Me, For The Small Win

I have big goals. I want to help us get to gender parity in both the private and public sectors. I want to help working moms give up on perfectionism so they can be who they truly are and live meaningful lives. I want to run a successful business where I’m constantly learning and growing AND also making the money to create the kind of life I want to live. I want my kids to feel loved, supported and seen for who they are, while learning to work hard, take risks and have empathy for their fellow imperfect humans. 

Sometimes (actually most of the time) looking at that list is overwhelming—and I do this motivating stuff for a living. This is often the way my clients feel as well. They are hungry for a career change, a promotion, to start a new business—or some other huge transition, that all seem out there in the unreachable distance. 

In addition to breaking down the path to a big goal into small actions, we do something that I find to be one of the biggest motivators and predictors of success. 

We celebrate each and every small win. 

Celebrating the small wins:

1. Cultivates presence and gratitude. We must stand exactly where we are right now and know that we are exactly where we need to be instead of wishing ourselves into some future destination. 
2. Propels our momentum. We gain confidence in what we can accomplish and it jumpstarts our next actions. 
3. Chips away at our fear. Fear can come on with a vengeance when we’re doing something we haven’t done before. When moving through fear becomes part of our muscle memory with small wins, we become skilled at recognizing it and sidelining it in the moment. 

A few ways I recommend clients celebrate their small wins are:

1. Recruit an accountability buddy or group for you to report wins (with as many emojis as you like) on a regular basis. I have a group text with my Mastermind Group and we’re quite a supportive crew! 
2. Keep a brag list! Whether it’s in a designated section of your notebook, a note on your phone, or in Evernote, keep a running list of all of the small wins that spark pride. Remember, a small thing can make a big impact! 
3. Talk about your wins with your close-in circle and beyond. If you’re one of those people who cringe at the idea of self-promotion, get some practice with it by talking about your wins with people who support you. Notice the reactions you get and experiment with going beyond your comfortable circle. Self-promotion is a skill that’s worth nurturing if you want to progress in your career. 

Once you’re in the habit of celebrating and your wins are well documented, they can be used as the structure for company status meetings or performance reviews, or simply for your own confidence and validation. And if you want to blow your mind—take a look at a few of what you’re calling small wins and compare where you are now on progress to where you were a year ago. That’s one way to explode a small win into fanfare that tops your list! 

5 Reasons Blogs Are Still Good For Business

Many of my clients are in non-traditional careers. They’ve given up the 9-5 (or 9-8 as the case may be) for consulting or portfolio careers where they leverage their greatest strengths to deliver a menu of services to their ideal clients. They make their own hours. They define their suite of services. They set their rates. And yet what I often hear from them are the following questions:

Am I really an expert? 

Is this a business? 

Coming from a personal leadership perspective, my answer is often, "You can be and it can be, if that’s what you want. It’s your choice." 

One way I’ve wrestled with these questions in my own business is by creating my blog. Unlike more typical blogs of the Mommy, Tech or Travel variety, I’m not using ads, sponsorships, or connections with influencers (though if Oprah felt inclined to pick up one of my recent posts about her, A Thank You To My First Mentor, that would be lovely. There’s still time, Oprah!). The blog started as a way to compliment all the work I was doing—and truly as a marketing tool, but has grown to be so much more for both the business and for me personally. 

Here are 5 ways my blog contributes to both my personal and professional bottom line:

1. Make a bigger impact
My number one priority with the blog has always been and will always be—deliver value. Give people the tools and inspiration to think in a new way, pull themselves out of tough situations, and make choices in their lives. Not everyone has the time or money to experience 1:1 coaching and that’s why I love having the opportunity to give so much away for free. And when I hear from strangers that an article touched them or that they were able to build confidence to give up on stories that have been holding them back—I’m lit up. 

2. Creative flow time
When I first started writing, I used to hold two 3-hour time blocks per week for my writing time. With my busier practice and number of corporate workshops in the mix, I’ve brought that down to one time per week. And something remarkable happened. I long for that time throughout the week. I feel both staunchly protective of it and grateful for every moment I’m living it. It’s my time to put my pieces back together—to go inward, to be quiet, and to recharge. I need it to make all the other parts of my life make sense—so in essence, it’s the glue that keeps both the business and me intact.

3. Visibility for the business
The not so age-old tenants I learned as a digital marketer before becoming a coach have held true. With a consistent weekly cadence of content and a brand personality all my own, new clients and influencers in the field have started to pay attention to what I have to say. I’m in the conversation—even if it sometimes (to me) appears to be on the fringes. When a new potential client comes to me, they’ve often read a blog post or two, and our starting point is a level of familiarity I would have never expected. I explain very little about what I do. I’ve already explained it for the past 80 weeks in a row, so we’re aligned on what I can offer from moment one. 

4. New content for my coaching and programs
My articles have become my coaching curriculum! As most coaches know, when you start out, you’re hungry for a framework, worksheets and content to help move your clients along. I felt what was out there and available did not speak to my clients or me. I dance the line between snark and hope. I practice rebellious optimism. So, slow and steady I continue to build this need into my content plans. My wheels are always turning on how I can continue to best serve my clients with new exercises and thought starters that speak to their specific needs. And a content schedule is born. 

5. The first draft of the book
I was that 22-year-old who in an interview for a Publicity Assistant role answered the question, "How are your writing skills?" with "I’ve got a book in me!" For years I cringed thinking about that moment, but now it cracks me up. I did, and I do! The blog has brought me closer to that book than I ever thought I would be. In the next couple of years, I will surely mine the blog for the first pieces of the book that I will construct as a labor of love, most likely while crying in a coffee shop which is what it looks like when I’m writing my most popular personal posts. 

While it’s not perfect or bringing down the Squarespace servers with it’s over the top traffic numbers—my blog (which is also my newsletter, LinkedIn and Medium presence) is delivering on my business goals and helping me parse through my life goals. If you’re a consultant looking to expand, or an entrepreneur looking to launch a new product or business—it could be just the thing to help you build your audience and explore what they need and want, while defining your business and building your brand as an expert in your field. Remember, you define what success looks like for you. Bigger isn’t always better. Sometimes starting small and building slowly can be exactly what you need to develop your voice, find YOUR people and have fun in the process. As always, thanks for being my people. Your readership and ongoing support means the world to me. 
 

Seasons Of Grief

Spring was busy. There were new career opportunities like doubling down on corporate workshops, exciting partnerships, and coaching to support causes that are important to me. Then there was a babysitter turnover that forced us to bring on our organizational A games. When your kid asks, "Who’s picking us up from school today?" and your response is to check the whiteboard, you know you’re in one day at a time working parent mode, using it as an opportunity to foster your child’s independence. Or when you’re standing in the park at your 7-year-olds birthday party holding a goodie bag for one of her close friends and you realize this kid never received an invite, you know you’re nailing this "ditch perfectionism" approach you talk about with your clients. 

In the busyness and the excitement and revolving door of babysitters, I let a few important days roll right by without much acknowledgement. The one-year mark of the passing of my Aunt Marilyn who raised me, the 32nd anniversary of my parents’ accident, and two days later, the two-year anniversary of my friend Dave’s passing from ALS. It’s become a three-week container that is either the emotional perfect storm or not. I never know which it’s going to be. And I do my best not to judge myself for either outcome. 

As things were beginning to slow down at the end of June, I found myself with a rare child-free Saturday (made possible by the most engaged and adoring grandparents my kids—and I—could ask for!). I did not work, clean, or organize the house, which were all things I could have done. I knew I needed time for me. Time to slow down. Time to connect with some of the losses I barely tended to in the past months. Time to address some of the thoughts and feelings that were bumping up against the walls of busyness I was putting up out of what seemed like necessity at the time. 

I exercised, had lunch with a close friend, and met up with a group of working moms who’ve also lost their mothers. They’ve been on my radar for a while, but I was always—you guessed it—too busy to connect with them. But on that day, wow, I found my people. To be able to talk about loss and grief as freely as you would about the kind of cereal your kid eats without having to worry if you’re freaking the fuck out of the person on the other end of the conversation was true freedom. It felt like I was finally able to speak my mother tongue after years of unsuccessful attempts. 

While I’m not in a crisis in dealing with all of my losses, it was critical to remind myself that tending to this part of me—my past and how it will impact my future is part of my self-care—as much or more than exercise, clean eating, or getting enough sleep. I must talk about this and hear others’ stories to connect on this deep hurt that for years made me feel like the weird one. Now as we say in my house, I know I’m "weird in a good way" and that I don’t need to go there with everyone. But when I can flow between healing and revealing my deepest broken-ness, laughing and crying with total strangers—shining optimism and still dropping my dark humor bombs that could only have been born of loss—I feel the most me.

What Are The Rules That Drive You?

The other night my neighbor’s kids, ages 7 and 10—the same age as mine—were over our place. The four kids decided to play RummiKub, which I recently purchased thinking it would be a great game to play during our summer vacation (and yes, I’m counting down the days). While I didn’t grow up in a Scrabble-loving family like many of my peers (and I have the abysmal Scrabble skills to prove it), RummiKub was a family past-time of ours when our bellies were full after huge Sunday bagel brunches. And the stories of my dad rearranging the entire board, only to be left with one red 8 that we needed to put it all back together for—were legendary in our home. 

So, when the kids began to play their game for the first time together, I put my arm on my husband’s shoulder, took in the idyllic scene and said, "This warms my heart." 

But within five minutes, voices got loud and angry. There was interrupting and eye rolling, and I jumped in to see what could have brought all of this on so quickly. 

As it turns out, there were two sets of rules under hot debate. When my kids put down a joker with two other 10’s, they were naming the color that joker was supposed to be, so that when there was a 10 of that color in hand, the joker could be used. My neighbors put down a joker with two 10’s, and in order to use that joker, both of the remaining 10’s needed to be in hand in order to make the swap. 

One of my daughters yelled, "Well, I’m not playing that way because it’s JUST NOT FUN!" 

And my other one suggested, "They’re our guests so maybe we should play their way this time." 

There was much reciting of the written instructions, which made no mention of this distinction. And Alexa proved useless this time around. 

They stood at an impasse for awhile, until they decided to just make another move and not address jokers in their close to bedtime, grumpy states. 

In the grand scheme of things, this tiny and insignificant rule in a game seems like it has no bearing on our lives. Yet for me, it shined a light on how many of these small, unsubstantiated rules we let govern our worlds, and how our reaction to the rules of others impacts our abilities to be in relationships with them. 

When everyone’s had a good night’s sleep and some space, we’ll inspire our kids to work out an agreement about how they can move forward playing a fun game they all love when they are working off a different set of rules—instead of deciding to never play that game again because their different set of rules makes them too different to find a solution. In this context, the latter approach may sound crazy, but I assure you 1) that’s often our gut instinct and 2) you can think of a moment in your career or your life where you chose to avoid the situation because of a small rule on which you couldn’t agree. 

Now more than ever, we are sorted in our own factions because of a multitude of rules we hold to be true that ladder up to identities. When I coach or train leaders, I work with them to question their assumptions and what they believe to be "rules" all day long. In order to live in a world where people hold different beliefs, we must learn to value those differences, seeing them as opportunities to learn more about humanity. Once we do, we can step out of judgment on the origin of those rules and into curiosity about how we work within a context of common ground that is enhanced by differences, not divided.