Reflections on 2011 – The Year of the Table

December 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It’s that time of year, when many of us hole up a bit (amidst lots of gathering and mingling) to reflect on the year passing and plan for the year arriving. Alas, it is that time for me, too. This is my summary of The Year of the Table.

I choose a theme each year as a personal and professional focal point for channeling my overall message in the world. One of the many fascinating things about being a messenger (one who has a distinct message they are working hard to share in the world) is that, when you really pay attention, the message takes on so many forms in day to day life. 

As you read, consider the ways your own last year served your message for the world.

The Year of the Table took on an expression that really surprised me in some ways, and yet felt completely “on path”, too.

Primary is the fact that we moved our table all the way across the country! As I look back on my hopes and dreams for 2011′s Year of the Table, I have to say it’s gone quite nicely, for all of its unexpected adventures. We shared about 85% of our dinners together at a table (it would have been much higher, except for my husband’s travel in the first half.) This is up from about 70%, I’m guessing. We used to feed our kids earlier and eat after they went to bed. This gathering to eat together each night has served our family beautifully as we share stories from our day and table games each night, enjoying greater connection than before.We’ve eaten healthier (less take out, more cooking), set the table nicely more often (but not as often as I would love), and shared meals with friends and extended family even more. Good on our family for The Year of the Table.

As for business, collaborations definitely increased in 2011. 

As I mentioned, I’ve been working on a couple of cool collaborative projects. One of them is a book for which I authored a chapter along with other extraordinary coaches from my brilliant coaching school, The Baraka Institute. I look forward to sharing that book with you in early 2012. Watch for it.

The Year of the Table invited me to connect with some wonderful people with whom I will be partnering in 2012. In that way, the business application of my 2011 theme was also a grand success.

While I am genuinely pleased with 2011, there are some things I want to do different in 2012.

For example, I will never promise not to change my website again – as I did in that blog post a year ago. That’s just silliness. Things change. Ideas evolve. My website will be changing again. It’s all in service of being a better messenger and serving other messengers more effectively. This is something that I learned in collaboration with my really smart business coach (Year of the Table = collaboration!) and continue to embrace as I move into this next year. I have a strong value on congruency and when I make proclamations, I can get stuck on sticking to them (a very sticky and stuckedness situation.) I am going to ease up on that kind of rigidness in the coming year.

A couple of life-changing experiences this past year brought me insight into serious blocks in my own growth and self-expression. It’s amazing what the Universe brings to you to help you wake up, to help me wake up. I am grateful for that, though it’s been pretty tough to get through parts of that wake up. I’ll share more about those – and most importantly, what I hope you might be able to take from those lessons along with me – as the year ventures forth. For now, I am still moving through the waves of this learning and am not quite ready to put “pen to paper” on them yet. The important thing is, in ways brand new…

I’m more awake now.

And I’ll never quite be asleep in the same way again. That’s the thing about growing: once you know, you can’t go back. My theme for 2012 will have a lot to do with this evolution. Stay tuned for more on my 2012 theme in the coming days.

Meantime, may you find time to look inward at your year’s lessons – and plenty of time to reach outward to embrace the beauty of Right Now.

What did 2011 bring you in service of your message and mission in the world? I’d love to hear in the comments, via email or any way you are willing to share.

Thank you, zeevveez, for this dually appropriate image of a fork (year of the table!) reflection (a reflective blog post.)

Filed Under: business planning, Uncategorized

I Don’t Love Public Speaking

December 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Did you know that?

Did you know that I actually do not love getting on stage, having the spot light on me, being the extreme center of attention?

I get on stage because it is such a powerful way to spread my message.

I get on stage for the ways I believe I can change lives. I get on stage because I want to share the ways of communicating in business that I have seen transform teams, presentations and client exchanges.

It’s not all altruism, of course.

I am giddy when I watch an audience members slow smile as I relay the precise, ineffective “Business Speak” that they have to hear droned about their company every day. I love when I see two people in the audience share a knowing glance and head nod as I talk about the horror of slides full of bullet points being read – verbatim – in a way-too-long company meeting. It feels awesome to have that kind of immediate feedback that what I am saying is resonating.

But ultimately, I get on stage because I really want to change the world.

I want to spread the word that there is a better way to live, to work, to talk with each other. And I know that those who don’t know about this better way yet aren’t stupid (of course they aren’t) – they are simply well-trained from a lifetime of boring business communication all around them. It’s not their fault. I want them to know there is a simple way to shift into effective, powerful, real communication – even in business.

There is no better medium that I know of for spreading a message far and wide than public speaking.

That’s why I gather my anxious butterflies into formation and hit the stage. It isn’t because I love being on stage for the activity of it. Though I do love the stage for the outcomes it produces. 

How about you? Why do you do what you do? Is it possibly not as obvious as we might think?

[Thank you, Joel Olives, for this breath-taking butterfly in flight image.]

Filed Under: business communication, Featured, public speaking, Uncategorized, Why?

How Radical Clarity Screwed Up My Business

January 31, 2011 By 2 Comments

You’ve heard me talk about Radical Clarity before – how it’s really amazing and necessary and oh so elusive (and I thought I knew about it then – ha!) Radical Clarity is really the only way we can make something amazing happen in our lives.

Now, I’m going to tell you how Radical Clarity screwed up my business.

See, I’ve been hard at work on my website and in my speaking life – for about two years – spreading the word about my presentation skills coaching and consulting. It worked, too. I got speaking gigs, got clients from those gigs, and became generally known as a presentation skills expert. I even had a client hire me within hours of watching her first YouTube video of me on presentation skills. All that work… worked!

Except it didn’t feel right.

Damn intuition. Damn gut feeling. Damn. Damn. Damn.

I have this coach who is awesome. She listens, she asks razor sharp questions and reflects stuff back to me way more eloquently than I know how to say it. And every time we would talk about my business, she’d keep saying all this stuff  back to me (that I was saying!) about the real message I wanted to share, the real work I wanted to do in the world.

How many times can you hear yourself say, so freaking eloquently, that you’ve got other work to do in the world than the work that you are doing – before you take real action. Especially if you are committed to authentic communication – authentic living – like I am?

Well, I never counted, but it’s something like 127 times. And then you just realize it’s never going away. You must go forth with the real work of your life.

I love presentation skills coaching and I plan to help as many people as possible get way more exciting and clear when they present to groups. That is not going away.

But, for me, the real message is this:

You can craft your life. The whole entire one you dream of. And then you can make it happen.

I’ve done it. I’ve helped my clients do it, even when we were starting out with the specific plan to work on presentation skills, we’d often end up working on the whole picture – the business, the life, the dream. I love helping people craft the uncharted path to their intentionally designed life.

I have never been more clear about anything in my life. This is the kind of Radical Clarity that makes me absolutely certain that I married the right man, that I would jump in front of a train for my kids, that I would never go on The Bachelor (even if I looked remotely like one of the long-legged, lithe, bathing-suit clad contestants.)

Messages evolve – and this one likely will, too – but I am so thrilled that I revealed the REAL message I’ve been looking for during many hours over the last three years.

I highly recommend letting Radical Clarity screw up your business anytime.

I’ve already had plenty of evidence that I’m moving in the right direction (like being called by our local newspaper literally days after my clarity shift to do a story on our family’s approach to parenting, work and home life.)

What about you? Had any Radical Clarity shifts lately that rocked your whole world? Or maybe just caused some ripples? I’d love to hear about ‘em.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Working Retreat Vlog Series – What do I DO on a working retreat?

January 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The final question of the Working Retreat Video Blog Series is: “What do I DO on a working retreat?” Hopefully these specific tips about digging in, expansion and contemplation will help you in your small business planning. In case you need this supply list in writing: large whiteboard (two, ideally), many colors of dry erase pens, large flip chart size post-it paper, many colors of sharpies or watercolor based flip chart pens. Also useful: a blank calendar, healthy food & drinks and walking shoes.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Working Retreat Vlog – How do I afford a working retreat?

January 26, 2011 By 1 Comment

For some of us the vision of a retreat includes massage tables nestled under giant banana trees. I’m in for that for sure!

However – though that’s an awesome plan for getting away from it all – that’s not the only way to have a retreat. By definition, a retreat simply means to pull away from regular life (or the situation at hand.) A working retreat means, then, to pull away from regular life to do some work. While the inclusion of a massage table (and accompanying brilliant massage therapist) under tropical foliage is pretty much empirically both relaxing and thrilling, it isn’t exactly what I mean by a working retreat.

And therefore, you don’t need to hop a plane to a tropical island in order to experience the fabulous productivity and rejuvenation that can come from a working retreat.

Listen to this video for some tips on how you can afford a working retreat, no matter how small your budget. And please, if you have your own ideas for affordable and awesome working retreat spots – share them with us!

Filed Under: business planning, Uncategorized
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