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What Happened to the Coffee? pt1

December 24, 2011 in A Joyful Place Called Home, Basics Matter, Life Lessons, Living Your Values, She's So There, Sweetie As Strategist with 5 Comments

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My very dear friend, Melinda Emerson (@SmallBizLady) called and said I’ve open tweeted you someone I want you to meet, I think you’ll find her to be fun and someone you’ll want to have coffee with, you’re both from Arkansas.  Well, as any true Arkansan would tell you, hoghood is thicker than water.  That would be like saying your long lost sister has been found, of COURSE I would want to be introduced.  We tweeted immediately. Twitter IS the new front porch, faster than even the party line of old! More tweets were shared and a call scheduled.  I’m thinking great Skype chat over cocoa or coffee. Little did I know that call would change my life.

Some things we are simply not prepared for. We do our daily grinds, we work on being the best we know how to be, we take our lumps and try to learn from then. Sometimes in an instant life changes. My family lost my nephew after a congenital heart condition ended his life at school one day.  Life changed.  I married Les and added two children to my life in a way I could have never predicted. A joyful change, but adding a five year old, eight year old, eleven year old and seventeen year old to one new marriage….life changed.  Once upon a time in Fayetteville Arkansas a silly Honda civic did not have a lights on indicator leaving me stranded and asking a perfect stranger to hold my precious tiny babe so I could get help (her car was air conditioned, the outside air was 101. This was before cell phones. There is a 15 year old story now that bears telling, but that’s for another day….

The coffee date was planned for a phone conversation, but I was unprepared to know what was being served would forever change me. That Arkansas girl was author Allyson Lewis, whom I had never heard of. (authors kinda come my way a couple of dozen at a time some weeks…) and she wanted me to read her book that would be launching December 27th.  Alrighty, but I thought we were going to have coffee. (sounded very fun, grown up even, and after all she’s from HOME…Arkansas)  The book came via email that evening, I am an avid reader. By morning I had been through it twice and was now in  operation evaluation mode. I.could.not.put.it.down. You see I’m into learning to learn, and as a strategist with an educator’s background, this book was talking about memory, learning, living your values, priorities and something called the M O R E life.  The woman had it going on, and now it was me who wanted to have coffee with her.  The conversations continued and it seemed that my friend had been completely on target. I would love this woman.  I don’t know about you, but at forty-seven there are very few things I jump head first into and that particularly qualifies where turning strangers into friends occurs.  By 24 hours after reading this book the conversations were more about rapid fire excitement on both sides of the line than leisurely coffee chat.

You see, the book has a workbook that is so very the way I think that within 3 days of beginning its free downloads at The7MinuteLIfe.com , which are predated and ready to use from Member tools even before I had a hard copy of the book, was so closely arranged to the way I think, that I was lost without it by day 5.  The more exciting thing was that my… shall we say…. analytically driven husband Les (@morefromles) evaluated the planner and loved it as well, though he said it lacked the notating the hunting dates and a place to have me mark off laundry. (he would mention that again…it’s an old story, a standard Sweetie truth, I think clean socks come from WalMart or JC Penney, the washer just seems to eat them)

The next 24 days were filled with little sleep, much joy, and a serious oversight of coffee being made at our home. I have become the Excited Evangelist for The 7 Minute Solution because I so know that it will change lives.  In a world that never stops 24/7 , a community that is hungry for a MORE life….that is:

  • MORE passion
  • MORE joy
  • MORE meaning
  • MORE rest
  • MORE laughter
  • MORE responsibility
  • MORE time on things we love
  • MORE organization
  • MORE travel
  • MORE financial adeptness

I knew that the three principles: prioritize, organize, and simplify would in a word work to allow individuals to get back to the business of supporting their lives. I loved the visual simplicity, the online support systems and I knew that this.would.be.powerful in the lives of many. My life took on a new purpose in a heartbeat…to get this book into hands of those who could be use it, and in my opinion, that’s every.single.person.

Caffeine slows me down. An original wild child, everything seems to be backwards in my wiring. Those who know me well know that I can talk 180 mpg when I am truly excited or have “caught the vision” of a strategy that will work for learners and those seeking to help learners learn.   I have endless energy most of the time, a trait I share with two older brothers. We simply run like energizer bunnies. Technology available 24/7 has increased our ability to get to information and to use it but there was definitely MORE needed yet I find great joy in taking time my calligraphy, hand creating dinners, spending time with activities I am passionate about….and yet  permission for me to do that full time would have not been even considered before this book….or the reasons why it mattered explored past “well I just love doing it”  I hadn’t given myself permission to live as a Creative full out “Game On” with the analytical/tactical skills as the backup support in my business…this book project has changed that…and in 24 days the world of Sweetie changed forever.  I gave myself permission to be who I am and it.is.breathtakingly different to bloom this thing called my life..

and Allyson Lewis…you better not simply plan to meet me for coffee, you best plan to sit down and share the whole pot girl, I’ve got about a zillion things to share about how thankful I am for you and this book.  My “why and how” have been identified and now its simply about doing it! See you at the launch! (National Launch, Tuesday the 27th of December and debuting on #SmallBizChat on January 4th!)

#TrueStory

#Les is exhausted (be thankful it is not you! :)

#I.am.thankful

#Just7

Have a Merry Christmas!

Sweetie

Follow @Allyson7Minutes on Twitter and the SevenMinutes, inc team at @The7Minutelife

Join their FB wall and tell them Sweetie sent you!  http://www.facebook.com/the7minutelife

Download the member tools here which will include the Daily Progress Report Planner template and many tools to share

Be prepared to have life as you know it change.

P.S. Allyson and the SevenMinutes, inc Team…..you have been the most welcome surprise of Christmas this year!

Owning My Life…Life Moments

December 18, 2011 in She's So There with 0 Comments

  What works for you? What makes your life work.  Around my  home there has been a tremendous shift in a few moments this week.  Music has returned to our home, not just the go to practice on Wednesdays and sing on Sundays kind of song, but one that has included our whole family in the chorus.  I learned to learn again in one area of my life this week.  Engaged in a life long love affair with learning and sharing learning I was surprised to see that one lesson learned long ago has resurfaced as a need to know…

You have to know who you are not to become who you are.  You see I’ve been hiding out. Staying away, denying self and choosing to ignore what can be a problematic existence.  It’s a problem our children face, my brothers faced and one that I see my client’s schools and families face.  Deborah Mersino knows this place and it continues to get past adequate steps for solving despite it being of great importance.  Life as a person who embraces their imperfections as well as their gifts. Engaging excellence is something  I love, not to compete, but to achieve, reach and be who I am…I appreciate excellence.

As a young child I knew I created differently than most. My stories were more vivid, drawings were of great importance to me. Music a  form of therapy of the heart.. There are many brighter, millions smarter, and no matter what else is true, so many more who use the gifts of their existence to give to others. Each of us possess gifts and they are for others.  The most able child and the child with the most abilities to teach us to love despite the need. Joy is in the giving and when intelligence is stripped away, often the heart teaches us that we over think life. period.  The dreaded “assimilation” had taken over my world again. Too much pleasing. Too much hoping to be enough. Too much trying to deny the areas of life where I am truly able.  Many parts of life simply have to be achieved to survive and for high creatives who are also high analytics…well without proper support (life would be SO much easier with a staff) it’s alot to dream, create, and launch without supportive environments.  My roles often mean I work with five development teams as the hybrid strategist that speaks the speaks of marketing and technical, product development and people ILT.  Then there’s the country girl part of me that simply loves to paint a barn.

Engaging to develop sequenced strategy for start ups and speakers, I am often called to do the work when its crunch time. Teams often have ruffled feathers when someone is brought in to align scope and sequence once and for all and deal with branding issues.  As a wordsmith I help direct the aesthetic design as well as the voice pieces of branding. The short version is the personnel often think I am a threat, but the truth is  I’m simply there because there is something I can do.  My work involves launching magnificent concepts into realities and yes, there are a good many messy parts of brilliance. They aren’t all big deals, in fact some of the most important things I do involve one to one interaction like teaching a child to swallow at 17 after 16 years of never having been able to swallow and solving the issue of his failure to grasp a cup by himself. It was a moment I’ll savor forever, to see his joy in knowing he could get a sip by himself, trapped in a body that no longer works.  A mouth that cannot talk, legs that won’t walk.  Being able to do 1 thing for yourself matters.  Intelligence comes in many flavors, the least of which is “easy  to manage”…we are given these dreams, abilities, and hearts to use them.  I spent the last 9 years trying to live someone who wasn’t me.  I love home, I love family, I love creating splendor too, but I.am.not one to be quiet, reserve, or not thinking and acting to create.  You see it’s hard to be different, its like having on a Dr. Suess hat when everyone else was in matching clothes.  You think differently, you see things differently and then you add the joy of additional issues to your life like a visual impairment. Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but after two failed marriages and continued inexperience at living my existence on a public forum twenty years ago.  I. hid. out.  I’m alot to take on a good day, the exuberance and joy is real and I simply love life and working hard.  I don’t know why it works, it just does, and I know how to repeat processes. I tend to work with monster big issues because they get monster big results when you creatively resolve them. It’s time to admit it and just own it if I am to be who I am.

This week reminded me that I am a Creative. The kind that lives life in green clouds and purple moons. The kind that likes Math and sees it as its own art.  It’s a different perspective than many wear, but my truth is that its mine.  Music makes me come alive, the right color giddy.  I love working problem solves and I just prefer a good mud puddle than the route around it.  The music of my life returned this week in a most unexpected way…and I remembered…I am enough as I am…despite the imperfections.

Are you ready to start this season from a different place? Change happens in an instant says my friend Allyson Lewis (@Allyson7Minutes) and her take on the MORE life is worth a read. (tell them I sent you at @The7MinuteLife or on Facebook:  www.facebook.com/the7minutelife.  The 7 Minute Life has been a book that has changed mine in 7 days….and I don’t say that lightly.  She has reminded me who I am, she has shown me as Gail Hyatt and so many others have that it is our own paths that we must find.  I’ve found my path and I’m making it mine!  I am ever thankful for the friends and teachers in my life. My mentors have been so patient as they encouraged this part of my life to bloom.  You see, an educator’s heart means you can never stop learning how to lead, teach, facilitate, and learn. It’s what I am, it’s what I am made to be…and the lessons to learn are endless.

So you have fair warning…she’s out of the box of trying to be enough, she’s gotten the lesson that pleasing others is pleasant, but being  of yourself and obedient to the gifts God gave you to share with others matters more.  Thank you to Lolly Daskal, Wayne McEvilly, Sarah L Cook, David Cooper, Randy Elrod, Jenn Fowler, Melinda Emerson,  Kevin Lyons, Karen Rabbitt, Kate T Lewis,  David Bullock and so many more who have patiently played a part in helping me realize it is what it is. You might want to pray for my dear husband who lives in a hot pink kitchen and eats off polka dot plates….real men do you know…and Les is indeed a man among men.  It’s not as though the world is on fire, dinner still is my priority with family, but I know that I know that I know that I’ll never pretend it’s okay not to be me again. December 1st changed that forever.

I know I am blessed this day, and every day and I just can’t wait to unwrap this for living.

“A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it: whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth.”
(Proverbs 17:8)

xoxo

Sweetie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A rural perspective…Why #RR Matters

December 13, 2011 in Basics Matter, Growing Into Lovely, Leading, Life Lessons, Living Your Values, Making It Mine, She's So There with 2 Comments

I am from the rural deep South and one of the things I value about my rural upbringing is that in my small hometown, people have life-long relationships. I am blessed by the presence of decades long friends…so when I say Reliable Resource #RR (Twitter hashtag) as a product, service, person, or event…I mean that I personally wouldn’t risk saying they are worthwhile out loud without serious first-hand knowledge.  You see where I’m from the newcomer in town may have lived there forty years in the same house…so you have to live with a poor choice for a long time if you recommend the wrong introduction or without regard to caution, recommend something or someone.  Integrity matters there with a capital “I.”   After all the nearest variety stores were one hundred miles away and even the local gas station’s 3-aisle store, our version of the superstore, was over eleven miles to town.  Some popular media companies have made what we’d say in the South – “The Dog and Pony Show” a multi-billion dollar industry and they are laughing all the way to the bank while many times, they are leading us to a poisoned water, as though we’re silly cows who will drink any koolaid offered. Have you tried to feed a cow something they recognize as not their flavor lately?  They don’t drink it when they are aware you’re feeding them stuff we usually shovel out of the barn.  In my neck of the woods the boots to the left are used daily to clean up after such things in a barn. As country folk, we learned to look where we put our foot or to move the hay covering before sitting.  Things are not always what they seem. The warmth may look cozy, but it may be steaming for an entirely different reason. Folks need to know where solid values are supported, we like to say the folks to folks conversations on the front porch will make or break you in business and it’s absolutely true.

Today’s front porch is real time media, and thinking folks like @MichaelHyatt @PWilson, @USAA, @LollyDaskal  @Allyson7Lewis, @LollyDaskal @Bill_Roddy, @Cybraryman1, @TomWhitby @Classroom2.0 @VistaPrint @SmallBizLady, @DeborahMersino @FSonnenberg @GailHyatt and so many many more are sharing important concepts and ideals. Others like @MackCollier, @KateTLewis and so many others share the skills they’ve learned in meaningful ways without expectation in the open forums except conversation.  They know learning to learn matters, and they share what they’ve learned.  They help bird-dog point us to things that need to be addressed as surely as my lab does, even if she has to bring the problem literally to my attention. I so value @AlliWorthington and her husband for that in their scoping what matters in legislation often.  I appreciate that. I bet you do too.  It helps to have leaders who identify important concepts, who empower us. Thank you. You don’t have to have a PR machine to speak what you know out into space, let’s use our voices to support integrity. Change is coming and “we need to be paying attention” as Mr. Bullock would say.  You don’t have to agree, we just have to agree that it matters to discuss the important choices we’re making for our resources in leadership. I am not into politics, I don’t want to debate who is who, but I do care greatly that quality people, products, and processes are rewarded with our business, attention, and support.

So if you hear me say someone is a Reliable Resource or tweet #RR, you can bet that I have personally experienced or vouch for my dealings with that person. It’s not a made for TV version for marketing either…Les and I have built our family and business on the premise that we want to cultivate projects that empower people.  I thank @JenniCatron for that reminder of my roots, her vision realized in CultivateHer. Jenni reminded me that cultivating ourselves means hard work, planting for a harvest in our own lives and our children’s. We are responsible to grow ourselves then each other in community.  It was a foundational launch of a great early morning meeting,  that reminded myself who I am and whose I am…a country girl from the rural South who believes in putting on her boots and working out the messy parts of brilliance. (by the way, I’m the mule pulling the plow, not the girl in the house watching the workers) Life is messy, but relationships in business, products, and services shouldn’t have to live there with intention.

<warning…Southern girl on her soapbox….lesson plan from the hard school of life>

Tune in! None of us has time, money, or life to waste, we only have one to live to the fullest of our intentions. If we all work on encouraging those who value integrity and start walking in integrity ourselves more consistently, we will support an environment for change.  People like @SarahLCook  and @RachelAnneRidge who have spent countless hours helping moms learn skills to support home. People like @LucyAnnMoll who minister to hurting, broken leaders of women…and the women they lead.  People like Thelma Wells @ThelmaW who gives me personally the courage to face anything I face through her excellent writing.   Folks like @TheCoffeeKlatch who help us find help. These folks matter. Supporting the protection of our youngsters hearts and heads, and engaging in excellence with even the smallest things that we do matters.

If we learn to give more than we receive, my guess is that like my rural neighbors, life will just be worth living.  Big is not always better, small is not always an advantage. Weak is often truly strong. Where integrity, hard work, clarity of purpose,  and pardon is asked for when mistakes are made, life can be engaging.   When we engage in a good dose of thoughtful  awareness of those around us, we can choose and support values that we’ll be glad to call our own. We’re not asking nor do we want ugly call outs, perfection, or painting difficult days to turn out swell, we’re simply asking for you to recognize #RR Reliable Resources when you know they have worked for you and let’s help make things happen for folks who work hard to do right things for right reasons. Produce exceptional products, or are have such rare gifts as artisans that one should recognize their value and quality.

My husband has served in many wars, he’s currently home for the first time for Christmas in many years. We.are.civilians.  He chooses to serve our Department of Defense. It matters.  There are places and people that need to be defended and there are reasons we need to stand our ground in the U.S. Despite the popular rhetoric, we still have an amazing country, and its time we took back our homes and our towns where values are concerned.  Our home has decided, we’re firmly committed. Basics matter, and it’s time we simply begin to do what we know to do to refocus where our homes and communities are going.

Will you join us?

 

The Ladder…

December 9, 2011 in Life Lessons, Living Your Values, Making It Mine, She's So There, Sweetie As Strategist with 4 Comments

We’ve all heard the adage, “If you can just get out of your own way, you’ll succeed,” and I am here to affirm to you, those words are living truth. Whether I work with an author, a small business owner, a speaker, an artist, or an athlete, the rules for success are often universal. Your regional dialect, financial background, experiential scars, and situation have much less to do with your current moment and future than one simple thing: your ability to learn.  The mistakes that roadblock progress toward individual goals  are identifiable and predictable. We succeed through awareness of engaging key behaviors and paths to success.  In my case, learning to accept that God is Sovereign and, despite all logic involved, if He wants something to succeed, the person, team, or business can do everything wrong and yet He makes it right.  If on the other hand, it is not in His plan, every metric and logical step can be executed and it can still fail.  We succeed by learning to learn. Sometimes the lessons have to repeated until the student is ready to accept the truth of the lesson’s importance.  We do not appreciate or give adequate attention to anything we do not value. We often have to experience the importance of something through failure of our own or through a very close instructional viewing to value its worth.  That’s why even if I could wave my ” Queen Mother Strategy Wand” over your royal head, as my clients like to tease me, many times it would do you more harm than good. If you were not ready for the next step…it would not help you for long. Success is ordered, often success is sequential. At times it is vertical learning experiences, but eventually infrastructure of success must be supported. Each success experience builds the next as your skills grow. Success can also kill you, if it happens before you’re prepared to deal with its own issues. Hollywood and young fame has often sadly shown us that.  Netflix, a brilliant product, sadly had to learn that lesson as well but with effort, they will overcome the reteach.

A rookie mistake often witnessed when I travel to work with small business owners, educators, or VIP clients is that too many of us believe that we have to recreate the wheel to experience success. The fact is, we have to learn what doesn’t work, not do every silly mistake ourselves. Our ability to study, prepare, and use different methods than we have experienced affects our ability to succeed.  Usually we visually or financially think “I need this or that”…as in a website, product, more time, opportunities, or a handout to have a chance at success.  Our beliefs are a funny thing, they create our realities.  Ouch. Many times the thing we needed was within our reach, but our ego,  or the latest marketing campaign led us to believe we could not do without something…or perhaps our own fear did. Very often that thing wasn’t even required to succeed at all.  The world seems to say “YOU are not enough” when God says “I will provide for your needs” its a tough concept (I can assure you God and I have had that conversation a few hundred thousand  times through the years when I didn’t heed His advice or truths).

When I wasn’t ready to learn what was being taught…

There is a story that tells the tale of a man on earth wanting to go to heaven without dying.  The fact was, a ladder was sent for him from heaven….but Jacob still had to climb the ladder to succeed in his goal. We silly humans often think that no such thing happens for people today. Again, I see in my daily life ladders from heaven sent through individuals in the form of opportunities that are missed, lost, or not even climbed because the person offered the ladder was too busy in their own mires of false beliefs to even perceive what was before them.

You see,

You don’t always have to cut down your own tree to climb or create a ladder

If you perceive the path of your personal success as impossible, your brain in its inner workings can create an impossible path.  If your perception is that to have a ladder you have to cut down a 125 foot tall 5 foot round tree, you may just convince yourself it is impossible. But that is only a misconception.  Trees are hard to cut down, whittlin’ a ladder, almost an inconceivably hard task from the perspective of chopping down  a 120 ft five-feet around oak before you….Sometimes to get to the next place, you don’t need to chop down the tree. But, if you do not know how to evaluate the problem, study those who get past the problem, or look for ways around the problem, you may miss that the problem doesn’t exist. In fact, you may end up cutting your own limbs off doing something you had no business doing to begin with (Can I hear an Amen?). If you are able to be taught, if you are teachable, you can get up, study your situation from all sides of the problem.  In that seeking the solutions set, you may just look around the perceived need, walk around the view that belief is blocking, and see that the truth is doable. You may have perceived that you had to cut down the tree to make the ladder, when in fact a ladder existed past the tree….you just needed to get past your own expectation of how hard it would be to see the ladder waiting to take you to the next place. You might even find that a helicopter would simply place you on the next realm of your goal through your diligence, someone believed in you enough to help. You simply had to stop believing the tree was the ladder. In that way, so many of us make mountains out of molehills and the very possible a much more difficult task…

and sometimes, often in fact, it was just a matter of saying you were ready to own a ladder and it will appear in the form of an opportunity….to learn….so the real question is…

Are you teachable? Are you willing to give up what you thought was the path to success?

 

 

C’mon over..

November 30, 2011 in She's So There with 0 Comments

Today I’m writing at BasicsMatter.com…hope you’ll join me there!

The Two Girls….

November 22, 2011 in Growing Into Lovely, Living Your Values, She's So There with 4 Comments

At fifteen…she wonders if she’ll be pretty enough…shy and becoming a woman, she’s aware others measure her…

she loves to bake, and share what she makes with others….

she wonders if it’ll matter, what she is on the inside or will they simply dismiss her based on her outer shell

folks can be so skin deep sometimes…

A stranger comes to the door…all of seventy and three she’s come to call…a new friend

We watch them, her seventy plus three old wrinkled hands, working the potholders with such delicate care

presenting, sharing, caring that a new family in town has warmth and welcome

My daughter smiles and connects to the blue eyes dancing, her snow white hair, and somehow the sixty years between them disappears..

a heart for baking they share and the kindred spirit of giving…before long they are immersed in laughter and sharing…

For our newcomer has opened more than our front door…

hugging our necks and welcoming us into her town, her church, inviting us to safe new home in her heart…

my daughter turns as our new friend leaves…her step a bit slower as the new friend cautiously uses her cane to go down the stairs…

and my daughter says to me

she is beautiful

really…

she is gorgeous…mom, every wrinkle on her face is amazing

because she saw her from the inside out…love applied focused the beauty…

and it is I who am blessed by them both

 

 

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