My mistake: the difference between hearing and listening

January 17, 2013

No matter what. No matter WHAT, don’t let other people’s opinions get you down.

Earlier this week I got some criticism for something I did. For something I have been doing for a couple months now. I know this is annoyingly general, but there was a process I identified a while ago as needing a little bit of fine tuning. It needed a little attention. So, I gave it some, and came up with a new plan that felt efficient, worthwhile, effective, and, well, me. It felt like me, it really did. I felt great about it. I’m finally getting this taken care of! And taken care of well! Go me!

And then someone went and shared their opinion. Their negative opinion. Which is their right, as always. That part wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that I listened to it.

I always hear the feedback, both good and bad, but upon processing, you have to learn how to let stuff go. This time, however, for whatever reason, I listened listened to it.

I let it get to me. My mistake.
I doubted my actions. My second mistake.

I let that one negative opinion roll around in my head for several days, mulling it and reconsidering my options and debating with myself.

Before the opinion came in, I was sure. I was implementing my new process and I knew it was a good thing.

And then in a split second I gave someone else the power to make me unsure. I let someone else create self doubt.

This evening, while pulling up to a stop sign on my way to the grocery store, I decided that my car wasn’t the only thing that was going to be coming to a halt. Enough was enough. I was going to take my confidence back, thank you very much.

I shouldn’t have let you borrow it for the past few days, you mean, negative-opinioned person. Next time I’ll remember that it’s always a choice – my choice – whether I doubt myself or not. Next time I’ll remind myself that I, and I alone, know what’s best for me. Next time I’ll be quicker to remind myself that you can’t please everyone.

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” -Bill Cosby

Next time, I will hear you when you’re talking – I always will – but I will think twice before I allow myself to listen.

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Happy almost Friday, ya’ll! On a more uplifting note (sorry), I’m working on a huge roundup of everything I read in 2012. The stuff I hated, the stuff I loved, the stuff I didn’t get to, etc. Would that interest you? Considering all of the milestones we crossed last year, I feel pretty good about the list of books I was able to put down. Quite a bit worthy of discussion. So, let me know!

(And, my perpetual question, what’re you reading? I’m working on Nate Berkus’ non-design design book, and about to jump on the bandwagon with Godin’s The Icarus Deception.)

Hugs,
AS

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Dear reader…

January 10, 2013

Dear Lovely Reader of my Lil Blog,

Hi! I hope all seventeen of you had a wonderful 2012.

I wanted to send you a note to say hello, and that I think of you often.

I think of your goals and your dreams, what grade your kids are in, and what book is resting on your nightstand.
I think about your schedule and weekend plans, your hobbies and pet peeves.
I think about coffee – do you like it? Love it? Grow it in your back yard?
I think of your work and what you think about it. Maybe you love it, never wishing you could be working on anything different. Maybe you hate it. Maybe you tolerate it, stuck in a state of contentment that satisfies only if you don’t examine things too closely.
I think of your future and the images of it you hold in your head.
I think of your motivation, of your inspiration and enthusiasm and determination.

I think of all of these things in detail, but mostly I just think about you. The general you out there. The collective whole. The Interwebonlinesphere.

What would you all like? What do you want to read about? What do you really not want to read about?

The inherent nature of a blog is that the motivation behind its creation is primarily personal. But after the initial “I want to create a blog” or “I want to write” or “I want to increase my network” are met, the motivation changes. A shift occurs. The blogger is less motivated by their own desires and more motivated by those of their readers.

They started writing to help themselves. They continue writing to help themselves and others.

I wanted to send you a note to say hello, and that I think of you often.

I think of you when I have a crazy experience. I think of you whenever I have an ah-ha moment. I think of you whenever I think about goals and dreams and freedoms, problems and roadblocks and negative dream stealers. I think of you whenever, well, whenever something just really cool happens.

So, my seventeen dear readers, what can I do for you? If there is ever anything you want to hear – or don’t want to hear – you know where to find me.

Thanks for being here. Let’s make 2013 our best year yet!

Appreciative,
AS

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2012 and 2013: Crafting a bestseller

January 3, 2013

“Tomorrow you write the 1st page of a 365 page book. Make your story count.” – Art Jonak

Mmm, the sharp smell of a brand new notebook. Its binding sturdy and cover unblemished. The pages are blank, ready and waiting for scribbles and script. It will soon record the year’s events. The large ones and small ones, the happy and sad, the mundane and the milestones.

But today, this third day in January, it’s still fresh. The new paper smell still sweeps over you as you open its cover.

I’m looking at this notebook and soaking in that freshness. It’s smell is sweet. Refreshing.

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The book of 2012 closed its cover happy and full.

In business, we invested in a movie, continued to support our network marketing team, and got our second rental property up and running. In writing, I wrote for SPN from January through December, journaled more than I ever have, posted here on AS.com a few times a month, and somehow managed to write a fifty thousand-word novel. Most importantly, personally, we welcomed a happy, healthy baby girl in May and leaped into parenthood with our arms open wide and our fingers clutching our wine bottle opener.

I would say that it was a great year, but I think that goes without saying. It was monumental.

Looking forward, we have another lengthy tome planned. A few thoughts on what I hope my book of 2013 says come next December 31…

Less wallowing. Bring on the personal editorial calendar. I want to eliminate the time spent wallowing in indecision and daily planning in regards to my writing. Remove the fog. I write for SPN and AS, I write in my journal and in my daughter’s journal, I write regular motivational and informational messages to my Vemma team, and I have freelance projects here and there. This chaos has got to get organized. If my writing is prioritized and scheduled, I’m confident that my productivity will practically double.

Becoming more present. Blah blah blah the typical mommy battle. Separating time with my child from time with my computer, and continually bettering my ability to not feel guilty about one when I’m with the other. It’s a constant fight, I realize, but one I want to be calmer about and more confident with the effort and progress I’m making.

Continual kindness. I started a list for #26Acts in honor of Newtown and tacked it to the front of our fridge. Over the past week or so I’ve added several items, numbering them as I go. I look at the list every time I walk through the kitchen, every time I walk in or out of the back door, and every time I reach inside the fridge for the water pitcher. Translation: I look at the list a bazillion times a day. It finally occurred to me today that kindness, and kind acts, should be a part of me. Why did I have to give myself a reason – you could even call it an excuse – to do them and then record them on the list as if I have to turn in the assignment at the end of the month for a grade? Shouldn’t it just be a given that I go through my day with a heart for kindness, dripping kind acts onto others?

I took the list down. It didn’t make me happy to think about doing acts of kindness simply because I had to finish my list.

A few more specific goals…

Vemma growth. I maintained our business throughout my pregnancy and first eight months of my daughter’s life. It’s time to ramp things up. It’s time for growth. There are a lot of people to help and I’m not about to keep quiet about what I have to offer. 2013 goal: 40% increase in team members and monthly income.

Another investment property. Hubz has his mind swirling over an apartment complex. Eek! It’s going to take creativity, but we’re up for the challenge.

Writing. Continue contributing to Silicon Prairie News. Increase consistency with posts here on AS.com with one every week, publishing every Thursday. If I reach that, work towards a Monday and Thursday schedule. Earn $1000 a month freelancing. Have something published in a magazine. Have something published on a major online news site (think Forbes or Huffington Post). Take steps towards actually doing something with the three childrens book outlines I’ve written.

(Yikes. That list scares me.)

(But I suppose that’s the point, yes?)

Bring it on, 2013. 365 pages. We’re on page 3. Let’s do this.

Cheers to a new year, a new you,
AS

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So, that’s my list. What’s on yours?

What can I do to help you fill up your book of 2013 the way you picture it?

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NaNoWriMo 2012: Winner! Winner! Winner!

December 19, 2012

Don’t ask me what it’s about, but I did it. I did it! I wrote a 50k-word novel (50,369 to be exact) in 30 days – the month of November – spurred on by the wonderful organization, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

What happened in November with my writing is a perfect testament to the ability to do something so much larger than you thought possible, if your focus remains on taking one small step at a time. Or, one word at a time. And then, of course, repeating that step over and over and over again.

50,000 words divided by the thirty days in November meant I had to average 1,667 words per day to stay on track.

Ha! Haha. HA HA HA.

Ahem.

I was perfect for six whole days until I faltered. Then, a few days later, I faltered again. And then Thanksgiving week hit and, well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.

I found myself staring at a statistic on my NaNoWriMo profile page late at night on November 25th.

Words Remaining: 20,000

To finish, I had to average almost 4,000 words per day. I had serious doubts. How was I supposed to write that much in a day when I hadn’t been able to handle writing 1,667? And I didn’t just have to have one big day of 4,000 words, I had to repeat it five days in a row.

Earlier in the month, I figured out that I was able to crank out the 1,667 words in about an hour if I knew what I wanted to write. If I sat down in front of my computer and didn’t know what was going to happen next with my story, that one hour often sretched to two. Needless to say, 4,000 words was going to take a solid three to four hours a day to complete.

Sunday night was when I sat down and took stock of where I stood. I had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to get the thing done. Midnight on Friday, November 30th was the finish line. I laced up my mental sneakers. I locked my fingers together and stretched my arms out in front of my body, hopping up and down a couple times to clear my mind and calm my nerves. This race was gonna hurt, but I had to do it. It was go time.

I ignored the dishes, let the laundry pile up, and didn’t even blink when my inbox hit stratospheric levels. And damnit if I didn’t tackle those 4,000 words every day that week and slam them into the turf. Those words – those poor, poor words – they didn’t know what the hell hit ’em.

Sorry for the swear words. I think.

I’m still not really sure how it happened. I look back on that week in awe at my focus. An issue with the way I have designed my life – freedom to work on what I want, when I want – is that I pursue many interests. In a single day I could be attending Kindermusik with my daughter, scheduling a homes tour for several prospective rental properties, prepping dinner, walking through my nieghborhood and Instagramming photos of pretty trees, interviewing a startup founder for Silicon Prairie News via email, doing laundry, Skyping with a Vemma team member to share how the three people sitting in their living room can make $1000 in the next week if they jumped at the opportunity, and watching American Pickers with Hubz and a glass of garnacha.

I’m a little, umm, scatterbrained.

Focus, as I’ve mentioned before, is something I am frequently lacking.

That last week of November, though. Hoo-boy. That focus was award winning. It was no-fear, I-don’t-care-what-doesn’t-get-done, people-believe-in-me-and-darnit-I’m-not-letting-them-down focus.

My laptop was open, ready and waiting, every minute that I was awake. And that’s exactly what it came down to. Minutes. If I focused on the hours per day required, I was convinced it would never happen. So instead, I focused on the minutes. I focused on one word at a time.

What happened astonished me. On Monday, I wrote 2,000 words before dinner, then the remaining 2,000 after my punkin went to bed. On Tuesday and continuing the rest of the week, all 4,000 were done before late afternoon. 4,000 words. Before the credits on Dr. Oz show!

It turns out, if you have a hairy, scary enough ambition, a very defined way you’re going to accomplish it, and an environment set up for your success, your days can just ooze with productivity.

I wrote a 50,000 word novel during the month of November for National Novel Writing Month 2012. Booyah.

Next up? Reading this son of a gun and figuring out what the heck I wrote. It should be interesting.

“I hate writing. I love having written.” – Dorothy Parker

Hugs,
AS

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Question for you, are you willing to temporarily shut out everything in order to focus on something huge? What would that something be?
Share share!

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To do lists: to do or not to do?

November 29, 2012

I had a wonderful call last night with one of the biggest income earners in Vemma, and the matriarch of my upline (and my leadership). In short, we were talking about To Do lists.

Those little lists can be powerful sometimes. Their presence and their absence.

What’s interesting about to do lists is that they rarely contain items that are complicated or out of the ordinary. Pick this up. Call that person. Email this one. Reply to that voicemail. Send this there. Purchase that thing from over there. And because of their simplicity we tend to think – or, at least I tend to think – that they aren’t important.

But ordinary doesn’t imply unimportant.

When I lax and shrug off the writing of to do lists for a while, thinking that I can keep track of things in my head just fine thank you very much, I don’t get as much done throughout the day. Not *nearly* as much done. As in, no-way-in-heck-that-this-piece-of-paper-can-affect-so-much amount of stuff done. Shocker.

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again, there’s that Jim Rohn quote about the little things that make all the difference. “They’re easy to do, but they’re also easy not to do.”

To do lists. Very easy to do! How long would it take before going to bed at night or right when I wake up in the morning to jot a few things down. 30 seconds? If even? But they’re so easy to dismiss and to skip “just this once.”

Me, I’m going to work on it. As the weeks roll on and I continue to adjust to Mommyhood and life at home all day with a baby, it’s importance will only continue to increase. I’m going to work on it. I have to work on it. It’s a must do for me! (Maybe I should write it on the list?)

So that’s what I’m thinking about today. Just thought I’d share. You?

I’m weird,
AS

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A thankfulness and gratefulness love letter. And a video. Or two.

November 22, 2012

Sometimes it takes the holidays to force you to step back from your life and take stock. It’s during those times that I realize, holy moley, I’ve got it made. I have a wonderful husband and a healthy, happy daughter. We have a roof over our heads and many options for what to eat every night and extended families that love and support us.

In business, it’s very similar. Sometimes I get stuck in the everyday. The calls and the emails and the appointment requests and the bank statements. The yes’s and no’s and thanks for the suggestion but we’ll get back to you’s. The same people here and the same conversations there. And the rut. Ohh the rut.

I wish it didn’t take a big event to take you away from that everyday and provide you with wider-vision goggles, but sometimes it just does. And every time, without fail, I am overwhelmed with gratefulness and awe at what we have. At the opportunities that we have come across. At all that we still have ahead. It takes everything I have not to collapse to my knees under the weight of it all.

Amazingness. That stuff is heavy.

So, in that vain, I guess I just want to say: thank you.

If you’re reading this, I appreciate you. More than you know.

If you have followed my journey from the beginning or are just joining us, I wouldn’t be here without you.

I think of you often. What you worry about, what you think about, what you dream about and work towards and strive to reach.

You mean so much. Don’t forget.

I hope our walk together continues, and I have countless ideas for new adventures. Let’s go get ’em. Together.

Hugs,
AS

P.S. I recorded a video three years ago, and another two years ago, about this time of year. Thought you might like them. (If you can’t see the videos, please click here.)

P.P.S. I was wearing the same scarf in both of those videos. And today. Goodbye.

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NaNoWriMo 2012: I’m taking the plunge

November 1, 2012

You guys, I’m not sure how it happened or what came over me, but for some ridiculous/astonishing reason I committed to NaNoWriMo 2012.

NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – is a movement that encourages writing a novel – at least 50,000 words in length – during the month of November every year. It’s all neatly organized online at nanowrimo.org.

Like I said, I don’t know how it happened. But it did. I have shared my goal with Hubz, I have written my daily word count quotas on the whiteboard in my office, and I am now sharing it with you.

Accountability. I’m going to need it.

I’m attempting this feat amongst all of the current roles in my life, not conceding to letting anything slack – mommy, wife, Vemma brand partner, Silicon Prairie News contributor, blogger, etc. This might lead to me pulling all of my hair out. This might lead somewhere fun. We won’t know until we try it!

I’ve added a widget to the sidebar and, if you’re up for it, you can keep tabs as I update my progress towards reaching fifty thousand words.

Thank you for being here, and for providing me an outlet these past few years to share my writing with you. And thank you in advance for your encouragement the next 30 days as I attempt to take that writing to a new and scary and exciting place.

Cheers!
Annie

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Random fall fiction book recommendations for anyone and everyone

October 26, 2012

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I’ve been soaking in the non-fiction lately. This week, a break. I’m jumping into London Is The Best City In America by Laura Dave. Girly reads! I’m excited.

If you’re looking for a relaxing read for the week/month/season, join me. Dave has three titles to choose from.

I was going through a few of my shelves this weekend, and you know what? Prep is such a great read for anyone going through a transitional period in their life. High school to college. College to the real world. Even middle school to high school. We’ve all had to go through change and learn how to adapt and find ourselves again amongst it.

Life of Pi. Now there’s a read for the theologian. And if you could explain it to me once you’ve finished it, that would be much appreciated. It was made into a movie that will be released sometime next year, maybe that will help.

Feeling unsatisfied with your current life situation? Convinced that the grass is always greener somewhere else? Take a deep breath and relax into Swapping Lives. It will entertain you with its fluffiness. It will calm you with its simple reminder.

And speaking of simple reminders, remember The Westing Game? If you’re feeling nostalgic for those middle school reading lists, jump into this short read some weekend. If you’re a Type A logical-minded geek like me, you’ll love it even more.

It’s fall, and that means hunting seasons. Set aside the firearms and the outings with your dad/uncle/son/brother and pick up The Wilding. It’s full of family relationships and the wilderness and the crazy events that unfold when the two collide. I promise it will pack just as much bang as that .300 ruger. (I just had to text Hubz to ask for the name of that gun. Me know nothing ’bout hunting.)

On the subject of the outdoors, if you’re itching to get outside, antsy for an adventure, or feeling stuck in a modern day rut of menontiny, dive into Into the Wild. Prepare to be inspired and astonished. Just please don’t go to that level of extreme, ok? I’d like you to stick around for a while.

Whoops, Into the Wild isn’t fiction. Crap.

Oh well, read it anyway. It’s so unbelievable it might as well be made up anyway.

If you’re lacking a bit of perspective or feeling like life is just flying by you and you’re missing the little things, pick up Let The Great World Spin. And after you turn the final page, give me a call and educate me on why it’s an award winning book.

I’m so terrible at understanding the award winners. I simultaneously liked and didn’t understand that book.

Were you a The Da Vinci Code fan? Go with one of the lesser read novels from the now-mainstream author, Dan Brown, and read Digital Fortress. Just as action-packed but with a technical, information-security, government spy angle. You might just surprise yourself and end up loving it just as much, if not more, than the Code.

You know the tv show Downtown Abbey? I don’t watch it, but if you do, run and grab The American Heiress. And don’t call it a girly novel. It’s spellbinding yet easy to read. Family relationships and cultural assumptions and riches and class clashes. Man, life seemed so much simpler and powerful 100 years ago. Fascinate yourself.

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Happy fall reading, ya’ll! What’s on your book shelf this week?

In book geekery,

AS

 

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