everything. It was a scene.

Now, my kids have been to the dentist a number of times and we've never had an issue. Though, yesterday was different.  My little middle decided to freak out. The chair was too slippery, the sunglasses too shady, and the puffy Angry Bird pillow used to prop up her legs was too cushy. To make things worse, the toothpaste was apparently made of poison- which is surprising given that they are after all a pediatric dental office.

After trying to rationalize and negotiate (even offering to get Grandma on the phone), I had to resort to holding her down while the lovely Miss Melody did the best she should. My otherwise agreeable daughter was screaming and writhing which, in retrospect, was nothing compared to when she started literally foaming at the mouth.  Like I said, it was a scene.

So I really do appreciate the extreme professional manners exhibited through the follow-up thank you note but it's me that owes a "thank you."

The whole exchange made me feel appreciative of those people willing to do jobs that I'd never want to do.  Voluntarily putting your fingers into a kid's mouth is too close to noodling for catfish for my taste. It also reminded me that embracing upfront all aspects of your job-- good, bad, and seriously annoying--helps level out the highs and lows of any one client interaction. Lastly, it made me thankful that we only have to do this every 6 months.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.  More news coming next week on my free ebook coming out next week.  If you're not already a subscriber to the blog, sign up to get a copy sent directly to you before the official launch day.

Thank you!

Successful working parent partnerships

Working parenthood is tough-- and can be even more challenging when you're not on the same page with your spouse. During a recent weekend away, my husband and I reflected back on what we did right and what we could have done a lot better in those first few months with 2 full-time jobs and a new baby. Here's the summary of that conversation and some thoughts on how to have the essential conversations you need for a successful working parent partnership.

Rain, rain

As I was headed to bed last night and picking up all those random things that get scattered around the house as soon as the kids come home, I noticed that my sunglasses had been in exactly this same spot for... weeks?

Now, I love rainy days.  Really love them but enough is enough already. Here in DC, I think we're on day 45 of straight rain and even Noah is over it.

Aside from the weather, it has been a great week.  You?  I worked with a new client and their leadership team to get more clarity on their roles and responsibilities. The experience was great and just underscored to me that periodic maintenance in any relationship is critical. This was an incredibly smart and dedicated group that had become too comfortable swimming in each others' lanes-- the downside of organizational collaboration that I described in this previous post.

What worked for them was going through a relatively straightforward role and responsibilities exercise. We started with draft role statements and included sample questions that each function is responsible for answering. For example, "why should customers buy our product?" would be answered by marketing and communications. "What is different about our product?" would be answered by the Product owner.

This approach worked because it was both general enough to encompass a range of activities and specific enough that each lead could imagine themselves responding to the questions.

So today, I have a bunch of maintenance and "to dos" to knock out before we head into the weekend... and a couple more days of rain.

Clutter's Global Reach, a guest post from Evan Zislis

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” –Jane Goodall

Your clutter has global reach. As citizen consumers, we have a responsibility to understand that those things come from somewhere and go somewhere when we’re finished with them. Tidying up is very nice, but it is a superficial band aid to a globally systemic crisis. This planet’s clutter is exponentially diminishing our chances of survival on this planet. It’s killing us. And that fact is getting increasingly more difficult to dispute or ignore.

Gross materialism is a sickness, the direct result of a deceitful (often unlawful) capitalistic conspiracy to systematically fund a handful of corporations. We have been duped into believing that we need stuff to be happy. All that stuff – the vast majority of it is just junk, a cancer and diabetes-inducing promise of happiness that never comes. Here’s the rub: Even if I personally don’t want those things, my environment is now irreparably contaminated. Here’s how:

Most of our stuff is cheaply manufactured, using known-toxins that contaminate local (and often regional) water supplies, in factories powered by unconscionable volumes of fossil fuels; where onsite laborers suffer deplorable conditions without a living wage – so that we can buy in bulk at Walmart. As a result, a handful of obscenely wealthy con-artists continue to get rich off the worlds’ collective complacency. The stuff we make and willingly buy is distressingly representative of the decline of our species and the power of those pulling the strings.

Once we connect these dots, we can start to demand change. The ClutterFree Revolution is a global movement of dedicated citizens committed to peace, environmental conservation, habitat preservation, human rights, civil liberties, and conscious consumerism. Collectively, we know that what we do matters and it starts at home – with who we support, what we buy, from whom, and why. The ClutterFree Revolution is a movement about needing less and sharing the things we don't need with those who need that stuff most. It’s about recycling and repurposing absolutely anything that can be reused. It's about embracing the sustainability of our species on this planet. It's about taking matters into our own hands by being intentional about how we live.

The ClutterFree Revolution is about empowering a generation of global citizens, united behind the conservation of precious life-giving resources in support of one another. The effects of our voracious consumption have reached a terminal apex, one from which there is no going back. Unless we immediately shift our collective effort to sustainability, our booming populations will continue to exhaust precious resources, as we drown in a sea of useless stuff.

The writing is on the wall; let us see it is as a call to action. Let us recommit to stewardship, responsibility, innovation, and ingenuity. If we are to survive, let us reject gross materialism and the toxic drivel relentlessly stuffed down our throats. Let us reach out to one another, united with the people of the world with our wallets, our ideas, and our energy in support of environmental conservation, practical minimalism, humanitarian philanthropy, organic food production—and common sense birth control. Let us return to realistic and practical strategies for survival on this planet.

Need less, get organized and reprioritize your precious resources away from mindless consumption and collectively demand accountability to those intentionally sabotaging our children’s future. Simplify your stuff. Vote with your fork, your wallet and your bicycle. Starve the wolves pushing fossil fuels, GMOs, and the military-industrial complex and start feeding innovation, sustainability and education. Whichever we feed becomes our future. Shed your literal and figurative excess, embrace simplicity, nurture sustainability, and help clear the cluttered path to the life we seek. Join the ClutterFree Revolution, take intentional action, and do your part to ensure tomorrow’s promise is one of peace, love and abundance.

Evan Michael Zislis is a professional organizer, social entrepreneur, and author of the top-rated Amazon best seller, ClutterFree Revolution: Simplify Your Stuff, Organize Your Life & Save the World. (http://amzn.to/1M9c9fb) Based out of Aspen, Colorado, his work has been featured in Inc. magazine, Aspen Magazine, Aspen Sojourner magazine, Colorado Interiors, Modern Luxury, and a variety of widely-acclaimed blog sites. Evan has been invited to present his first TED Talk later this year in Denver, Colorado. 

Newly pregnant at work

Mega snowstorm Jonas kept many of us inside for days straight. It's precisely these conditions that result in most babies being born in the fall-- yup, about 40 weeks later.  It's not too early to start thinking about maternity leave.  Here are some thoughts to consider...

Inventory and institutionalize your work

• Now is a good time to take a look at the process and product of the things that you lead or contribute to in the organization.  What things can be transferred?  What things need to be written and described for others to take forward?  Reflect on the roles and responsibilities of your position and how that work can be addressed in your absence.

Figure out your “stay connected” plan

• This isn’t to suggest that you shouldn’t fully be invested in your maternity leave.  You should, but you must also identify how you will stay connected to the work that occurs in your absence.  Communicate your intentions to check email, periodically respond to issue or answer questions, and how you will stay connected to the work, albeit in a modified or remote fashion.

Interview daycare providers

• Research and then physically go and check out a couple of different daycare options- Even if you think you know what you want, I found it worthwhile to go visit an in-home daycare and a daycare/preschool center.  Seeing the set-up and getting a feel for the places really helped me imagine what it'd be like to drop off this little person that I hadn't even met yet myself. I also talked with a handful of nannies, moms with nannies, dads with au pairs, and grandmas doing a second tour as daytime caregiver. The experience will either make you feel more confident in your choices or help you narrow down the range of options.

Congratulations on this big, impending change.  Good luck!

far out

Absolute distance makes the reaching the goal harder. Running 26 miles is more difficult than 1. Perceived distance makes reaching the goal harder too but for a different reason.

Our perception of distance can make us believe a goal is farther out than it really is. This perceived distance can be hugely demotivating. It can prevent us from taking the first step and getting started simply because we believe it’s going be too hard to find our way or even worse-- because it's going to take too long.

Physically, mentally, emotionally moving towards something that we want but that seems really hard or not fully understood goes against our most hard-wired survival instincts.

Shortening the distance between ourselves and our goals—even by a single step-- brings sharper focus and might even spark an idea for how to take the second step. A journey of a thousand miles…. Right?

Do one scary thing today. 

worry along for the ride

With all of swirling talk of resolutions and goals, I worry. My goals are set and vision board cut and pasted. With those critical first pieces done, now I worry some that my goals aren’t big enough or that they’re too big. I worry most that this year will be just like last year. I worry that if I don’t make some magical things happen this week- or today- that any chance of reaching my goals will evaporate. That an achingly slow start out of the gate will cause me to lose interest and motivation with every call not immediately returned, with every unretweeted tweet, and every mile that isn’t faster than the last. 

There is a certain amount of cooperation from the universe needed to pull this shit off. I need clients to do certain things, readers to respond in certain ways, colleagues to step up, and people I haven’t even met yet to appear. It’s a choreographed circus. All. About. Me. Right? You see, I don’t want to be disappointed. So if everyone could just show up and play their assigned part, that’d be just awesome. Thanks.

Setting goals is energizing. It’s exciting. I enjoy suspending my skepticism for a couple of hours and allowing myself the time and space to dream. While goal-setting sparks a lot of positive feelings, two negative ones follow. Fear (that I can’t do the hard work needed to achieve them or won’t do it) and self-centeredness (me, me, me) are a part of the package.

Goal-setting dredges up old fears and gives my companion fears (those always hanging around) an invitation to speak. When I’m really reaching, I’m able to create some new ones to add to the collection. Goal-setting also amps up how much attention I’m paying to myself—to the exclusion of other people and events.

Both of these conditions suck mightily but can be managed. First, I have to acknowledge that they’re happening and second, take action that moves me towards the positive goal.
The acknowledging part is simply noticing and (not so simply) re-scripting the dialog in my head. Recognizing a fear is easy enough but it’s not a “check the box” kind of event. I often need to remind myself on a weekly—sometimes daily- basis that those thoughts that are telling me to slow down, stop, or turn around aren’t typically helpful warnings. They’re little fears popping up that need to be acknowledged then consciously ignored or stamped out.

The taking action part is where my plan comes in. One thing I know to be true about myself is that I can work a plan. When something is written down step-by-step, I got it. I might change the steps along the way but I have a plan. For this reason, creating a simple little plan to get me started on each of my goals is critical. Without it, I can give you the probability of success right now and it’d be zero.

A note on self-centeredness: I couldn’t talk myself of anyone out there out of being self-centered. It’s who we essentially are and, alas, is the point of setting personal goals to begin with. The issue is when we set a self-centered goal that cannot be achieved without another person’s action. These goals don’t serve you in any helpful way and typically are just a setup for disappointment. An example would be me setting a goal to increase my twitter following by 100 people. It’d be nice but there isn’t anything I can personally do to make people click “follow.” I can, however, write tweets that are amusing or helpful to me and believe they will be for other with similar interests. So the goal really is about writing fun tweets and letting go of how other people respond.

I hope you did or are planning to write down goals for 2016. I believe the process is absolutely critical—though not free from its own pitfalls of fear and self-centeredness. By paying attention to what’s going on in my head, I feel better able to do the hard work needed to bring this year’s set into reality.

Welcome back!

Welcome back!?! I say that in part as a greeting and part as a little personal pep-rally.  The buying, wrapping, cooking, celebrating, honoring, remembering, and forecasting-- it's all done for 2015. I'm both a little sad and immensely grateful that "things" will be getting back to normal this week. 

How were your holidays?  Great, I hope. The Christmas part, frankly, seems like a distant memory at this point. We had the kids home for the last four days. I'm obligated to say how wonderful that was-- and it was, of course-- but it's all-consuming and has the effect of erasing my short-term memory.  What were we talking about? Oh yeah, the holidays... 

So what's true for me about the ups and downs of the holiday season is that a perfect storm is created with the over-buying, over-eating, and over-self assessing.  All of this is done just in time for New Year's Resolutions. We're all feeling pretty icky so it's no surprise that most of us spent a little time over the last couple of days coming up with a couple of goals or, at least, acknowledging that last year's resolutions are still undone so they can just be dusted off for 2016.

Goal-setting is something I look forward to each year. I have a lengthy process that includes a lot of google image searching with some Pinterest pinning breaks (for recipes and outfits totally unrelated to whatever I'm trying to accomplish.)  This year was the mostly the same. I'll be serving my existing clients in new ways and working on winning a couple of new ones along the way.  I'm really excited about that.  I'm finetuning my writing to focus on the audience most near and dear to my heart-- younger, professional women facing many of the same challenges that I did earlier in my career. So, I'm really excited about that too. I have the common ones around health, finances, and personal relationships that are really more reminders of my values instead of out-in-out goals.

There were a couple of things I found interesting and helpful this year. This blog post about writing your goals in the past tense-- as if it were a year from now-- came from my wonderful author coach, Angela Lauria.  It's an interesting way to think about it.  After I read hers, I rewrote a portion of mine and was surprised about how easily the words spilled out. And I don't know about you but I'm dying to see the pictures of her upcoming Medieval Ball wedding!

If you're still on the fence about whether or not writing goals down is for you or not, my question would be this... if nothing changed next year, would that be ok? Most everyone I know is interested in some kind of continuous improvement. I'm a big believer in personal goal-setting and this quote from Zig Ziglar sums up why..."With definite goals you release your own power, and things start happening.”  

So get after it! Your 2016 is waiting!