Fun Friday!

Short and sweet today….

Here’s a quote from Stacy Brice. She is the Founder of Assist U and writes a great blog called Virtual Moxie. I printed this and taped it to my monitor. It’s been there since Sept 2007:

“If you work twenty hours a day, your service will be crap.”

Have an awesome weekend!

Being

I’m curious as to how other Mompreneurs handle their business during summer. Do you slow down? Do you hire help? Do you send your kids to camp? I tweeted this very question today and received several replies. Everything from they use their Blackberry at the beach to working in the wee hours of the morning to dreaming of that perfect help.

I had my schedule down last summer, but this year everything has been thrown off track because the summer program that I send my kids to totally changed times and are now less flexible.

What I really want to do is take the summer off. I have room for a couple more clients in my practice, but really have no desire to fill the spots.  The thought sends chills down my spine! I would actually have to be OK with where I’m at. For the first time in my life it would mean getting off the hamster wheel and taking a breather.

It comes down to hours. I wouldn’t be working so many hours. In turn it would give me more time and less stress.  I would have more flexibility to take my girls to the pool or to the park during the day.

Is that enough of a reason to slow down this summer? I’ve been working full time since graduating high school and part-time before that (part of the joy in being a part of a self-employed family).  I have never slowed down during the summer. In fact, it’s always been the opposite. Even after my 2 surgeries, instead of lying down and enjoying the drug induced brain fog, I silently played brain games and fought the grogginess.

Is what I have enough? That’s a BIG question. We’re encouraged to go higher, think bigger, move faster. It’s been ingrained into me by my father.  In order to grow bigger you have to think  bigger…does that include taking time out to figure out what “bigger” is?  And how come I feel selfish if I want to actually take time from growing my business and spend it hanging out with my girls and having fun?  It would mean less money coming in for the family. That in turn would mean less meals out, less shopping trips to Target…nothing that would impact the stability of my family, just the frills. Is it selfish for me to ask my family to give those things up so that I can just “be” this summer?

Then there are the “creative projects” that I want to pursue. It could turn into an income generating activity and be great fun for me. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do and haven’t had the time to think big and see where it takes me. I would have the time to play with that if I don’t take on more clients this summer.

But the “what ifs” keep popping up…what if it doesn’t work out, what if I blow the time I have, what if I can’t meet new clients at the end of my mini-sabbatical? I’ve never taken the focus off of my VA practice. It’s scary and that should be my cue that I’m headed in the right direction. In a seminar that I attended earlier this spring the organizer said something that stuck with me (I’m paraphrasing what he said) “if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room”. That as entrepreneurs we need to constantly stretch and do things that scare us and it’s a good thing…that’s how we grow. So even if it feels counter-intuitive to let go and be this summer and play with this creative idea, it may be the exact thing I need to grow to the next level.

Hmmmm….my knuckles are turning white hanging on so tight to my old pattern and it’s worked for me…but is it working for me now? In all honesty, I’d have to say no.

Fun Friday!

It’s good to give back…especially to other  Mompreneurs and women entrepreneurs. There’s an organization called Kiva that helps other women entrepreneurs through micro loans. When you select an entrepreneur to help, you loan them money ( there are different amounts and it’s totally affordable) the money gets distributed to the entrepreneur you selected. Over time that entrepreneur pays you back. At that time you can either cash out or re-loan the money. Here’s the scoop on how that works: http://www.kiva.org/about/how.

I did this with my 2 girls. Each one picked an entrepreneur to loan money to. One loan is 80% repaid and the other is almost 50% repaid.

It is a great learning experience for my girls to see what other women around the world were doing to provide for themselves and their families. We got to talk about different countries, cultures and businesses. One daughter picked a woman who is a pig farmer in Vietnam and the other chose a woman in Mexico that has a catalog business out of her house. There is full disclosure on the field person, the woman who will be receiving your loan and what the default rates etc are.

Check it out if you get the chance.

Having “The Talk”….

I went on a field trip with my daughter’s 2nd grade class yesterday. We went to a place called The Puzzle People. I was looking forward to the trip because I had always heard about them, but never went by their store/factory.

I was looking forward to the tour (they are the only national wooden puzzle producers that still make the puzzle from start to finish by hand) and seeing how puzzles are made. When we arrived Michael and Pat Smith, the owners, greeted the class and started to talk about what they did. It was amazing⁄!

They talked about puzzles, but the core message of their greeting was about being a business owner and loving what they do. How cool! Michael talked about leaving a job that didn’t make him happy and starting his business. He talked about doing what makes you happy and things will work out. He kept saying that what he does makes him happy and to him it’s not even work. He said they’ve been talking about retiring, but each year they think why should we…we love what we do!   They went on for about 10 minutes extolling the virtues of self employment!  How often do adults talk that honestly and openly about careers? How many have talked about life purpose with their kids?

I got to thinking about that. What kind of example do adults set for children? Do our kids see us getting ready for work each morning and go off happily? Are they told to do what makes them happy even if what makes them happy may not be the conventional J-O-B?  Is it even discussed that they will probably work for multiple companies or if they decide to start their own business may start multiple companies in their lifetime? I know that it is not even remotely realistic to think that one career will carry you through retirement. Even doctors and lawyers have had to adjust the way they do business with the advent of the Internet and technician jobs being sent overseas.

It made me realize that I don’t even tell my girls that and I love what I do! I always tell them they can be anything they want. But what does that really mean?  I’m not sure if I ever told them to do what makes them happy and the rest will fall into place or that if they want to start a business….go for it! It’s just something I’ve always “known”, but how did I “know” that. I must have picked it up along the way after many stops and starts. Granted they are 7 and 8, but still…is it ever too early to instill in them the knowledge that life is a changing landscape and to follow their heart not the paycheck?

I realize this post has many questions, but that’s all I have right now are questions. I appreciate the presentation yesterday, it made me realize that I am not serving my daughters well by not being vocal about what it means to me being an entrepreneur and following my life’s purpose.  It’s something that is a part of me and has become so familiar; maybe it’s time to share with them what I know to be true for me. Maybe that will give them the confidence to find out what is true for them.

3 weeks and 2 days….

That’s exactly how much time I have left to enjoy what sanity I have. In 3 weeks and 2 days school is out and summer vacation begins AND I have 7 days left until I find out whether or not my girls got into camp.

I’m absolutely sure a mother did not invent the concept of summer vacation or the concept of summer camps that are impossible to get into unless you wait in line at 3 am with a perfectly filled out form, a check for the WHOLE amount that is in your checking and savings accounts AND a vial of blood from your first born. Moms can be snippy with each other but I like to think that we couldn’t be so evil toward each other that we would intentionally inflict the kind of pain that only a summer vacation with bored kids can.

I told my husband the other day that if the girls do not get into the summer program near our house that I am going to buy my dream laptop and sit at our community pool all day and work from there while the girls swim. If I have to hear…”I’m bored” or the boredom bickering between my 2 girls everyday for 2 1/2 months, I may have to run away…far far away.

Working at home sometimes exasperates the problem. There are times that I simply cannot put something off until the evening when my husband is at home. What happened to the days of childhood where you can drop your little one off at the community pool mid-morning and pick them up at 3pm? Or the time when you could (when you’ve absolutely had it!) tell the kids to “go outside and play!” I think somewhere along the way we either became too aware of the dangers or society got thoroughly messed up.  I could not in good conscience do either of the above  but often think how nice it would be if I could only…..

If you have a nifty way of juggling kids at home on summer vacay and work I am open to hearing about it..or if you want to comiserate that’s great too! I won’t feel like I’m the only one out there dreading the upcoming summer : D