Presence: The Stage
In the middle of the stage, house lights up, the din of the audience has waned.
I’m standing here, breathing in the final moments of the show.
Recalling the highlights, the laughter, the flubs, and the tender moments.
Reliving the looks on my actors’ faces at Intermission as I shared audience responses, technical issues, and notes regarding their projection, tone, and enunciation.
Bittersweetness washes over me, as the sounds in the room change: hammers pounding pins into flats, men hoisting the bar off the stage and back onto the floor. Brooms sweeping the floor, costumes being piled on the table, set pieces being returned to their homes in storage… and the chatter of the cast and crew as we wrap up, pack up, and clear away any trace of the production.
Strike always gets me.
It’s the completion of the circle of life of a show. We begin mostly as strangers, with a bare stage. We rehearse, almost in secret, in an upper room of the theater. It isn’t until the bulk of the set is present that we take to the stage and begin the process of bringing vitality to these two dimensional characters.
Then the lights, sound and music emerge, creating new challenges, adding new dimensions to the tapestry.
And the curtain goes up on opening night… and the friends I’ve come to know disappear as they slip deeper and deeper into their characters, becoming those people for a fortnight. Then, as quickly as they stepped into those roles, they’re stepping out again, pulling down set dressing, saying our goodbyes one last time.
It’s in this moment that I see the show’s “life” flash before my eyes – much like the flash of the camera as the show’s highlights are snapped off one after another by the photographer. I’m reminded that everything comes to an end – and in that ending, an opening is created for a new beginning.
But tonight, I enjoy the company of my cast and crew, our producer and managing partner. We celebrate a great review, the kinship of this rag tag bunch of actors, and relive some of the humorous moments of the show.
It will be a bit sad to head home tonight, and I know I’ll probably mourn this show a little. But right now, I’m just enjoying this moment, soaking in these wonderful people, this wonderful place, and all the memories we’ve created for ourselves and our audience.
We’ve touched people and changed lives. That’s something of which we can be proud.
I’m already thinking about what my next project will be, and how to make it happen faster, so I’m not living in the limbo. But for now, tonight, I’m here. Enjoying, drinking it all in, until the next circle begins.
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From Reluctance to Renaissance
When we launched The Renaissance Mom at the beginning of the year, I had no idea what would happen.
Our mission is to help 10,000 mompreneurs and working mothers bring balance to their life and work without apologies or excuses. It was a mission God laid on my heart nearly two years ago to the day.
The journey from there to here has not at all been what I planned nor imagined.
“My ways are not your ways.” says the Lord.
Quite.
In truth, for all the forward motion and “tally-ho!” attitude I bring to my work and my life, I’ve probably been the biggest heel dragger of all when it comes to growing this business.
I never really thought of myself as a “mompreneur” or a “wahm” in the first place. I’ve written before about the negative perceptions people hold about those labels. I, too, held some prejudice about those labels. So much, that I felt compelled to create a new “brand” of working mother – The Renaissance Mom.
Renaissance is about re-birth. Despite any scriptural connotations that might bring to mind, we carefully chose our logo to bring to mind the two most recognizable symbols of rebirth – the phoenix and the cross. Simply put, this company is committed to helping working mothers make the transition from reluctance to renaissance.
Why then, have I been dragging my heels on this business? Several reasons:
- It’s not my business. Yes, I’m the founder, and my name is the owner of record. No, it’s not a company in name only. This is God’s business, not mine. Often times, I get up in the morning inspired to take actions so far removed from my comfort zone, I have a hard time doing them. I constantly ask “why” and find myself doing it anyway. Today I met a charming guy at a local ad agency. We talked for more than an hour as he shared generously some ideas to help promote The Renaissance Mom Experience to a more local audience. I went in with no real idea of what to expect. I walked away with so many blessings, I wanted to cry. It’s hard for me to invest myself fully in something that’s not mine. I’ve been burned by other partners in the past, and trust is hard won from me. The silly thing is, if I can’t trust God as my partner, who can I trust?
- I like being in control. I like having an agenda that I’ve laid out and can work from. God is more extemporaneous than that – at least with me. And although it bugs me a little, I’m trying to go with His flow. But it’s hard, and sometimes downright frustrating. Letting go is not something that comes easy to me. Particularly when I’m “letting go to let God” so to speak. I have many “other” things to do, and sometimes I think I have better things to do. God and I don’t always see eye to eye. Luckily, He still loves me anyway.
- Show me the money. To be frank (perhaps a little too frank), The Renaissance Mom has been entirely funded from the beginning by my other business endeavors. I’m not complaining, just noticing that the company is not profitable, and while I’m doing my best to remain faithful to God’s calling, it would be nice to turn a profit from the work we’re doing to help working moms. Perhaps it’s a bad time to start a company like this, but the demand for what we’re doing has been so overwhelming that we can’t stop now. For an unknown start-up, we’ve had the privilege of helping hundreds of women (and a few men) since January gain more balance and clarity in their lives, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s odd for me to run a company that’s not paying for itself, and if this is the mission God has laid on my heart, then maybe it’s not supposed to be profitable. I haven’t figured that one out yet.
That’s been my journey for the past few months, and through it, I’ve made some tremendous realizations:
- God is always in control. That may sound like a “blatantly Christian” thing to say on a blog, but it’s true. Every time we’ve had a need for this event, there’s been a supply. I’ve been shy about giving the glory for it to God, and that ends today. God deserves the glory, because there’s no logical reason that this event should be happening at all, let alone happening successfully. And it is happening successfully. Whoever heard of bootstrapping an entire 3-day conference? God is miraculous and I need to stop dragging my heels telling other people about it.
- Business is still business. Partners, sponsors and others connected to the work we do still want to see a return – they want to know what’s in it for them. Having a great idea isn’t good enough. Communicating that idea isn’t good enough. Providing the return makes the difference.
- I still have a lot to learn. I’ve never claimed to be anybody’s guru. That’s a role for someone other than me. What I do is connect the dots for people, point them to resources, and hopefully help someone along the way. Very much of my success has been accidental, but now I’m in a position where a significant number of people actually look to me for advice/help. God help us all.
There are other lessons, to be sure, and my own renaissance is ongoing. When you step out in faith in a very public way, there’s bound to be obstacles. I’ve tried to stay low-key for a long time, and it’s just not going to work anymore. You may have already seen the shift, heard the undertones, and wondered what’s going on.
I’ve been pulling together a new approach for clients and folks like you that want to move forward with confidence - out of reluctance and into renaissance. It’s very uncreatively called “30 Days to Renaissance”, and it is my new tool for stopping the heel dragging.
And you can have it free.
In light of my profitability comments earlier, free may be a bad choice, but it’s an e-course, delivered daily to your in-box, so it feels weird to charge you for it. Plus, God said to make it free, so I’m not going to argue with HIM.
You can fill out the opt-in box on our home page or Click here to get more details.
If it takes you from Reluctance to Renaissance, please share it with a friend. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your revelations about moving forward in faith in your life and business.
Read MoreLetting Go Takes Love
In the past 24 hours it feels as though I have awakened from a 35 year coma. I can’t begin to explain everything here, at least not yet.
But new realities have come into my field of vision, and I’m seeing the world through somewhat different eyes.
As moms, we often think that we are doing so much for everyone else, and we don’t have a voice of our own. Sometimes we feel squelched.
Today, I realized I’ve been squelching myself in ways I never recognized; ways I never comprehended.
And it changes starting now.
During this process of “awakening” if you will, I heard a quote on the radio. It moved me so, that I had to find the author and share it with you.
In the past few days, it hit me that as long as our hands are clenched, we cannot give, nor can we receive. Further, if all we do is take, eventually there’s nothing left to take. If all we do is give, eventually, there’s nothing left to give. Thus, we must give and take in order to keep balance and maintain a “karmic equilibrium” so to speak.
This passage from Dr. Margaret Rinck spoke to me. And so I offer it to those of you dealing with clenched fists – whether they’re yours or someone else’s:
To Let Go Takes Love by Dr. Margaret J. Rinck
To “let go” does not mean to stop caring. It means I can’t do it for someone else.
To “let go” is not to cut myself off. It’s the realization that I can’t control another.
To “let go” is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
To “let go” is not to try to change or blame another. It’s to make the most of myself.
To “let go” is not to care for, but to care about.
To “let go” is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To “let go” is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
To “let go” is not to be in the middle, arraging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
To “let go” is not to be protective; it’s to permit another to face reality.
To “let go” is not deny, but to accept.
To “let go” is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
To “let go” is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
To “let go” is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
To “let go” is to fear less and to love more.
Read MoreDon’t Have a “Fallback Plan”
My mom, as much as she had my best interests at heart, did me a huge disservice. Chances are good your folks did too.
At least, if you’re an entrepreneur like me, you might believe as I do that the phrase “fallback plan” is the most life-usurping ill-advised phrase our loved ones could ever offer.
As a child, my vision was to become a rock star. I had Mozart-like tendencies as a kid, composing music before I stared Kindergarten. And no, not “Mary Had A Little Lamb” kinds of things. I had compiled an entire album of music in a variety of genres by the time I was in grade school. Talent shows were my platform to share my prowess, and I was even party to an all-girl group a few of us founded in 6th grade that performed an original pop-style tune at our talent show.
We rocked the house. It helped that the house was packed with family, but we all had vocal ability, and being in the gifted program, none of us were dumb as a box of rocks.
By Junior High, I had compiled and submitted to the U.S. copyright office my first collection of compositions. I was looking for music composition or music business programs at my universities of choice, and was taking every opportunity to hone my craft. The singer-songwriter route to stardom ain’t an easy one, and I figured I needed to get started ASAP if I was going to “make it big” some day.
I graduated high school with a couple of fly by night record deals – but it was enough to impress my friends and leave me feeling like I was really going to be somebody. As I prepared for college, and focused in on a music composition degree, my mother “gently coerced” me into considering a degree in music education.
“That way, you’ll have a fall back plan if the rock star thing doesn’t work out for you.”
Arrgh.
It takes a certain kind of person to be a teacher – especially in a public school setting – and I ain’t that kind of person. Too many of my aunts, and even my mother, stood at a whiteboard/chalkboard and tried to maintain order in a classroom full of students that didn’t always want to be there, and even worse didn’t always appreciate the hard work they were putting in for so little pay.
Not my idea of a good time, and certainly not a cushion I’d like to fall back to if things in my dream career didn’t work out.
Now I know what Mom was getting at. She didn’t want to see me trodding home, tail tucked between my legs when Universal Music sent me a rejection letter (they did, sort of). She didn’t want me to get my heart broken or end up drugged out on the road. She didn’t want to see me lose everything to an unscrupulous “manager” or something else like that.
She basically just wanted me to be safe, have a nice comfy job with benefits, put in my 40 hours and go home healthy and happy.
Because to her, SOMETHING was better than nothing.
What she didn’t realize is that, for an entrepreneur, that life isn’t something. It’s more NOTHING than you could possibly imagine.
Or maybe she did.
Mom constantly had her hand in some entrepreneurial endeavor. There was a running commentary in our family about the new business venture my mom had every season: snow plow, antique store, ebay, etc. As a child, I remember staying up all night pressing the “print” button over and over for a document she sold in local stores that charted the winning lottery number trends for the past 10 years.
She was quite an entrepreneur. Yet she never climbed out of the poverty bucket. She was a true “Shin-Ob-ite” as I like to call it. Always being pulled from one money making venture to another. As soon as the income would slow down in one venture, she’d move on to the next.
And therein was the dilemma that shaped her perspective and desire for me to have a fallback plan.
She didn’t want to see me starving, scraping together every penny – picking up pop cans, recycling copper wire, holding endless garage sales – just to keep my kids fed with a roof over their heads. She wanted me to have stability, financial security, peace of mind.
That would be great for someone that actually valued that stuff. Much to my husband’s chagrin, those are lesser priorities for me. Yes, I want to be sure my mortgage is paid, and that the kids won’t starve, but for me, taking a risk is part and parcel to the entrepreneurial life I’ve chosen.
The plan b breaks my heart – it’s a crutch. It keeps so many amazingly talented people from ever living their dreams because of fear.
I filed bankruptcy after my ‘young and stupid days’ in my 20′s. Here’s what I learned: If you go bankrupt, your credit will be in the toilet, but you won’t die. You just have to learn to live on less, and financing (credit, etc) is a little harder for a while. You can survive and come out even stronger on the other side.
I worked as a financial advisor for a while. Here’s what I learned: most people have some kind of financial horror story – student loans, old debts from bad relationships, overspending, secret credit cards – and all of it can be resolved.
I was on welfare for a while. Here’s what I learned: It sucks. The way the system worked in my community made it virtually impossible for you to pull yourself out of the system as long as you were using the system. So I got off welfare, and busted my butt to get the bills paid.
Plan B will hold you back. I never got that music ed degree. I do have a degree in music theory/music history, with a minor in vocal performance and 2 albums to my credit. I toured, recorded, promoted and THEN decided to make a change. I wasn’t a Rock Star, per se, but I did all the things I wanted to do as a rock star – including getting a standing ovation from an arena of screaming fans. I didn’t have to live a rock star lifestyle to live my dreams.
Did I settle for a Plan B? Nope. I changed my vision for my life.
I got the degree I wanted, but I still don’t use it in my daily life. I once read somewhere that about half of the degrees in the U.S. go unused because we end up working in different fields. I wanted to be a musician. I did that (I still do from time to time). Then I decided that having a family would be cool. So I’m doing that now. And as my vision evolves, so will my plan A.
But I will never have a “fallback plan” like my mom envisioned. To me, that’s like chickening out.
No one ever aspires to their “plan B”. That’s the safety net we think we’re putting in place “just in case”. What ends up happening, though, is that we spend so much of our lives focused on laying the safety net that we never actually pursue the dream. “Plan A” becomes a “woulda, coulda, shoulda” in our pile of past regrets, and we often never get back to it.
We need to be a little more fearless, and take risks while we can. Pursue our dreams relentlessly.
I was recently interviewed by a smart and amazingly talented high school student. She aspires to be an author some day and wanted feedback about how I wrote my book, and any suggestions I could give her to help her on her way.
“Start NOW.” I said. “Don’t wait. Write all you can now so that you can get better and better over time.”
She’s creative and tells great stories. She’s also self-conscious, as most teenage girls are. She has no clue how much her life will change in the next few years, and the stories she starts writing now may end up being fuel for some of her best work when she’s older.
To her folks, who I’m sure would prefer she select a “safer” profession, I say: don’t let her have a fallback plan. Let her chase this dream relentlessly. Teach her how to manage the little bit of money she’ll earn along the way. Expose her to other options, but never pressure her to choose safety over her dreams. Encourage her to study and hone her craft and fund it without taking on debt. Help her be the best she can at whatever she ultimately chooses as her career path, and above all, let her know that no matter what she chooses, she is loved just as relentlessly.
Let her stumble. Make her sleep on the couch if she comes back home, and don’t make it too easy for her. If she really wants to chase a dream, she’s got to be up for the run – it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. As long as she finishes the race, she’s won it.
And if she decides she’s not up for the run, that’s fine, too. Then she’s just revising her vision. It’s NOT a fallback plan.
That’s what I would have wanted my folks to do for me.
Read MoreAbout Me
Storyteller. Transformer. Entrepreneur. I've won a few awards for writing, music and design, and I'm not resting on my laurels. I focus my energy on helping you succeed and get results. Be sure to say hi, leave a comment and get involved. That's how I roll. Coming Soon
