Analysis Paralysis and Being Like the Wind

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Lynn

the secret garden
Photo property of L. Davis

These past two weeks I’ve been in serious analysis paralysis mode. Last weekend, I gladly accepted an invitation for a weekend get away to Maryland and VA and took the entire weekend off. Yesterday, I spent time with my mother, grandmother and family. It felt great!

My trip down state wasn’t exactly a relaxing weekend; as a matter of fact, I literally hit the ground running once I arrived to my hosts’ home. The trip was full of exploring historic landmarks and being one with the great outdoors, trying new foods, and enjoying the company of complete strangers who decided to throw a karaoke party my behalf just for showing up (I’ve actually never done karaoke before in public so a special thank you to Blinkie’s Karaoke for making me feel very welcomed and comfortable enough sing aka to hurt their eardrums). Because I don’t usually do things like this, I had a blast!

Just for that weekend I decided to let it all go and enjoy the moment. I get so enamored in reaching the end goal; reaching my pre-determined destination that I forget to enjoy the journey (where the real magic happens). It’s times like this where I Embrace being like the wind. I drift and free flow with whatever life hands me. I am content but not complacent. I am grateful, appreciative, and accepting of the here and now. Did I completely get over my case of analysis paralysis…well, no. But I’m a firm believer in the results coaching can bring to your personal and professional life, and practice what I preach, so I joined a group coaching program to help work out some of the kinks, (review of the program to come). To me, taking a break away from it all, being encouraged to embrace the present moment and realizing that I needed to make a choice; one act of courage was what it would take to get very specific help if I was to get out of my funk, and that was the great and valuable lesson of the week.

What do you do when you get analysis paralysis? Any suggestions for people who have limited funds and can’t just take a trip out of state?

Until next time…

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Abundance or Scarcity Mindset, Which do you have? [Vlog]

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Lynn

This month I revisited the topic of Mindset. In order to have Mindset transformation you have to make a conscious decision to develop healthy thinking patterns. I believe the 1st step towards this is awareness. Where are you currently?

Here’s the 4th video in my I Know The Pieces Fit ongoing vlog series…hope you can vibe with me on this one:

What To Do When You Don’t Bring Your A-Game into an Important Meeting

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Lynn

“If this town. Is just an apple. Then let me take a bite. If they say, Why, why, tell ‘em that it’s human nature” M. Jackson

I swear I should have a specific name for my own personal journey with entrepreneurship because I feel my awkwardness is in a league all its own. I’ve shared with you different tips for networking when you’re an introvert. I even shared with you a handy dandy list of questions to ask during a one on one business meeting. Yet sometimes, the prep work gets thrown out the window because your head isn’t always in the game. Gasp! Surely, an entrepreneur always has it all together, especially when it’s Go Time. If you’re not the fearless CEO of you for shame, for shame… but let’s be honest, life can get complicated; typos occur, and miscommunication can lead to mix messages, mix messages can lead to bad impressions…the list goes on.

So how do you compensate for being human? How do clean up spilled ink marks on a blank and open canvas? What do you do when you don’t bring you’re A-Game into the sales meeting, the one-on-one business meeting, that coaching call you’ve been on a waiting list for, (you get the picture)?

1) Own it: Excuses legitimate or not are always seen as just that, excuses. If you didn’t come prepared, admit it, if you were emotional, be honest with yourself, if you were tired, grumpy, anxious, or even feeling intimidated, these are all things you have control over. After all, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent”.-E. Roosevelt And better time management would afford you proper rest and preparation. Self- improvement and personal development is a process not a destination. (And luckily some professional development weaknesses can simply be outsourced in time). So take the 1^st step and recognize your own role in your mistakes.

2) Thank the person for their time: After you’re done agonizing over what you think was worst impression of yourself you ever left with someone, (and it probably wasn’t even that bad). Don’t run and hide, someone gave you their time, and we all know how precious a commodity time is. In the process of expressing gratitude for a persons’ time, try to leave a better impression without being too much of kiss up. Oh, and don’t forget to apologize if you made an offense. A hand-written letter of apology if you really screwed up.

Also, even if it was your investment of money for their time, thank them. I’ve been hired for work later down the line after consulting or coaching sessions I paid for. Why? Because even though I was seeking their help I still brought my own unique skills to the table. These skills were something they remembered and needed in time. You never know!

3) Learn The Lesson of the moment: If there is a lesson to be learned, seek it out when analyzing what went wrong. And try to come up with ways to prevent yourself from making the same mishaps. Start with simple questions Do you need to work on your confidence? Do you need to get more sleep? Do you need to do more research so that you can ask better questions? Then move onto bigger questions, And here’s a truth nugget, if you noticed I said if, while I like to believe everything is oh so educational, sometimes, the only lesson to be learned is that there isn’t one. For instance Sometimes no matter if you were prepared or not, you may not be liked, or simply not vibe with the person and depending on how obvious the reasons, there’s just nothing you can do about that.

4) Don’t harbor on it: I’ll keep this point short and sweet. There’s no use in crying over spilled milk. What’s done is done. You owned up to your mess up, you apologized, you thanked the person for their time, you tried to make amends, you reflected. Life goes on and so must you. Which brings me to my next point…

5) Keep it moving: Like I said life gets messy sometimes. Sometimes you will get the sale, sometimes you will not. Sometimes, you will have an awesome business meeting, sometimes within 5 minutes of the conversation your new contact will tell you they have somewhere else to be and give you the “good luck chuck” sign off. Sometimes you will invest in a coach and realize you are not prepared to work with one because you’re not willing or able to put in the work they require. Life is in motion, and while it’s good to stand still every now and then to pull yourself together, you have to keep it moving, with or without anyone else’s approval, acceptance, good graces, or well wishes.

Would you like to add to this list? I would love to hear about lessons you learned when meetings don’t as well as you would’ve liked please share below in the comments!

Flickr Credit

Do what you have to do, even when you don’t feel like it

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Lynn

the tortoise and the hare

As I was power walking my way to toned legs nirvana, I had a clumsy moment; I decided to embrace the teaching moment nature had given me, and translate it into a lesson about running a business.

Funny things happen when you begin walking around your neighborhood to get the simplest form of exercising in. Besides noticing that you should probably cut your grass because everyone else’s lawn is putting yours to shame, or potentially attracting a stalker, (switch up your habitual routines ladies) what you begin to notice over time is results. Sometimes the path you take is a pleasant walk, and sometimes if you don’t know where you’re going, you end up on a dead end street. Sometimes you never lose weight because the walking speed and time you put in don’t match the goals you’re trying to reach. Sometimes, you just choose the wrong direction. Every now and then you run into other walkers and joggers, some may say hi, some may ignore you, heck, some may even make for new friends.

But on this day, I stumbled on unleveled ground and injured my toe. I already had a brace on the one knee which was now pulsing, (the knee that is) and now the big toe on my “good” side was all jacked up. I didn’t have a car to just hop in, forgot my cell, and had no money to pay anybody to help me get to my destination, and my walking peeps were busy trying to meet their own goals. All of a sudden the neighborhood was a chilling ghost town with no one in sight. My targeted destination (home) was just ahead even though I couldn’t see it, I felt exhausted and hurt.

What did I do? I took a breather, stretched out my leg cramps, remembered that the path I had chosen had a clearly defined end goal and destination which was just up ahead, I sucked it up and took my butt home. That’s right, I went limping down the street tired, frustrated, and doubtful about my abilities and the path I chose, I mean who the heck trips on a routine walk and injures themselves? Still, I pressed on and got to my destination.

What does this have to do with running a business?

Running a business is a part of your journey; it’s a path you choose to walk. It’s a path that takes a lot of energy and hard work before you see the fruit of your labor. Some people try to run it as if it were a sprint; to the top of the mountain they go before they look ahead to see what possible dangers await them. They tumble down without good bearing. Every business leader I respect, never said it was easy. It’s not. Some days it’s sunny and it can feel like a beach party, you catch momentum and ride the waves.Other times it could feel like the coldest winter ever and you hope you have enough to hold over and weather the storm. Sometimes, you may have to work a job and on your business even though you wonder if you have enough time in the day to accomplish both.

But if you’re serious about running and growing a business you’re going to have to treat it like one. If you’re feeling tired, unmotivated, uninspired you still have to do what you have to do in order to go where you’re trying to go. There are employees who have no problem fulfilling the vision of the one who put them to work. Heck, they go in ill; they don’t want to waste a sick day on a sick day!

You make time for Scandal and Game of Thrones; and don’t hesitate to pull your credit card out to add to your shoe collection.

So why then would we not give ourselves that same kind of fighting chance to invest in and grow our business, tired, injured toes and all?

Flickr credit

A Person, Just Like You: 1st Quarter Review

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Lynn

It’s the start of a new quarter, so I figured I’d write a previous quarter review type of post.

About the blog

I’ve been going back and forth about setting a formal tone here on the blog, you know, with a format that is consistent so that if someone asked what’s on that asummermoon.com site you could easily respond, ‘oh every week (ok, ok almost every week) when I go to asummermoon I get a dose of…’ and part of me wants you to be able to say one thing straight out, kind of like I’m able to do with my 1^st coach’s personal development and lifestyle blog, while the other part of me really wants to be unstructured since 1) life can be unpredictable at times, and 2) there’s so much structure in everything else I have to do in life I want blogging here to be more free flowing.

So, I concluded that I’ll try to meet you in the middle, when I have a formal project coming up, I’ll let you know. A great example of this is my black entrepreneurship series that I share in February. If I decide to change the format, I’ll blog about it to give you a heads up. If you want to connect with me daily, Facebook is where I spend most of my time.

Other than that, I’ll be sharing my reflections and/or resources I’ve learned about from the previous week. For the sake of not rambling on about a new restaurant I tried, or how I can’t wait for the new Star Trek movie to come out, I will usually try to center posts on topics of personal or professional development and entrepreneurship, (although lately I feel like the correct terminology is more along the lines of the ‘growing pains of being a small business owner’).

So that’s that…

About Life

Well 1^st let me share my theme and word for the year.

The theme for the year is: Reestablish, Connect, and Go Confidently

My word for the year is Confidence

Do you have a theme or word for the year I’d love to hear yours???

As I’ve shared before in previous reviews, I center most of my goals for the year around 6 areas or slices of life: Personal, Social, Physical, Spiritual, Professional, and Financial. So my theme is in essence the vision I have for the year and the slices help me organize my steps to realize that vision in a balanced way.

This 1^st quarter, the majority of my focus was on Spiritual, Professional, and Financial. I pretty much shared my wins with my Facebook peeps on the professional level already like for instance, being a featured expert in social media for South Jersey business magazine readers. I am also very proud to say that I’ve staying true to my spiritual goals. I just recently finished a full week commitment to confess and declare God’s promises over my life and am seriously trying to get my prayer life on the right track. And I have made connections with folks who know more about personal finances or improving your credit score so I can reestablish my financial slice in a positive direction.

So now I’ll share with you some of the struggles because, well, I’m human, just like you…

While I made sure to say yes when opportunities to work on my other 3 slices as they came up, I didn’t actively pursue them. So, in turn, work/life balance was a bit skewed.I really felt the effects of all of it by the end of the 1^st quarter. For instance, not setting time to write creatively was missing from my personal slice which killed my confidence to share my poetry because well, I had nothing to share, or I’d let the comparison monster resurface and thought maybe I should just keep these elementary level poems to myself…

The lack of consistent exercise from my physical slice hasn’t reestablished the strength I want to feel in my weak knee. And that old negative tape still wanting to play in my head about being a failure at romantic-type relationships (which falls in the social slice), kept me timid about expressing myself freely with my current beau (another old tape demanding he read my mind was also a culprit). I also struggled with feeling confident (due to having too many people, i.e. family members who “mean well” in my ear) about my own standards on what was or wasn’t “good enough” for those type of relationships. On a positive note, I’m determined to set some boundaries as I can’t hold my peace for too long on things that matter to me.

I hope my dishing out some personal struggles wasn’t too real for you…All in all I’m aware of ares I need to work on and personal productivity is a major key to being able to address most of them.

This quarter I really want to pursue 1 thing from every area of my life so I don’t feel so off balanced. Revisiting the goals I set back in December was a good place to start as I was reminded of what I wanted to work towards, and make adjustments on some unrealistic goals that don’t fit in so well with the seasons of my life.

Anyhoo, that’s a quick review of my 1^st quarter of the year thanks for reading to those of you who stuck around!

Until next time…