Balance the Scales

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At the beginning of the year I said that I wanted to make 3 goals to reach by year-end.  You can read more about that here (click the word ‘here’).  We are now almost a month in and I am proud to say that I am making some progress on at least one of those goals–to find more balance.  As a matter of fact, today’s post will be on the shorter side because I am writing this while on vacation.

Over the years, I have found that the scales that balance my career/business side of my life and the personal/relationship side of my life are never in balance together.  If things are going well and less stressful on the career/business side, all Hell is breaking loose in my personal life.  If things on the personal side of my life are doing well, fires are consuming everything in sight on the career/business side.  I can never get the two to balance together.

Because I like to hyper analyze things and approach everything like a puzzle, I’ve been trying to take an introspective approach and look at what is in balance the most.  I figure if I can tackle balancing things on the ‘weaker’ side, I may be able to better balance the two together.

The weaker side is my personal life.

With my personal life I am guilty of not keeping and fostering relationships with friends, family and significant others.  I’m also guilty of not taking enough time out for myself.  I often feel that I’m not good at balancing the needs of others and my own needs.  I suck.  I think I’m socially under developed and on a personal level, I operate in an isolated silo.

That’s not a good thing.

I recently came across a podcast episode that featured Rob Scott (@rob_scott) on identity shifting.  In it, he talked about changing behaviors and mindsets by changing the lens that we view ourselves through.  If I continue to view myself as sucky and under developed socially, I will probably remain that way…in spite of trying to not be that way.  I have to first believe and see myself as something different.  The way I want to be.

Of course I have to actually put some actions with this change in thinking and view point, but it’s something that I think is worth me trying to do.  I see it as being similar to cognitive behavioral techniques and therapy used to help people that suffer from anxiety disorders.  The way they work is to get the person to change the way they think and feel about a trigger for their anxiety.  The initial thoughts and feelings that bring on the anxiety when the trigger is encountered are replaced with a different way of thinking and feeling about and towards the trigger.  In time, a person does not have to work as hard at replacing the thoughts and feelings and the anxiety attacks become less frequent or non-existent when exposed to the trigger.

This is something I have decided to give a try.  If you get a chance, check out Rob Scott and the podcast I heard him on here:  http://colleeneakns.me/1Ua2jev

Now, back to vacation!

3 Reasons Why I Won’t Steal Your Idea

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Over the past several years we have seen a boom in technological advances, tech-driven companies, products and services.  All started from someone’s idea and believed in by investors and consumers.  One thing they all have in common is someone like me.  Someone that understands marketing, advertising, design and how they benefit a business’s bottom line.  In the beginning, they may have only had one someone like me and now they may have a team of my clones.

Another thing they had–trust.  They trusted someone like me enough to share their idea and allow that person or team to shape the visual story around that idea.  Granted, there may have been a non-disclosure agreement otherwise known as a NDA involved some where in the process.  However, they still had to put their trust in that person.

So I guess you can say that today’s post is a bit self serving.  Because today I am going to not only tell you that you can trust me with your idea, but also give you some reasons why you can be assured that I won’t steal your idea.

Reason #1 Why I Won’t Steal Your Idea

Lack of interest.  As a business owner myself I know how much work, patience, blood, sweat, tears and MONEY goes into launching a successful product or service.  I really have no desire to invest that kind of energy and resources into something I’m not passionate about.  What I am passionate about, is what you are interested in hiring me to do.  It’s the reason you were referred to me, or googled me.  It’s the reason you ended up on my website and reviewed my portfolio.  It’s what I went to school for and it’s something I love to do.  I design.  I brand.  I understand marketing.  I combine that understanding with design and branding to create visuals that tell a story and get consumers to commit the actions you want.

While I may lack interest in stealing your idea, I am very interested in helping you succeed with your idea.

Reason #2 Why I Won’t Steal Your Idea

I already have a business that is launched and doing well.  If it wasn’t, frankly you wouldn’t have found me, or even wanted to hire me.  I also have a notebook full of side projects that I am working on launching or initiating in my spare time.  I just don’t have the time to figure out how to steal your idea and make it a successful business on my own.  Without you, your idea would be lacking something.  I would more than likely need you or someone like you, to pull it all off.  While I may be able to figure out the marketing and visual side of things, I would be missing your knowledge base; experience and the insight that makes your idea unique to you.

I make a better partner with your idea, than thief of your idea.

Reason #3 Why I Won’t Steal Your Idea

While I may believe in you and your capabilities, I may not believe your idea to be a viable, scalable or profitable idea.  Yes, I really am that honest and straight forward.  Ask any of my clients and they will tell you that I will honestly tell them if I think a path, marketing idea, etc., they are venturing down might not be a good one.  I always give them reasons, examples and analogies to illustrate why and I often try to help them brainstorm or suggest an alternative option.  In my personal life, people like talking and consulting with me because I look at things objectively and I don’t just tell them what they want to hear.

So I may not want to steal your idea solely because I don’t think it’s a good one.

If after all of these reasons you’re still feeling a bit leery, I would be more than happy to sign a NDA.  However, I can’t quote or give you an estimate without first knowing what it is I need to estimate. 🙂

My Goals for 2016

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It’s 2016!  Another year has gone by and for many, a lot of resolutions were broken or left unrealized.  Now it’s time to make new or repeat old resolutions for the new year.  I know there are many schools of thought against making new year’s resolutions, so to quiet the rabble rousers, I am going to just call them goals.  Not only that, but I am going to publicly proclaim my goals for 2016 so that I can be held accountable.  I feel by posting them for the world to see and not just on a poster in my bedroom or office, I will have a little more motivation to accomplish them.

I’ve also decided that instead of making a long list of things I resolve to do in 2016, I’m going to limit my list to 3 items.  3 items to go full throttle on and execute for the new year.  So without further ado, I present to you…

My Goals for 2016

Create an additional revenue stream.  I have a running Evernote notebook full of ideas to create additional revenue sources.  Some of them are new business concepts and some of them are additional services I can offer through my existing business.  The goal for 2016 is to take those ideas and act on them.  My friend Vanessa wrote a guest blog for me a few weeks back that talked about having hopeful ideas and not acting on them.  I’m going to take some of her suggestions in that post and do just that–act on them.  By the end of 2016, I want to have successfully executed this goal.  Even if it’s just $5.00 a month in additional revenue, I will feel accomplished because it’s no longer an idea just sitting in a notebook.

Fix my eyes.  This one is more of a personal goal, but a goal that will have an affect on my quality of life and my pocketbook.  I am very, very, very nearsighted.  I have been wearing glasses since the second grade and contacts since college.  I have always hated not being able to see and when I was young it was a hinderance as an active tomboy.  I can’t tell you how many times I broke my frames and put them back together by bending staples where screws should go and using wood glue from my father’s garage.  This is primarily because tape would have made me look even more like a nerd and I was inspired by the television show, McGuyver.  I have already started doing my research and reaching out to friends that have had LASIK to gain insight on the procedure.  My uncle had LASIK done back in the late 80’s and I used to tell my parents that when I grew up, I was going to get my eyes fixed.  It’s time to act on that.  By getting my eyesight corrected, I will be able to do more activities and save the money I spend each year on contacts, contact solution and glasses.

Find more balance in my life.  Keeping a healthy work/life balance has always been something I have struggled with since working for myself full-time.  At times I feel I am doing a great job and at other times, not so much.  Towards the end of 2015 I was able to identify a couple of things that I had done that seemed to be helping.  One was getting regular massages.  I found an awesome massage therapist not far from home.  Shout out to Peace of Mind Therapy by Christine!  I now get a massage every 2 weeks and it has been an awesome stress reliever.  The second was to take vacations…and not work.  Before 2015, I was traveling for weeks at a time, but bringing work with me.  I was trying to adopt a bit of a digital nomad-like lifestyle in order to travel, see the world and still earn an income.  Now that I have added contract work into the mix, I don’t have the same need to work while I am traveling.  Last year, I took one week vacations, on three separate occasions throughout the year…and didn’t bring my laptop with me.  I was truly on vacation.  What it did was give me a break and it also allowed me to return back to work refreshed and renewed.  I want to continue both of those things in 2016 and find more ways to find balance between work and life.

To keep myself on track, I have set a mini-goal for this month.  I am going to take these 3 goals for 2016 and find a creative way to display them in my office.  The year I decided to make a vision board, I posted it in my bedroom where I could see it everyday.  I was successful with every goal on that board that year.  Since then, I have set goals, but haven’t reached all of them.  I think having a visual reminder everyday may be key to my successful completion of these goals for 2016!

A Christmas Fail

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Bah humbug!  I had grand plans for a Christmas blog post and email campaign…but it was a complete and utter failure.  Here is my Christmas Fail story:

I had been a bit bogged down with client work and subsequently missed a couple of my self-imposed blog writing deadlines.  To make up for it, I came up with the idea to do a holiday post that included music and animation.  I thought that I could use the days leading up to Christmas to produce, compose, edit and animate a Christmas song.  I have a tendency to try to capitalize on U.S. Holidays as internal or lazy work days.  Because my clients are usually on vacation at this time, I find I can get more done because I don’t have the distractions of phone calls and urgent emails.  I thought it would be the perfect time to craft my video and to create an animated graphic to send out to my email list.

I was wrong.

My original plan was to use Garage Band either on my iPad or computer to compose the background music to a Christmas song.  The song I had originally chosen was  “Someday at Christmas.”  My plan B, was to purchase a backing track in case I was unable to figure out a way to hook my keyboard up to my computer or iPad.  The keyboard I have is an older one that I found at a thrift store a couple of years ago.  When I was younger, I played the piano for about 8 years and although my finger dexterity is not what it used to be, I thought that I could eek out some simple chords for the background music.  What I wasn’t sure of, was whether or not I would be able to connect the older keyboard to these newer devices to record the sound.

For the vocals, I planned to use Garage Band for this as well.  Growing up in a religious environment, I sang in church…A LOT.  I had a few acapella groups that I sang tenor in and I was also in the church choir.  I can remember my father finding a mixing board at a garage sale and him recording himself singing a song in 4-part harmony. I thought that I could do the same thing, in 3-part harmony, using Garage Band.  Now, I am by no means a solo artist, but I do think I make a good “Pip.”  As in, Gladys Knight and the Pips.

I planned to make the whole thing no longer than 30 seconds to 1 minute.  I figured by keeping it short, I could also post a snippet on my Instagram account.  I usually send out a Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays email and I thought that I could do an animated graphic that when clicked, would lead to the post with the video song.  However like a last minute holiday shopper, that ends up buying crappy gifts, my ninth hour attempt to do all of this ended in disaster.

I was met with a slew of technical difficulties.

First, I could not connect my keyboard to my computer or iPad.  I may not have had the right cables, inputs, etc., but it was too late to go find what I needed when I sat down to do all of this Christmas Eve day.  On to plan B–the backing track.  I could not find a backing track for “Someday at Christmas” that was in a key that would work for my voice.  I am a tenor, well according to some of my musically inclined friends, a lazy alto.  Never the less, my voice is low and in order to successfully sing 3-part harmony with myself, I needed a lower key than what I was finding online.

“No worries, I will just change the song and sing it acapella,” I said.  No.  Worry indeed.  My mic would not connect to my iPad so when I recorded the melody, it sounded far away and like I was singing under water.  Then I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the stupid metronome which kept getting recorded into my track.  Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock.  “We wish you a merry Christmas.  We wish you a merry Christmas.”  Tick…Tock…Tick…Tock.  Yeah, it just wasn’t good.  Not good at all.

I got so frustrated that I just quit.  No recorded track.  No video to go with it.  No animation and email.  I was done.  I even yelled, “Bah Humbug!”

So…

This is my holiday post…post Christmas.  I tried, I really did, but it was a #christmasfail.  The lesson I learned is this:  you must do your due diligence and preparation.  Especially for “grand ideas.”  It was doomed to fail because I didn’t make sure that I knew what I was doing with Garage Band.  I didn’t make sure that I had what I might need in advance to hook my keyboard up to my computer, if it is at all possible.  I didn’t look into backing tracks ahead of time and I didn’t make sure that the microphone I planned to use was going to work.

I didn’t put in the work needed to prepare.  I wasn’t ready to take on this project and I failed when it came time to execute.  Lesson learned, next year I will be ready!

Hope Is Where The Heart – Isn’t

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As creative, we are able to blend fantasy and reality quite easily in order to dream up amazing things and envision impressive futures, but then, we ‘hope’ that those dreams will materialize. The problem is that ‘hope’ itself is actually pretty ‘hopeless’, and yet, many of us believe wholeheartedly in it and allow it to hang tightly onto our precious dreams.

Imagine feeling that intensity as a ‘billion dollar idea’ pops into your head. What do you do? You rush to grab a pen and some paper (right?), then excitedly try to collect every single detail as your brain erupts and rapidly overflows with gold lava. To celebrate the fact that you’re now ‘rich’, you sip on a glass of wine and pat yourself on the back for the great idea.

Then, you neatly fold your billion dollar sheet of paper, and lock it away in the depths of your safe so that no-one can steal it – it is a billion dollar idea after all. Let’s not forget that you do take a few minutes from time to time to reflect on the idea, with a radiant grin of contentment as you think “one day if I’m patient enough,” solely because of the promise you made to never forget your brilliant idea.

Unfortunately, not once do you bother to develop a plan of action. That, my dear friends…is hope. You’ve most likely already been acquainted, which is something we should all challenge ourselves to work on. I’m right there with you guys. This post was inspired by a friend of mine and is a reminder for myself as well!

Hope doesn’t provide internal or external motivation. If you’ve been just relying on it, wake up and realize that you’re just procrastinating, and dragging your feet doesn’t cut it when you’re running the whole show.

If you have a heart for entrepreneurship and don’t want to spend your life bringing someone else’s dream to fruition – guess what?! You need to get rid of ‘hope’. Take some time out to be honest with yourself about why hope has become so appealing to you. Is it because you’re naturally a procrastinator?

Maybe because you’re actually afraid of failure…or possibly afraid of success. Whatever the case, you’ll realize that no matter what your reasons are, hope is just a cop-out, and you should spend your valuable time planning and executing your vision. If you want success, you have to get your hands dirty and make it happen.

So friends, how exactly do you get your hands dirty?

  1. Make a decision. In terms of your goals, are you in or out? The road will not be paved with gold. In fact…you may have to climb a mountain and struggle the whole way. Are you ready to climb? Decide to be 100% in or 100% out.
  2. Create goal-sheets that incorporate your vision. I like to do separate sheets for finances, relationship, career and personal. Try to be realistic in terms of your timeframe.
  3. Solidify your dream. Now, take some time to make sense of your dream and construct a well thought out idea. Is it realistic? Should I be dreaming bigger? Would simplifying things make it better?
  4. Consider a patent. If you have a really amazing idea for an invention, you may want to look into getting a patent for your idea.
  5. Make a plan. So you decided to run with the billion-dollar idea. Think about the entire step-by-step process of bringing your dream to life. If you have a mentor that you can trust, now may be a good time to seek some advice from them.
  6. Use your plan to re-evaluate your goal sheets. You may want to accomplish your goal in 1 year, but after creating a plan, realize that it will take 2, even with a solid plan. If you’re determined to stick to your original goal sheet…come up with a better plan. Whatever you do though, make sure that your goal sheets and plan work cohesively, or you will become easily frustrated.
  7. Make yourself proud. Promise yourself that you won’t let ‘hope’ stand in the way of your greatness and carry out your plan with 100% dedication.
  8. Continually motivate yourself. Surround yourself with doers…not just dreamers. Consider this quote by Les Brown: “The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry our their dream.”

Let’s get rid of ‘hope’ and start taking responsibility!