Naked

Writing a blog feels a little like being naked. Naked is great when you are alone in your house. Naked is great when you are with someone who you trust. Naked is not so good when you don't know who is taking it all in. 

I don't know how other people feel about writing but for me it is like opening the door to get the paper in the morning with no shirt on. It reveals parts of me that I don't feel that comfortable sharing but people who see it will probably find it interesting to look at. You feel the most vulnerable when it is someone you know who is doing the "seeing". I can handle it if total strangers are learning who I am, not so much when it's people who I know. 

Last night, someone who I really respect told me that they had read this blog and knew about my plans to write a book. It kind of made me want to run away and hide. What did they think of it? Of me? Did it confirm the thoughts they had about me? Did I want their thoughts confirmed? What are their thoughts?

I am not writing this book, or this blog to get anyone's approval. I am writing because it is my dream to help women like me who need to start over and just don't know how. The difficult side effect is how exposed my life, my struggles and the way I think are to the outside world. It's not a bad thing, but I would be lying if I said I was totally okay with the feeling. And now you all know...

Inspiration

I didn't set out to be an inspiration to anyone. If anything, most of the changes that I have made in my life have felt more like a struggle to keep my head above water. It never occurred to me that I was doing anything special. It was only when I realized how utterly paralysed people get in their lives that it dawned on me that I had a really good handle on how to deal with change. It isn't that I am superhuman or able to do things that others can't. It's because I have a simple set of rules that help me move forward. 

Learning how to throw caution to the wind and jumping at opportunities that may or may not work out is something that took me a while to get good at. I have learned to tell myself that the worst that can happen is that it won't work. I send out emails to people that I don't know, I apply for jobs that may or may not be a right, I force myself into situations that will stretch my comfort level. I have accepted the fact that the worst thing that can happen is nothing. The odds are that if I try ten things, at least one will work out for me. 

I had no confidence in my abilities when I adopted this attitude. I felt like a total impostor in everything that I was doing- but I pushed myself anyway. The more I tried, the more I achieved. The more I achieved, the more I believed that I actually could. Eventually, my experience level caught up to the things that I was doing and I no longer felt like someone would find out that I knew nothing. 

All that to say that when people learn about my life and the hurdles that I have overcome, it often makes them feel like they can do it too. When I hear that I have inspired someone to take a leap and make a change, it makes me feel like everything I have gone through is worth it. 

Energy

Starting over takes energy. Lots of it. Sometimes I wonder where I get it from. Starting over is sometimes like ripping off a scab and other times like being let out of a cage. Either way, the energy that it takes to get to that point where you are ready to start over can seem impossible to muster. Starting over isn't easy but nothing in life worth having is. 

Today I am worrying about my kids. They don't need to start over. They already have. They need to continue building and moving forward. Hopefully nothing will drag them down but if something does, I will put on my supermom cape and save the day-or at least try.

I feel like my role in their lives is to be like base in a game of tag. As long as you are touching me, nothing can touch you. I think that's the reason why tag is for little kids. You have to be young and stupid to believe that touching an inanimate object protects you with an invisible force field. Although I can sort of protect them now, I know that there are things that can hurt them that I can't do anything about. 

So I think that I have given them a gift that may protect them way more than base if they are tagged and have to be "it". I have taught them that no matter what happens, you need to keep moving forward. That doesn't mean pretending that you don't feel things or burying things that need to be dealt with. It just means that every experience in this life can be used to create positive movement. 

My grandmother used to have an expression, "Put a little rouge on, and go out with a smile on your face".

I'm smiling grandma, with Purr lipgloss on....

Another Start Over

In true start over brilliance, I have lost the piece of scrap paper that has my book chapter ideas on it. How I lost it, how I didn't think I should put it somewhere like, I don't know, a safety deposit box, is mind boggling to me. 

Can you tell how frantic I am?

If this were the first time that I did something like this then I would expect some sympathy and maybe some help looking for it. Alas, I do this all the time. Papers for my taxes, for the kids school, bills that I have to pay, notes for important meetings are never where I need them to be. 

I have systems. They don't work. Files for everything, places to put things, cabinets, drawers. I've got them. None of them have the paper with my chapter ideas.

I am going to have to start over. But since I am the start over woman, I am going to be cool with this. 

Chapter one....

Jobless in America

NBC news did a piece tonight on the dismal job market for new College grads. They reported that there are no jobs, that people are desperate and that most are willing to take much lower salaries than grads who job hunted in good economies. They also reported that these poor souls will never make up the loss in salary. 

While everything that they said is true, and sounds alarmingly hopeless, it is actually good news because now people are going to get creative. Creativity usually results from a shift in the order of things. In this case, there has been a big hit to the linear path of graduating and finding employment. For all these energetic young people, they will have no choice but to come up with innovative ideas to pay the bills. After all, there is nothing worse than moving back in with your parents after you have tasted freedom for four years. 

Enter the entrepreneur. 

Until the job market recovers, and this could take years, making a living is not going to be so easy in the conventional sense of the word, and we are going to see a huge increase in the number of business that are started. I have no idea what these businesses will be but I am sure we are going to look back on this time and say that it was incredible. We are going to hear stories of countless people who couldn't get work in predictable ways so they started businesses and never looked back. 

Until access to credit loosens up, they are even going to have to be creative about getting financing for these new ventures. I've seen it before, they will. They will borrow in innovative ways from innovative sources and they will get their businesses off the ground. The economy is breeding a new crop of risk takers, idea people, who will learn how to play by these new rules and beat everyone at their own game. 

Happy Graduation Class of '09!

Rescue Mission

Saturday morning, still in pyjamas drinking the last bit of hot coffee in my cup. The phone rings. It's #2. "Mommy, can you come and pick me and "N" up? We are on Sherbrooke street. Oh, and can you bring me some money because our breakfast cost us $39.91 and we only have $40.00."

"Sure".

Once, she called me and I didn't answer my phone- because I was trying to work. I was in the middle of a really important meeting with someone who could have potentially made a huge impact in the success of my business. Turns out that she was standing on a street corner in the most dangerous part of town being hit on by a crack dealer. She had taken the subway by herself, got off at the right stop but had left from the wrong door. Apparently she saw this guy across the street jumping up and down on the roof of someone's car and she was praying that he wouldn't notice her. He noticed her. Everyone does. 

So when she calls me to ask me to rescue her I do and I always will. 

Two years ago she almost died. She had really bad stomach pains. I took her to the hospital. They took out her appendix. They gave her an abscess. They didn't give her the right antibiotics. 5"4, and 88 pounds. Seven weeks later she was okay. Seven weeks. Dog years when your kid is close to dying. I haven't gotten over it. Neither has she. 

She lives her life like a person who is doing it for the second time-because she is. She is my start over girl.

Why I can never have a real job

I have four kids and although I am remarried, they are mostly my sole responsibility. I have my kids full time and their dad isn't really in their lives. They are getting older. I thought that parenting them would get easier. It's not. 

I forgot my shoes, I forgot my lunch, I have a sub for last period, I don't want to go for gym. Can you make me an eyebrow appointment, I need to go to the pharmacy, I'm going to a movie, I'm going to the mall.  CAN YOU PICK ME UP?

Here is the technicality, the kids need to be supported financially, but constantly need me, so  a conventional job is impossible. There is no boss in the world who would understand why I would have to leave so often. That is why I started my own business. 

I am a family business consultant- which I love, and I am a coach, which I love more. I get to make my own hours, and choose my clients (I have only said no to one really annoying guy who kept asking me if I could give him more information for free so that he could figure out if my fees were really worth it- when I say kept doing it, I mean like fifteen times in over an hour of conversation... but have cut loose a whole bunch of people that I couldn't help because they didn't need a coach they needed medication) but best of all, I get to be around for the kids, who really really need a mother.

My only real downfall as a parent is that I don't have great boundaries. The kids know that, and use that to get what they want. I don't blame them, I would too. It takes a lot for me to say no- and when I do, I feel guilty but I don't think that I am much different from most single parents. For the most part though, they really respect me and listen to me because we have a relationship that is based on respect. Since they were little, I have felt that they were people who had the right to be themselves- and now they are the coolest people that I know. 

So I have my own business and I work from home- or more often, I am trying to work from home but am having a hard time because one kid or another is home sick. I wonder if I'll miss it when it's gone...

In Through the Nose Out Through the Mouth

Ever hear of the Impostor Phenomenon? That's the feeling that someone is going to find out that you don't really know anything. This morning, (well actually most of the night too) I am plagued by this feeling that I don't know how, and can't really do it and someone is going to catch me. It's ridiculous for me to feel this way. I have the experience, the track record, the knowledge and the brains to know when I don't know how to do something. I am not afraid of asking questions or looking stupid. So why am I so worried?

Because like every other female entrepreneur out there, I am a perfectionist and I will probably never be satisfied with what I know. So I am going to coach myself a little and I am going to breathe deeply, and I am going to tell myself that I am not the only person who has ever felt this way. Most people do at some point in their lives. 

If you ever feel this way here is my best advice:

Tell yourself that it happens to all of us, most people just don't admit to it. 

Be objective about your skills and come up with a list of reasons why you are the right person for the job. 

Don't ever let doubt get in the way of your dreams. If you do, you will never get anywhere. 

My Starting Over Story

I have a long history of starting over but this restart that started six years ago is the best new start of of my life. 

I got married at 22. I got pregnant on my honeymoon. I gave birth nine months and six days after my wedding. I got pregnant again when my oldest was nine months old. Got pregnant again when my second daughter was fifteen months old and had my fourth baby three years later. I was married for twelve unhappy years, trying to be the best wife and mother that I could be, always hoping that something or someone would save me from the life that was killing me. 

I had this image of myself as a damsel in distress that was going to be swept away by a handsome saviour. It didn't quite compute that my knight in shining armour didn't have room for four kids on his horse. 

My moment of salvation came when I realized the most important thing that I have ever learned- You have to save yourself.  Saving yourself is a novel concept but it is life altering. When I realized that I could save myself was when the world opened up to me with a series of coincidences that are too strange to be accidental. I found my way out of my bad relationship and into a life that makes me excited to wake up every day.

In a nutshell, I went back to school, got divorced, met a great guy, got into graduate school and learned how to turn my passion for helping people into my career.  I went from a woman who was lost to a woman who knows how to do it right by doing it right away. Now I am a coach, a consultant, a writer and a speaker and I get to earn a living by helping other people start over.