Tuesday afternoon questions and answers

August 28, 2012

What would you do all day if time and money were no object?
Read. (Duh.)

What worries you?
Not making enough of an impact.

What gives you energy?
Being outdoors.

What saps your energy?
Negativity.

What motivates you to keep growing and pushing forward?
My daughter.

What makes you happy?
Small surprises.

What cheers you up?
Mochas. Fresh flowers.

What makes you laugh?
Anything with good timing. (Does that make sense?)

Who makes you laugh?
Hubz. Every day.

What scares you?
Not accomplishing what I think know is possible. Tornadoes. (Long story.)

How do you handle it when it’s just not going well?
Sing to her.

Who did you want to be when you grew up?
A corporate queen bee with the corner office.

Who did you want to be before that?
The best orthodontist, like, ever.

Home with family or out with friends?
Home with family.

Sweet or salty?
Salty. With sweet thrown on top.

What are you?
A wife, mother, daughter, friend. A geek. An aspiring writer. A relationship curator, curious soul, status quo questioneer.

What matters the most?
What your gut tells you.

Where will you be in 5 years?
Enjoying self-employment with Hubz and my family in a town that feels comfortable and right. I will be able to rattle off the names of my editor and publicist and publisher. Because, you know, *I will have them.*

Where will you be in 10 years?
The same place. Except…more. (You know?)

Pizza or ice cream?
Pizza.

Who are you?
A dreamer.

—

Well, that was kinda fun! Excited to hear your answers, too. Link to ’em below?

Hugs,
AS

—

I Want Your Feedback Here -->

The perks of networking: You can’t make this stuff up

July 25, 2012

Earlier this week, after dinner, I cracked open a beer and started thinking backwards…

It was a weekday afternoon in early 2010. I think it was February. Actually, I know it was February, because it was just a week before our family trip to Hawaii.

I felt like writing something, something different for someone other than myself. In one of those moments that begin without a second thought and end up being so monumentally important, I asked Twitter.

“Who wants content? I’m in the mood to write.” I tweeted.

Or something along those lines.

Grant replied. His site would love content, he said. I asked for his email, he provided it. I sent him a note with several ideas for a guest post, he picked one: A book review. On a book I somehow had a copy of pre-release.

It was a Tuesday, if I remember correctly. Our flight to the Aloha state left Friday. Mega early Friday.

The book that he wanted me to review that I had committed to sharing with his audience on his website? I hadn’t even read it.

So I read it. I read through Wednesday and into Thursday. I remember pushing through to finish it and then realizing with a forehead slap that I had promised a video book review. Video. Meaning me talking to a camera. Me, the self-employed one who hadn’t yet showered that day or said hello to my mascara wand.

So I showered. And said hello to my mascara wand. And recorded the video and sent it off to Grant and then decided it was about time I started packing for our 11 days in paradise.

A month later, I met Grant with a bundle of mutual online acquaintances at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

Two months later, four of us from that group started meeting online to discuss details about a possible collaborative project.

A month after that we all traveled to Ohio to spend the weekend hashing out the details of said project. I met Carrie, Grant’s wife, on that trip. She loved books. She was really nice. We fell in love.

Okay not really. But you know what I mean.

That was June. In August, Grant and Carrie jumped into Vemma, joining my business, and started setting recruitment records within a matter of days.

In October, Hubz and I traveled together to Ohio and stayed at Grant and Carrie’s country cottage and played the newlywed game and laughed a lot.

In November, Grant stopped by Kansas City to teach us the real estate ropes. We’re now professional real estate rodeoers because of him. (Sort of.)

A week after he returned home, we sent a giant water gun in a giant box to their eldest son, Eli, for his birthday. They recorded a video thank you note with the whole family using it.

In February, we all spent a long weekend eating our way through Las Vegas and soaking up Vemma inspiration at the annual convention.

In April, Grant, Carrie, and both their boys spent their spring break visiting Kansas City and helping me and Hubz ring in our thirtieth birthdays. We laughed a lot. (We did not play the newlywed game.)

Several more meetings occurred, them here and us there, but I can’t remember all of them. There were Skype conversations and Gmail instant messages and texts and hey I saw this hilarious bookshelf photo on Pinterest and thought it would make you smile.

And then January rolled around and Babygirl was on her way and I started waddling and Grant started shooting his first feature film. His dream.

And then he successfully put a team together and successfully traveled the country shooting hours and hours and hours of footage and successfully booked an award-winning editing team to help complete the project.

And then, in late April, he sent me and my husband an email inquiring if we would be open to investing in his movie.

So we asked a few questions and received interesting answers and now we’re listed as co-producers of an inspiring and eye-opening documentary about complacency and breaking the status quo.

We will be in the internet movie database. I think.

Us! In the IMDB! What a riot.

And we have a crazy, huge investment that is currently a source of great returns and could possibly become a source of ridiculous returns.

And we helped a friend make his dream come true.

—

Two years ago I gave my word to someone I barely knew on Twitter that I would submit a video book review as a guest post for his blog only two days before a big vacation for a book I hadn’t yet read.

—

The benefits of networking, I mean, my goodness. You can’t make up this kind of stuff.

Doesn’t get any better,
AS

—

Tagged as: , , ,

4 comments

Cake and coffee shops and book stores, oh my!

July 17, 2012

For the majority of this year (so far), even before Babygirl was born, I’ve been feeling stuck in a creativity rut. Not in the negative sense, but in regards to routines.

You know how it seems like you’re always doing the same things and eating at the same places and seeing the same stuff? Yeah. That.

Addy is two months old now and although she is sparking tons of passion and emotions, I’m still itching for something. I need new experiences and new scenery, perhaps. New knowledge. I want to soak up the inspiration, ignite creativity.

I decided last weekend to create a mini life list to close out the summer. Here it is:

Annie’s Summer “Inspire Me” list

1) Try 5 new (to me) coffee shops

2) Visit 3 new (to me) book stores

3) Take a class

4) Teach myself how to knit

5) Bake a cake from scratch

That’s it. The items on this list aren’t crazy! They’re just fun. And new.

I’m giving myself a deadline, not because it’s a race or a task I have to accomplish, but to force myself to make these things happen. To push the boundaries a bit. Yeah, I have a two month-old daughter and am still very much adjusting to motherhood and figuring out how my life Before all fits in, but why should that stop me? Whether I make the deadline or not, simply defining it will give me the nudge I need.

Deadline: August 31st.

That’s forty-five days from today. This is gonna be fun.

—

You wanna play this game with me? Share your mini list below and we can cheer each other on.

We can do it!
AS

—

In need of inspiration? Take a peek at my full Life List and be inspired by its silliness.

—

Tagged as: , ,

3 comments

Definitions of Mommyhood

July 13, 2012

I’m 9 weeks in so far. Here’s what I’ve got:

1) When your front-facing iPhone camera is used less as a camera and more as a Is The Child on My Chest Actually Sleeping? mirror.

2) When venturing out to Target to pick up a part for your breast pump turns a regular day into a Big Day. Consider it a Super Big Day if a swing past Starbucks is involved.

3) The moment all of the advice – solicited and unsolicited – gets tossed out the window because, heck yeah, you ARE actually figuring it out on your own. Go you.

20120712-195930.jpg 4) Wearing more pads on a daily basis than a professional football player.

5) One-handed texting.

6) Making your “busy” days pre-child look empty, easy and, frankly, kind of pathetic.

7) Instant grossness factor increase. Times five hundred.

8) Camera Roll? Might as well just call it Baby Roll.

20120712-195904.jpg 9) When you start comparing any time of any day to The Time of The Day You Were Born.

10) Smiling through compliments that your baby is beautiful, even though she has baby acne on her cheeks, peeling skin all over her arms, and dried spit-up in her hair.

11) Smiling through compliments that your baby BOY is so handsome, every time your daughter isn’t wearing bright pink.

12) Smiling through compliments that YOU look “so great”, even though you have acne on your cheeks, dried spit-up in your hair, and 15 pounds left to lose.

13) Masterful unidextrousness. (That needs to be a word.)

—

That’s my list for now. More to come, I’m sure. What’ve you got? :)

Hugs,
AS

—

Tagged as: , ,

I Want Your Feedback Here -->

The day I knew I had to get out

July 12, 2012

The day my mindset switched from “I want to leave” to “I have to leave” was the day I was treated like an administrator by my manager.

It wasn’t really his fault, he thought he was doing me a service.

I had talked with him in the past about taking on a different role within our team, one that had more responsibility and would be considered a higher position than my own. He agreed that I would be great for it, and he began informally training me to eventually take it over.

But then everything kind of fell apart.

The gal in that role was no longer going to be moving on to her new position due to some budget cuts and project reassignments, therefore me moving into hers wasn’t going to be an option.

Every year our team had a holiday lunch and informal recognition event, and this gal had always planned it. Why, I don’t know. It surely wasn’t in her job description.

And now my manager wanted me to plan this event.

To plan an event. A team event. As in, event planning. As in, call several places and get quotes on meeting space and organize a date and send out the invites and follow up on the reservation and make the food orders and arrive early to ensure our table is ready and UGH.

I was a software designer who defined system functionality, wrote the specs, and worked with the programmers to make my design come to life.

The gal whose role I would have eventually taken over was a project manager. She worked with several dozen people on a couple different teams, laying out project plans and time allocations and reporting to the executive suite on the current state of this and that.

I was going to have her role, but then I couldn’t, and there was nothing I could do about it.

My manager felt bad for me because, completely out of our control, I was no longer going to be able to take her position, so he assigned me the one little aspect of her responsibilities that he could: the annual holiday lunch. A consolation prize gone wrong.

I remember receiving an instant message to come meet him in a conference room, walking in, sitting down, and then smiling and laughing dumbstruck with unnecessary enthusiasm when he explained this new task. He was trying to be so nice and I knew it, he was sincere as can be, but I was so insulted and taken aback that the only way I knew how to respond was with too much of a response. He probably walked out of that room thinking that he was the nicest guy on Earth, look how happy he just made his software designer!

Looking back, it wasn’t really that big of a deal. So you were assigned a silly administrative task that had nothing to do with your role. Something that would help out the team as a whole and be a mental break from the designs you work on every day. So what.

But it was a big deal. Then. I was already feeling unappreciated. I was already on the brink. I already knew that I wanted out someday. Someday soon. And I already knew the growing businesses that were going to get me out.

All I remember thinking as I walked back to my cube was to just keep smiling. Because if I kept smiling, maybe no one would notice that I wanted to run away and scream in frustration.

And that’s when it switched.

I had wanted out. I knew that someday I would get out and do full-time what I was already doing part-time. But that walk back to my desk was the moment a sense of urgency kicked in. The moment I became desperate. Was this what I had come down to? Being accidentally insulted by a well-intentioned manager after missing out on a promotion out of my control when he assigned me an administrative event-planning task that his project manager usually took care of, all of it bringing me to a ridiculous brink of tears and frustration? I mean, really?

I want to leave.
I have to leave.

That was the beginning. And, kind of, the end.
The beginning of my push, my all-out no-holds-barred push to make it happen.
The end of any shred of care I had left for feeling like I was weird to think I wanted something more.
The beginning of the next phase.

Without that desperate sense of urgency, I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to jump the corporate ship. A few more months? An additional year? Several additional years? All I know is that I’m grateful that switch was flipped inside of me that day, because I took that desperation and ran with it.

I was out of there seven months later.

—

I still plan a holiday lunch once in a while. Except now they are for any darn date and time and location I please, for me and my solopreneur team of one.

When was your switch? Whether you’re still “in” or already “out” – when was the moment you knew that you wanted something different? When did your sense of urgency kick in? Do share!

Hugs,
AS

—

Tagged as: , , ,

4 comments

Dear Babygirl #15: Two months

July 7, 2012

Dear Babygirl,

There are times when I open my eyes in the morning, during that momentary fuzzy period when you’re no longer asleep but you’re not quite awake, that I remember all over again. “Oh my gosh, I’m a Mom!” It’s not like I’ve forgotten, per se, it’s just that at eightish weeks in, it’s like my brain hasn’t quite gotten it engrained into every neuron that I now have this Punkin to call my own, and sometimes it requires a reminder. I like to think that with each reminder another one of those synapses is programmed, branded with You Are A Mother.

Perhaps by the time I’m 82 all of them will be up to date.

Two months ago today, this very afternoon, I was lounging away, texting my mother and enjoying the advances in modern giant-needle-in-spine technology while Hubz was mastering another level of Angry Birds on the iPad and our doula and our nurse were entertaining all of us with funny stories of crazy patients past.

I was nine days overdue, and there were moments in the days leading up to that point that I felt like I was never going to be a mom.

I was *so* going to be one of those women who is just pregnant forever. Forever and ever and ever. No one is pregnant this long. NO ONE IS THIS ENORMOUS. It’s just a well known fact that women’s bellies should never look this alien-like.

(Right?)

But it did end, just like all pregnancies do, and in the most dreamlike of ways. You arrived and the room disappeared around us and my heart burst open. And then the realization, “Oh my gosh, I’m a Mom.” The same one I now remind myself of almost every morning.

Oh my gosh, I’m a Mom. A new title. An immediate, permanent status.

Two months ago today, this very afternoon, your silly, amazing, adventurous, and hopefully long life in this world began.

Here’s hoping it is filled with lots of laughter and love and lollipops. 20120707-165127.jpg

Happy two-month birthday, sweet pea.

Love,
Mama

—

For more in the Dear Babygirl series: Letters to my Daughter

—

Tagged as: , ,

2 comments

The platforms of my life

June 27, 2012

I ran into a quote from Chris Brogan today, written in one of his most recent email newsletters, that said: “Platform is the opportunity to voice your views or inspire an action.”

He was mainly referring to the platforms, mostly online, that we, as a brand or business, take advantage of. His list included Twitter and his blog and Google+ and his weekly video show, among others. The areas within and methods with which he builds his business. His platforms for sharing his voice and hopefully inspiring a person or two to hire him.

It made me think about my platforms, but in a slightly different way. I share my voice and inspire action (actions like: people to join me in business, share my writing with friends, improve their lives, open their minds, read something, maybe more?) via this site, my Vemma website, Twitter, Facebook, and a little on Pinterest. Outside platforms where I maintain a tiny voice could include LinkedIn, DailyBooth, and YouTube. I’m sure there are a few there that I’m missing.

Those are the platforms of my online life, but what about my “real” life?

What do I use to define myself, to get my work done?
What do I do that takes up my time?
What (or how or where) defines my responsibilities and inspires action and voices my views and passions?

What are my platforms, not as described as online outposts, but as real-life roles?

(In no particular order.)

AS.com
Vemma
rental property admin
Babygirl’s mama
domestic/household admin/Hubz’s wife
Babygirl’s (private) blog
Silicon Prairie News contributor
social media/networking
personal (reading, exercising, fluff email, etc)

Every day I choose, hour to hour, minute to minute, the platforms within which I will be spending my time.

Everyday I prioritize. And then prioritize again. And then again and again. Some days I touch every platform, others I might only touch one or two. Some days I have urgent work in all platforms and I get stressed out and worried. Other days I feel caught up and get to pick in which area I will move forward a step or two.

The point is this: define your platforms.

Before I read Chris’s letter I had never written all of mine down in one place before, and I think not doing so held me back at times. Times like I described above, where I felt like I had urgent work everywhere and didn’t know where to turn, or times where I had a moment to get ahead and also didn’t know where to turn. The lack of definition of my platforms often brought a feeling of being overwhelmed and a lack of clarity. It also – most definitely – brought decreased productivity.

The list, which I wrote earlier today on the giant whiteboard in my office, took me all of 30 seconds to define, yet provided immediate benefits.

A couple hours later the baby fell asleep, and the question, “Ok, what should I do with this time?” needed answering. I walked into the office, looked at my list of roles/responsibilities/projects, and after a split second consideration of well-I-worked-a-lot-on-that-yesterday and this-phone-call-might-be-more-impactful-than-that-one, I was immediately clear on what would be the best use of my time.

Because I was immediately clear on what I should be doing, I was able to immediately be productive.

Ding ding ding ding!

What a difference spending a minute with a dry erase marker can do.
What a difference reading and actually implementing a tidbit picked up from a favorite blogger can do.

Have you thought about your platforms in a way like Chris describes before?

What are your platforms online, where you can share your voice and get others into action of some kind?

What are your platforms offline, the roles and projects and outlets for your everyday?

Was this blog post kind of weird and wacky?

I’m ok with it if you are.

Hugs,
AS

—

P.S. What goes without saying? Our list of platforms is always changing and developing. That’s the fun part.

—

Tagged as: , , ,

I Want Your Feedback Here -->

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →