Other Gifts
No birthday hangovers here.
In fact, the birthday wasn’t much different from every other day this year. I had promised myself to take the day off, but it just wasn’t very convenient to do so.
So I walked the kid to school, and worked on website issues with my tech team, and dealt with a few “fires” that had to be put out.
It was pretty much an uneventful birthday.
At first, this did not set well with me. See, I’m an action taker – a DO-er – and sitting around NOT doing what I wanted to do kind of pissed me off.
Read More400 Words
Mittened fingers, holding my hand as we walk – in freezing cold – 3/4 of a mile, counting squirrels, identifying trees, and learning about traffic, stop lights, dirty snow (don’t eat it, for crying out loud!).
Oily fingers, warm, gliding across my back, shoulders, neck. Releasing tension, stress, anxiety of a long day, week, month, year.
Calloused fingers, gingerly placing a hot cup of coffee at my seat, serving a slice of 7’4″ Chocolate cake at my favorite restaurant of all time (so far) after a satisfying and sumptuous meal with family, friends, and a festive holiday glow.
Rough, dry fingers, toting the lights up the ladder, mounting the fixtures, positioning the “special”, and prepping the light board, the sound board, the floor boards, set and props – for my grand entrance.
Small fingers, learning to nimbly ply the crayon, pen or writing implement of the day, forming shapes into letters, words. “I Love You Mommy.” “I wish I had a puppy.”
Adroit fingers, deftly maneuvering and navigating the twists and turns of a musical passage> Playing sweetly, violently, turbulently, soothingly, the melodies of Mozart, Mancini, Sinatra, Garland, Madonna, Sting, Billy Joel, and countless others.
Thunderous fingers, clapping, waving, cheering a fine performance. Shaking hands, and offering heartfelt congratulations for a job well done.
Tired fingers, turning page after page after page or book after book after book. Gleaning new knowledge, new understanding, new ways of seeing the world.
Sacred fingers, poised in prayer, palms together, or facing up to the sky, waiting for Divine guidance, space, and light to flow in.
Aching fingers, longing to release their grip after the third set of fifteen reps. Arched backs, s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out after a strong, hearty workout.
Scabbed, scratchy, windburned fingers, with countless hours spent cutting, carving, sanding, and preparing a special gift. Burning the wood (and sometimes his skin) to etch the words “I Love My Mom” into a heart-shaped block of red oak.
Pointed fingers, aimed at one who recognizes their own value as the “ah-ha” light bulb comes on in their head, and we make progress on their goals.
Nimble fingers, counting the money, the ideas, the successes of their action plans.
Tightened fingers, wrapped around a plane ticket, passport, suitcase. The hope of unseen things and delight of traveling to new places – overseas and my own country, too.
Raindrops and roses have nothing on these favorite things.
Read MoreFiring Clients, Friends and Colleagues
It’s been a whirlwind week for me.
I’m in the throes of the Small Biz Super Summit, along with a new client project, and preparing for the launch of a new division of my business.
And I get an email from a client, angry with me for “violating her privacy”.
The claim was unfounded, and after resolving the misunderstanding, I finally decided to let her go.
Yes, I fired my client.
You are FIRED!
See, there comes a time in your business life where enduring the stress and strain of some clients isn’t worth ANY sum of money. Some of you have heard me say this before, but I wanted to let you know that I still face this issue from time to time – despite my well-crafted Perfect-Fit Customer Profiles.
Not only did this client email me with false accusations, she also launched into a tirade in a group forum of her company, where other people could hear her rant (and later report back to me), but I could not offer the slightest commentary on the situation.
Instead of coming directly to the source of the issue (presumably me), she chose to make a spectacle of herself in front of other potential clients.
Let’s be clear: I have a loyalty to my clients. I also have a loyalty to my family. If you try to prevent me from earning a living to feed my family, my loyalty dries up like so much old paint.
There are a number of lessons from this event, which I’ll save for another post. But then, I had to fire a colleague.
At one time, this person and I traveled in relatively similar circles. I shared my book with her, and invited her into my community to share her wisdom. Over time, our paths diverged in the wilderness, but I still kept some contact with her and thought of her as a colleague I would refer business to.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
She “wrote” a post on her blog, and tweeted out the link. Because the title was a direct quote of something I say ALL the time, I thought it was worth checking out, and possibly sharing with my own audience. It was a great post. She had pulled much of the content straight out of my book – with a few additions (presumably of her own) to make it her own.
I was shocked. Firstly because I knew this thief. Secondly, because I really didn’t think that much of myself that someone would want to steal my stuff (that’s another post all unto itself).
There are stories like this all over the place. The first one that comes to mind is Jeff Slutsky’s story about Office Depot using his “six dollar haircut” story in an ad that ran last year. Slutsky, however, had a happier ending than I believe I will.
Not only did this “colleague” plagiarize my work, but when I commented on her blog with a “great post” kind of remark, it was deleted.
So not only did she steal my stuff, she KNEW she was stealing it and, frankly, didn’t seem to care.
At first, I tried to relax and ignore it. But this nagging feeling wouldn’t go away. Especially since this same person had publicly remarked at an earlier point in our business lives that she felt that at some point everything she ever learned became “hers” to teach as her own.
I consulted my amazingly grounded and insightful coach, @SarahRobinson, who indicated that while she was not surprised at the person in question, that it was mostly sapping my energy in a way that wouldn’t give me resolution.
So I fired my “colleague”. Putting more distance between us, and spending as little energy as possible on the situation.
Tip: Nobody “just knows” everything. We all learn from someone. Give credit where credit is due, folks.
Thinking I was finished with all the firing for a single week, I then had to fire a friend.
This person was fairly close to me, and sadly, known to be a bit out of control emotionally. Their behavior could get pretty outrageous at times, and if alcohol was involved, well, let’s just say only the sober people in the room would remember what happened.
This person is an incredibly smart, insightful, enjoyable person, with an enormous heart and fiercely loyal – until their emotional issues rear their ugly head(s). It gets so bad that they start to believe their own lies as truths. It’s been going on for years – longer than I’ve even known them.
Well, the lies finally caught up this week. And I couldn’t be there to help fix the problem. The problem was really beyond fixing. All enabling had to stop, and the truth had to be revealed.
I had entrusted this friend with a special task, and that task remains undone. The good news is that I wasn’t counting on them to complete the task, and had a back-up plan in place. The bad news is that I wasn’t counting on this friend to complete the task, and had a back-up plan in place.
So when word got around that they were playing around doing other things instead of focusing on the task they committed to, I fired the friend.
Well, a temporary lay-off, anyway.
We can be as well-meaning as we want to be, but when you make a commitment, in my mind, you stick to it. Come Hell or high water.
And lest you see this as an incredibly downer post, I want to assure you that I firmly believe that God is nudging me to create space to accommodate newer, better, more constructive relationships in my life and work.
I can already see it happening. With the awesome help of my coach (did you see her Relationships project?), and the internal journey I’m travelling, there are new friends on the horizon, new clients on the books, and better colleagues to forge ahead with (ending a sentence with a preposition, ACK!).
Bring. It. On.
Read More
When Things Get Tough
First, my apologies for being out of touch, but I believe you deserve an explanation as to what’s going on over here at my offices.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a guest post for JulieAnne Jones’ blog about what to do when things get tough in your business. In it, I offer six tips for navigating tough times successfully. One of those is to be honest with your “tribe” when things aren’t perfect. So here goes…
You may or may not have already heard, but we did, in fact, cancel the live event that I had planned for this weekend.
The Renaissance Mom Experience was to be one of those “powerful, life changing events” – leaving a big impact on each of the attendees. At this point, I believe we have refunded everyone. If I missed you, please contact my team.
We’re still planning to do something in terms of a virtual event. That will begin on Sunday, August 29. If you are on the event notification list, you’ll learn more soon enough.
But in the meantime, I’m putting out all kinds of fires at headquarters. So many unexpected “emergencies” have developed (from cancelling the event and other things), that I’m doing all I can to keep my head on straight this week.
Like finding out that the IRS has fouled up every payroll tax filing for me for the past YEAR. So now we’re digging through the archives to clean up THEIR mess (Bonnie, if you’re reading this, don’t worry. Your payroll tax payments are fine, it’s the paper returns they’ve goofed up! No worries!)
And that’s just the tip of this week’s iceberg. Some of the issues directly impact me, others indirectly (like my bookkeeper’s family issues), but all of them are weighing heavy on me right now.
Which means all of my normal “routine” activities have gone by the wayside.
That’s the bad news.
Sorry, there’s no newsletter, no blog posts, and very little contact from me at the moment.
Add to that the fact that we’re closing the offices for the Labor Day Holiday and you can see I’m “up to my elbows in alligators” as an old friend used to say.
Our offices will be closed from September 2-7 (me and all the staff are taking time off. No promises on if we’ll be checking email much or voice mail at all). We’ll re-open on September 8.
There’s a reason my company’s logo is a phoenix.
Some awesome new products and services will be rolling out in September and later this fall. But between now and then, I’m going to be very hard to connect with as the dust settles from the fallout of this week.
Why am I telling you all of this?
Well, in all honesty, because I’ve been feeling like a fraud for NOT telling you sooner. I mean, I coach YOU to be completely transparent in your business and let your teams, your clients and your associates know what’s really going on. People know you’re not perfect, so to present that illusion to the world is tantamount to living a lie.
I would be a fraud to pretend that all is well in the land of Lisa this week. It’s not. Far from it.
But this, too, shall pass. And then, we’ll be back on track and right as rain.
Yes, you’ll be hearing from me in the interim, but not on any particular schedule. Those of you active in any of my coaching courses will see a delay in course delivery – BUT all content WILL be delivered. As always, you can email or call and we’ll do our best to help you with any questions you have, just realize it might take us longer than usual to reply – especially during the Labor Day holiday.
I’m doing everything in my power to keep all the promises I’ve made to everyone and not work myself to death in the process.
Lessons Learned
Every once in a while, you have to make time to take time to deal with life. I would be a fake and a phony if I didn’t practice what I preach.
I know there are at least a few people that would try to cover their tracks and put a marketing “spin” on something like this.
“We’ve decided to ‘go virtual’ to let more people experience the event.”
“Special pricing is open AGAIN – but only for twelve seconds.”
“Bring your friends, your dog, your cat, and a total stranger for FREE.”
“Get fifteen extra bonuses when you sign up before the sun sets today.”
Blah, blah, blech.
No can do. We priced this thing at an incredibly affordable rate (less than $1000 including your room and meals), so I’m not going to cheapen the value of the content by playing those games. The plain truth is that we didn’t sell enough tickets for me to justify keeping everyone’s money (including our awesome sponsors) to bring out these amazing speakers to share their story with a teensy weensy audience. I could have kept the money and played to an audience of twenty people, but it just felt inauthentic and unfair when we were touting this as a large scale event with about 300 people.
Other people may feel comfortable playing that game, but to me, it’s just dishonest and makes you look desperate.
If I were a speaker, I’d want a better return on my time investment. If I were a sponsor, I’d want all the eyeballs originally promised. As an attendee, I might be excited about a smaller, more intimate group, but I might be bummed that I wasn’t meeting enough people.
In business, you have to know when to cut your losses, and sometimes that means nixing a pet project. Cancelling this event was one of the top five heartbreaks of my life. Not because it meant losing income (it’s only money, after all), but because of the mission I still feel compelled to serve – to help mompreneurs bring balance to their life and their work without apologies.
Time and again, that was what I was hearing – apologies about how it was too far, too short notice, too many days, etc. Which tells me the idea was good, but the offer wasn’t good enough. But that’s another post for another day.
Simply put, I know there’s a demand for the material, so we’re working out a way to deliver a portion of the content from the live event in a virtual format starting August 29.
When you cancel an event like this, there are lots of egos to stroke and apologies to be made – and that’s just at my house! The stress my husband and I endured during the summer was epic. Cancelling the event led to all kinds of inquisitions, concerns, and arguments. Again, another post for another day.
Then there’s fees and contracts you have to honor. We’re still working on that.
And THEN the IRS rears their ugly head? Yeesh. Is it any wonder I need a break?
It’s created a lot of chaos, uproar, and difficulty that I simply can’t ignore. Nor would I want to, in truth. So I’m asking for your patience and a little understanding over the next couple of weeks. I’m not ignoring you. We’re just SWAMPED!
And to be clear, no one’s dying, and we’re not closing up shop any time soon. I just need a couple of weeks to get these fires put out and get business back on track.
The GOOD news, is that after the Labor Day holiday is over, we’ve got a TON of great things planned to help you make the last few months of the year your best ever. It pains me to have to wait to share it with you, but I’ve got to clear the path, first.
When the dust settles, there’s gonna be a major blog series about this, you can be sure.
Until then, there are a couple of things you might be interested in:
- If you’re in direct sales, we’ve got special pricing on the videos from Home Party Solution LIVE until August 31. This is the video from last year’s 3-day event. We go end-to-end through the book, with additional bonus content.
- Get registered for the virtual version of The Renaissance Mom Experience (free, even though the site’s not completely updated yet. It’s on the to-do list for the week)
- 30 Days to Renaissance (also free, you can register in the sidebar over there —>) is a 30-day e-course to help you get from Reluctance to Renaissance in your life and business. Just proves I try to practice what I preach.
LASTLY, if you have questions, concerns or comments, we ARE checking the email and the phone messages (and you can DM me on twitter). Just don’t expect an immediate response. Things are plain crazy here at the moment.
In more than a dozen years of business, I have never felt so much in a pressure cooker before. And if you’ve been with me for any length of time, you know how seriously I take my client relationships. For me to basically put business “on hold” to put out fires is a strong indicator of the level of chaos we’re feeling right now.
But sometimes, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Thanks for your understanding.
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
