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Blowing out candles at last year's party.
Most of you are taking today as a vacation day, so I’ll be brief.
I spent the past three days in NYC assisting at a coaches training course. It was an extraordinary experience being in a room with 18 very powerful coaches-in-training, two inspiring co-assistants and two master coach leaders, Nina McGuffin and Sam House.
Because I was so thoroughly engaged during that time, I’ve given myself today to play catch-up and rest. Also, since tomorrow’s my birthday AND Independence Day, I’m enjoying the quiet of no phones ringing and a chance to respond to 200+ emails waiting in my inbox.
I’ve got an awesome day planned tomorrow. I learned many years ago that if I wanted to have a special and memorable birthday, I would need to let people know it was an important day for me.
A dear friend has opened her home to members of our fellowship for a breakfast celebration. One of the great things about being born on a holiday is that everyone has the day off. If you get them early enough in the day (7:30-10am) , they haven’t left for the beach or backyard picnic yet.
My daughter and son-in-law got us all tickets to see God of Carnage, the Tony Award winner for Best Play in 2009 for tomorrow night. We’ll meet for dinner before the show, stay in Manhattan overnight, walk the High Line in the morning, then see Waiting for Godot at a Sunday matinee. It doesn’t get any better than this in my book.
I am blessed and very happy to be celebrating another year.
Thirty-five women filled Artifact Design Gallery Wednesday night–my 3rd Remarkable Women Networking event. The place was abuzz with the energy and enthusiasm of these amazing women. Photo – Owner Elizabeth Clark (right) above with ASID-CT Past President and remarkable woman Terry Scarborough both in attendance.
The recipe for success is simple and straightforward.
- I open the event to my database
- Find a woman-owned business location
- Provide light food and beverages
- Keep a tightly focused agenda for strategic networking.
Each person has the opportunity to introduce herself to the group as a whole. We then break up into smaller groups for ’speed networking.’ After each of the women in those groups has had her time to share and get feedback, we rotate groups. By the end of the night, every attendee has interacted on a personal level with at least six other women.
I came home that night thoroughly exhausted. I was so tired that I canceled plans for an early morning beach walk thinking I’d never get up. Without the aid of my alarm clock, I naturally woke up before 5AM and was filled with excitement and energy.
Paradoxically, the more energy I use doing what I love, the more energy is restored to me. Help me out on who said this (I’m thinking Maya Angelou, but couldn’t find the quote on google)–I want God to use me up. I am so clear that my purpose here on earth is to empower women, particularly women who are following their passions. I am serving that cause with every fiber of my being. While I may get tired (standing on line at Stew Leonard’s to pick up the catering order and schlepping bottles of Pellegrino from my car to Artifact), I am fully restored by the rewards of this work.
Want instant inspiration? I was invited to add my two cents to a blog site contributing a tip on how not to feel like a failure. The compiled list is well worth the read. It gave me a lift. Mine is entry #109.
Linda Ross, my friend who walks at Compo Beach with me on Tuesday mornings, admitted recently that she’d always wanted to be a philanthropist. In a past life, she traveled in wealthy circles where millions were routinely donated at fancy fund-raisers. She never felt a part of that world.
A month ago she invited Buddy and me to her house for dinner along with several other couples. We would share an early meal before attending the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra performance that evening. Linda had devised a plan to help share her love of this organization with different couples before each concert boosting ticket sales and introducing new audience members to NSO. The cultural institution got wind of her efforts and sent a photographer over to her house to capture us at the dining room table and again in our seats at Norwalk City Hall.
In their most recent program they acknowledged Linda and her husband prominently displaying our photographs. “We at the Norwalk Symphony salute Mr. and Mrs. Ross and the great effort they are making to spread the word!”
Linda told me that that recognition meant more to her than any financial contribution she’d ever made.
The point? When you take a step toward your own vision, whether it’s philanthropy, business development or personal growth, the rewards are greater than anticipated. Do what you can where you are with what you have. Let me know what steps you’ve taken, and I’ll salute you.
Two magnificent women business owners were featured at EWN’s Grand Networking Event on Monday night, and I was lucky enough to be among the 150+ women who got to hear them.
Carolyn, best known as Donald Trump’s right-hand woman from The Apprentice, spoke during the private cocktail hour. She’s launching her own entrepreneurial enterprise and shared her revelation as to how challenging it is to be in business for yourself, even with her background and credentials.
Of course she also shared juicy tidbits about working with The Donald, but was gracious enough to pretend (wink-wink) that it was the first time anyone had asked that question. No surprises. Just that she likes her Blackberry much more now that she’s her own boss.
Kelly Flatley is the founder and creator of Bear Naked, the granola company that was sold to Kellogg 18 months ago for $23+ million dollars. Kelly is 30. Her story is inspiring, generous and humble. I love what she stands for and what she’s created. She spoke between courses and had the roomful of women business owners enthralled with the simplicity of her message and key points.
What were my take-aways from the night?
- Carolyn saying entrepeneurship was HARD. It is, and it’s nice to hear someone with celebrity status acknowledging that.
- Kelly talked about picking the culture you want to create. She said she wanted to greet people at her company with high five’s rather than handshakes. It reminds me that my culture embraces authenticity and passion, not seven figures and stress.
- Being with the energy of all these great women carries me for days.
- I’m in good company.
I’d love to hear what other attendees thought.
My first offering of Transformation through Transition ended Monday with successes and hugs. Six women began the process a month ago by sharing where they were in their lives/businesses with almost-strangers. Two women who already knew each other had the seed of an idea to work together. Others were looking for direction, wanting to slow down or speed up and/or gain clarity on what was next.
They established support systems, set goals and took major actions like setting up appointments to look at property overseas and setting dates for workshops.
Accountability works! By the second session the energy level in our conference room could have lifted the entire building. I wanted to share the some of the final thoughts that were expressed in appreciation to the group and the process:
- “It was doing, not stewing.”
- “This process helps me to remember that it’s up to me.”
- “I felt nurtured. Your ideas matter. Moving forward is better. It makes me happy to be on this earth.”
- “I needed to hear it was okay to not be doing; to stop doing and just be.”
I’ve just listed a new set of dates for late spring, early summer transitioners. If there’s something you want to get a leg up on, join one of our sessions and don’t stew. Stir the pot instead.
Denise Passaretti of Passaretti Photos just sent me my four favorite images from the NEWBO Awards ceremony last week. I wanted to share them immediately.
With my two colleagues from NSA – National Speakers Association -New England Chapter – Diane Ripstein and Linda Varone
The Amazing Jill Flynne, founder of NEAFA, and Don Hoffman.
Receiving the Woman of Distinction from NEWBO President, Cheryl Garrity
My acceptance speech (soon to be available on youtube…)
A frequently asked question among my clients is, “I set a goal to:
- Earn $10,000 per month
- Get 5 new clients
- Start a new business
But I only:
- Earned $2500 this month
- Met 30 people, two of whom are prospects
- Enrolled in the WBDC Fast Track program
“Did I fail?”
Even as I write this I can see you shaking your head along with me. No! Success is a journey. What I do with my clients is get them into the pond they want to swim in. Where would you have been without that committed goal? What turned up as a result of moving towards your desired income? How are you feeling, energetically, on this path?
I’ll never forget hearing Mark Victor Hansen at a National Speakers Association talk back in 1997, way before Chicken Soup for the Soul was a household name. He told us that he and Jack Canfield set a goal to sell one million books. But that year they only sold 800,000. Was that a failure? Same concept, bigger numbers.
Anything you do on behalf of your goal is a success. You can see that Hansen was clearly on target for achieving his goal. Sometimes all you need to do is push the end date out a little further. Like the parent having a young child swim towards him/her. “Come on,” she says stepping back a foot. “Just a little further.”
The better question is, are you in the water and moving forward?
I just came back from seeing Every Little Step, a documentary film about the re-making of A Chorus Line on Broadway. You get to see hundreds of the world’s most talented singers and dancers compete for 24 roles. The auditioners see their competition and the decision makers face-to-face. They have less than five minutes to show up, perform and have their fates decided.
The take-aways from the movie are enormous. First of all, Michael Bennett had such a huge vision, enormous patience and a way of sharing his message which enrolled the likes of Joseph Papp. After Bennett enthusiastically shared a before unheard of concept about how to ‘put on a show’, the founder of New York’s Public Theatre offered him and everyone involved in the project $100 a week to ‘workshop’ it until it became something.
Marvin Hamlisch, the composer for A Chorus Line, shares a few choice tidbits on how the show got tweaked and won the audience’s favor with some simple changes. For a while the audiences were leaving disgruntled. Listening to a respected viewer, they adjusted the story line and began receiving standing ovations.
Watching all of these outstandingly capable, beautiful and talented performers appear so vulnerably gave me pause. As an entrepreneur, most of my outreach/auditioning is done via cyberspace, phone or blogging. Tomorrow, when I pick up the phone to ask a satisfied client for a referral I’ll say a prayer of gratitude that there aren’t 12 other coaches there in the same room with me and him making the identical request.
Perspective can be a beautiful thing.
I received an email from one of my many creative clients who was suffering. She acknowledged that it was self-inflicted. She had just been online and found an artist’s site she found enviable, which got her thoroughly depressed. The Internet makes it easier than ever to compare ourselves and our businesses to others.
I well remember that pain having once swum in those same self-flagellation waters. It happened to me at craft shows back in the 90’s when another artist’s booth would have me drooling with envy. It happened during my coaching certification process as I listened to CD recordings of master coaches helping clients. I want that! NOW!
Anyone else out there identifying? There’s some good information hidden in the pain of that envy. You become crystal clear about what it is you’d like to achieve in your business/life–an elegant website, numerous comments on a blog, hundreds or thousands of followers on twitter. It’s an opportunity to take a step back and figure out exactly what is so enviable. And what it might take to achieve that. These can become your goals if they’re really important. The suffering is definitely optional.
I’ve come to appreciate the bumper sticker wisdom recited by my friends:
- Compare and despair.
- Don’t compare your insides with anyone else’s outsides.
- You’re exactly where you need to be.
- Keep the focus on yourself.
Take as many of these as you’d like and comment in the morning.
