jalléCafe

The one time I try to stay between the lines

I've not been one to stay between the expected lines in life.  Didn't become a teacher.  Didn't marry my high school boyfriend.  Didn't stay close to home or even very close to my home country (other than closely connected to my family there). Didn't work every year once I started (took a year off when I was 40')!

I didn't even mean to do all those things.  They just happened one day at a time while I was figuring out who I am as a person and trying to find kindred spirits along the way.

Yet there is one time I will stay between the lines.  Times like these:

On Friday it was 90 degrees F or more here (i.e. 34 degrees C).  If you stood in the sun for one minute, sweat poured down your skin.  You couldn't wear few enough clothes.

Notice how everyone here is standing within the shadow lines at the tram stop.  There wasn't any room for me between the lines; so, I stopped about 10 seconds to take this photo.  Then I squeezed in beside the woman in the white top.

I'm having one of my best ever summers. Not just from hot sunny weather, but also enjoying being outside normal business lines again as my studio is teaching me about creativity - and has shown me a few kindred spirits in the process.

I stood there thankful for the thin shadow line as I waited to go meet one of those kindred souls, thinking how good it can be to learn when to stay in the lines and when to cross a few.

My father would have loved being Hungarian, except...

 I just spent five days fully immersed in Hungarian culture as seen through the eyes of friends who had gathered with family to celebrate the 80th birthdays of their mother and father in the same year.  Fabulous!

I will have much more to say about their warmth and generosity and a trip that will forever change my travel perspective.  We stood in large gardens, drank homemade raspberry juice, grilled over an open wood fire, listened to men sing together as they had for decades, and ate too much (totally high fat, carbo-loaded) food that 80-year-old Grandma kept cooking and forcing on us.

In the men, I saw a similarity to my father (who died much younger): a mix of warmth, humor and the scars of a life hard fought with unexpected twists and disappointments along the way.  Yet they were standing together still fighting the fight.  Watched tolerantly by wives (and children) with whom I'm sure they had also argued and laughed in turns for decades.  This unexpected feeling of connection in a totally different culture with a fully different history surprised and moved me.  Dad would have appreciated that.

But then again, Dad probably wouldn't have as much appreciated the homemade schnapps as the rest of us, which was totally as hot as it looks here (not that they warned us before the first shot!).

Life's bookends

 I started this week celebrating a birthday. Mine.  Not like me to announce it in public or at all, but with so many social media websites updating people automatically, what's the point of hiding?

Then at the end of the week, I joined a "celebration" of the life of the man who owned the apartment I have rented for the last six years.  He originally built it for his own father.   The father died two years ago. Roman Fritsche died two weeks ago suddenly. A heart attack.  He was 60.

In the photo above some of his employees gather outside a cafe near the church before the service.  One of these women told me she had worked twenty seven years for Fritsche Reisen. Mr. Fritsche founded his travel agency 31 years ago.  A small, successful company with a few dozen employees.  The priest characterized Mr. Fritsche as a man with energy, humor, a love of life and travel, and a gourmet cook.  He'd made 100s of trips in his life.  I can attest to that as even my first inquiry call was returned from Spain. Later email replies from Asia, Egypt, the States.

My sunny apartment feels a little more forlorn for the loss, but I am stronger for the reminder that I'm writing my own story, also an entrepreneurial one.  I hope in 30 years, someone might say with some happiness they started working with me in my business two decades ago. I would be way past normal retirement age for that to happen.

Then again, when you do something you enjoy and bring others into it, I call that living a happy, fulfilling life.  Give me three decades, please...

Spring interruption

I hereby interrupt this business travel blog saga for a little sparkle of Spring.

Over the weekend (having returned from summer across the ocean), I got outside on Sunday in clouds and slush. Still felt good because I had decided to stand-in for my open spirit and genuine desire to live with passion.  It's a choice.

Then as if life was telling my soul all was going in the right direction, I ran into first little signs of new growth.  Here I share them with you.

I think life gives us signs we read best with our hearts.

     

Is there such a thing as a simple life?

I've now tried a range of lifestyles, from my roots in a small agricultural town to spending far too much cash on Swiss watches and hundreds of hours on airplanes.  Now investing in my own little business in the first little city I consciously wanted to call "home."

I've had a few years to get past the "moving here" stage and have been asking myself if I live a simple life.  Somehow I want that.  "Do less; live more."  Or as written in my goals this year: do one good thing at a time.  One in the moment.

So this weekend, after looking at my long list of places traveled, but sometimes not fully explored in the rush of business, I made a list of places I would still like to see.  And places I would go to again.  Experiences still to gain.

Then I made a quick list of what "Living Simply" might mean based on some things I learned it doesn't mean.  It probably needs some editing, but as I sit here doing one thing I like to do - writing - here it goes for starters:

Buy what you really need.

Use what you buy.

Cook slowly.  Eat consciously.

The best: eat with people you love or at least find interesting.  :-)

Give your body the best chance at health possible.

Be open. (Add to this be friendly. Be kind, even in your least gentle moments.)

Listen to music.

Read what someone else thought was important enough to write - real writers and real friends

Do what's in front of you to do

Be glad you have the chance

Be in-person.  Talk. Touch.  Limit technology to efficiency.

And maybe in my case.  Feel more. Do more. Stress over it less in advance. Just live.  It doesn't matter where.

Keys to my heart?

Well, no shiny metal objects open my whole heart. That's for people to do.   But these keys do open the doors to a place that I hope will be a next step in bringing even more heart to my work:

My new office.  Just one floor up from where I am now. Literally.

I will create it as a studio - an atelier we would say here - to support the kind of activities that bring emotion to conversations among people who are somehow surprised that their experiences count for something really important. Like I was once some years ago.

In other words, through these doors I will try my next experiment in creating my own meaningful career & extending it to others.

It will take months to fully get the ideas I have in my head to show visibly in the rooms.  (The worktables alone need eight weeks for delivery here...)

Yet yesterday, I went home with the keys in my hand.  That was already exciting enough to make my heart leap a little!

What makes Thanksgiving happy

A couple of Thanksgivings ago, I wrote about a disappointing evening during which I was the only American sitting at a Thanksgiving Day table eating turkey in Zurich. Last Sunday, I was again the only American at a turkey-eating table.  Yet the experience was absolutely the opposite and beautiful.

The table was mine.

Well, it was my physical table, but present were two generations of my family in recipes and memories.  Mom had, in fact, dictated the menu to me in five pages via several phone chats, which culminated in a "conference call" fit in between my seminars and her busy, retiree schedule.

Also present at the table were genuinely good friends, one of whom had thought of the idea to begin with and showed such enthusiasm that he even spent three hours shopping with me, carrying the turkey from the butcher and ultimately carving it at the table.  The eight of us originated from seven countries (oh sorry, that's nine people if you count the baby celebrating his first holiday season).  We toasted, and teased each other, and asked each other questions, and variously enjoyed (or so I hope) a new experience together.

One day I hope I will again share the Thanksgiving turkey at my childhood home table. 

Until then, I will feel highly grateful for this one...even with the hours of preparation, stress over how it would all be ready and still hot at the same time, and "disaster" that remained in my kitchen when most everyone strolled out.  (Well, one guy did stay to help and eat leftovers.  Thank you!) Now I know why Mom and Grandma always went to such trouble. It's the love and spirit of sharing that goes into it that makes the difference.

How big is your turkey?

Last week - as I ran around preparing for a seminar, a workshop and accounting details - I squeezed in time to order a turkey for the official "Thanksgiving" celebration I will host next Sunday.  First time in my own home.

You have to really think about how many people you can invite for such an occasion here in Switzerland.  I had a fairly detailed negotiation with the local butcher about what size turkey would fit in my oven.  He seemed quite impressed with the huge size I ordered (about 4.5 - 5 kg).  Then I talked to Mom over the weekend, who said I'd have to get a pretty small one to fit: maybe 10 - 12 lbs.  Pretty much what I ordered. Cultural differences, illustrated. 

Compared to here, roasted US turkeys swim in bathtubs! (Or that's how my old roasting pan seems to me now.)

Meanwhile, I managed to catch the hanging of the holiday lights on our street, too. Shared as one of my favorite annual moments:

Slowing into a fast daily flow

Sometimes I have to remind myself to slow down for the important things.  For example, it's now lunch time.  My "to do" list remains fairly full.  Two of six things checked off.

Because I felt that - on balance - I had been a little too task focused on Friday, I consciously moderated my style this morning.  I said, "Jill, you know it is the wide range of strong relationships with people you enjoy and value that have already made the most difference.  Don't forget to pick up your head from your desk and take a look at the specific opportunities for that in your day." Quality of results does not always come from a pen in my hand or a keyboard under my fingers...

So I spontaneously invited a colleague who I had not seen in a while for a hot chocolate to start the day.  And later, I took just a few more minutes to laugh a little with another colleague while we were working on a project together.

These few extra human moments make me feel good as I sit here before my lunch break full of errands.  They also inspired me to remember that such conversations often stimulate creative ideas.

And there's still hope for my "to do" list overall with some after-lunch discipline. I'm sure of that. My inner-voice says, "Girl, you got something right this morning. Good going.  Now try to remember that tomorrow too!"

Why I don't have a tattoo

One day this week - during those few minutes gathering with others by the train door waiting for it to stop at the station - I noticed a man with an intricate, even lovely, tattoo from wrist to shoulder.  As I prepared to dash out and race for my next meeting, I thought, "Now there's the difference between my life and his, when would I ever have the time (or patience) to sit for as long as that tattoo would have required?!"

As I nearly scampered down the street to my client's office, I remembered one of my favorite tattoo encounters nearly 15 years ago with a wonderful, creative communications manager Doug. He actually convinced me to allow a photo of a woman with a tattoo on her shoulder to be printed in a product brochure for my industrial product marketing role.  It illustrated "The Permanence of a Lasting Commitment."

And then I remembered that the agency involved working with Doug was Gibbs & Soell Public Relations (G&S), the same agency whose Zurich office I managed for the last two years - until yesterday.

So G&S and I have had a lasting relationship with changing and evolving commitments to meet our changing and evolving needs. I have fully appreciated that. As of writing this post, our relationship has taken on yet another form.  I hope it still lasts and evolves.

That's why I don't have a tattoo, too.  How could I ever possibly choose one visual image to fit my entire life?  I prefer changing my clothes!

What to like about anchovies

A guy recently told me that he hates anchovies.  HATES them. Especially on pizza. And I said "yeah I can understand that, but I like them in a real Caesar salad dressing."  And he said, "well, that's an American creation."  True.

What I hate is having my photo taken. HATE it.

But unlike anchovies, sometimes I need photos.

So I had some new ones taken because I want to update my web site and the half dozen other on-line forums that keep me connected.  Here's one of them.

I will say that the thing this photographer manages to do is capture something that resembles the real me - in between my self-conscious moments and moments that I hate him for standing there with a camera, even by my choice.

And look at that cool background.  It's in a cafe near where I work.  Like the other photo on my blog, it's around my real life and great colors.  Same photographer three years later.

You know what amazes me? This guy, the photographer, thinks he is not creative. Yet that day last week he also captured beautifully the women in PWG and one other photo of me (at 10:00 in the morning in a bar no less) that I must say is really me whether I like it or not. Show you that one later.

What he does is look through his lense with his own way of observing things to get a view that is of his own combination.  If not creative, it is admirably authentic. 

Like with anchovies, a person you respect can sometimes find a way to help you appreciate the thing you think you hate.

Fresh edges

I took this photo a few weeks ago while walking to a first meeting with a new client.  Focused as I was on the new project, this innovative garden compelled me to pause a moment.  It's an old factory site, with the edgy structure of an old building grown over with flowers.  A shadow of the industrial age blooming in the sunlight. 

I love that contrast of old and new, artfully combined. 

I felt that contrast last week during my first trip to Buenos Aires.  Jet lag occasionally reduced the artful charm and brightness for me, but I can appreciate the contrast of doing something from my old life (the topic in this case) in a new environment, in a new way, with new people.

That's the challenge of life, isn't it?  Reinventing, remaking, recovering - without losing our own edges.

Change, careers & diving boards

Not five minutes ago, I finally hit "send" on the first marketing campaign for my new product:  the jallé Six for Yourself.

I prepared for months.  New web site.  Whole new focus.

But as I approached the moment to hit "send" and "launch!" I felt a tension rising.  Excitement mixed with fear.

I realized that this new launch represents having again learned, discovered and CHOSEN the path of doing what I find most meaningful professionally (after three years with my own business).  I cut out all of the products and services that didn't fulfill me.  That is a risk, saying "no" to one thing and "yes" to another.  What if it doesn't work?

My 2002 diving board sketch (right) showed how I felt then about deciding to leave the corporate world behind me.  Saying "no, thanks" to a big company that had been part of my life for 16 years; "yes" to a different vision of myself.  Felt like a blind leap of faith.  Would I sink to the bottom of a deep dark pool? Seven years later, I cannot imagine another choice. 

This morning I jumped off of the board again.  A decision to start.  To go for it with both feet in. For me, that was one scary moment now overcome. 

Catching a breath

Full bags, originally uploaded by jalléCafe.

Some days, finding time to post a blog feels like yoga. In these writing moments, I finally find a few minutes to center my thoughts and reflect on what's happening around me.

At this exact moment, I'm a team of one. Two employees are out sick and the third is not working this Friday afternoon. The quietude is OK after what I counted up as no less than 12 meetings this week.

I started my day with a little reward for surviving until Friday by drinking a hot chocolate at Spruengli on my way to work (early as usual!) As I sat there I realized that through the last three years since starting my business, I have found a rhythm that lets me shift fairly easily and enjoyably between corporate clients and entrepreneurial hectic-ness. I like the variety, the challenge, the focus and directness.

And of course, I love working with the clients, the employees, the vendors, the people who volunteer in our professional women's group. 

I do get pretty tired. But it is worth it.

About love

I found a paragraph in my hand-written journal from last month that seemed perfect for today.  It is about the first man I loved in my life - my father - but I think it applies to loving many people.

Before this paragraph were some comments about what was not perfect, written like a daughter trying to understand her parents, especially a father now gone.  And then was this:

...but he did love us. And that's what matters most.  In the end, all those things you hated. Your criticisms.  Your painful feelings and your fears of somewhere deep down inside being somehow the same as the parts you don't like.  It all disappears.  And you end up just knowing that person really loved you.  And that is enough.

You might  also notice a new blog look today.  It goes with my new web site. The new web site now matches perfectly the thing I most loved doing out of everything I tried during the first three years of my own business.  It's not the same love I had for my father or other people in my life now, but it is a love - and a priveledge - to do work from the heart, too.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sometimes life is (like) a movie

Right into the picture!, originally uploaded by jalléCafe.

Thursday night, I walked out of my office and right into the movies: an actor was standing just outside the door, waiting to be filmed walking towards the well-known restaurant beside us.

It's a dream anyway to work on a lovely old street in the center of town. Often, when we walk out the door someone is taking a photo. Bet our team is in a lot of tourist pics!

The rest of my week was normal. Not Hollywood. Thursday and Friday proved to be both packed with meetings.  Long days with a wide range of deadlines.

Good to be busy.  I find that it is better anyway when I don't have time to listen too much to the news reports these days. I seem to deal with the world economic worries more optimistically when I just focus on what we can do in our little area of influence.

In our desire to be grateful for and attentive to continued client projects, if I'm not careful, I'll work all day every day and have no fun at all in my personal life. That's what happens when you are single, you like what you do every day, and you feel the responsibility to do what you can to earn your way.

Speaking of movies, I watched a lovely one this weekend, The Bucket List. It reminded me what the mountains always also say: remember to keep your heart open and find joy in life your own way no matter how busy you are. I'm trying!

Sunday starting slowly

You remember that one of my goals this year is to be more "meaningful" (i.e. thoughtful, creative) with my friends in the little things? I got to test my resolve right away this week when three people had birthdays.  Two of them big ones: 40 and 60!

My new goal means that I cannot just pop into a shop for flowers or a bottle of wine.  I have to think of an idea that fits the person and find it.  So between meetings and deadlines this week, I searched book and department stores for ideas. I found a couple of great books for me. Typical. :-) And I did buy and write better cards than usual.

It finally all came together over the weekend.  I managed to take just the right book to a party last night (at least it is one of my favorites by an artist I also have hanging in my home - Real Reason by Brian Andreas  The book I gave was Mostly True, which includes my other favorite Brian Andreas story, Waiting for Signs). 

And finally this morning, after three cups of coffee, the newspaper and a little email, I've wrapped the third gift.

Perhaps the goal should have been stated as "meaningful" AND "on time." I think I'll get started on February now!  (Well, after I finally go to the gym and...)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm not eating Turkey today (the Pilgrims did not land in the Alps!).  In fact, I finished month-end invoicing and visited clients.  A regular, productive work day.

But I am happy for my friends and family celebrating Thanksgiving in the States - a wonderful holiday and the official start of the Christmas season.  Over the years, I've tried modified versions of Thanksgiving here:  the worst was a turkey buffet dinner in a hotel.  Just not the same as arguing about why anyone really invented cranberry sauce or "oyster dressing" and then watching the men snooze in front of football on TV as the women clanked around dishes in the kitchen. 

My best Thanksgiving in Zurich happened when five women gathered spontaneously at a small Italian restaurant and spoke in our best, fastest American slang about holidays, family and shoes.

Tonight, in honor of my roots, I share our festive lights glowing. I will toast you friends and family in America over a small glass of wine and early night to finally kick away the remnants of my cold.  Eat a few extra mashed potatoes for me!

Oh Brothers!

On exactly this day, now decades ago, my three brothers arrived.  Yep, all three of them at once (my parents being very efficient).  I look pretty happy about it in this photo, don't I? But you see, no one had yet explained to me that these cute new babies would one day grow strong legs and learn to speak.

Years later, they would bring all forms of wildlife into our home and accidentally let them loose.  Snakes were a favorite.  They would terrorize my boyfriends when they came to the door - my first shy one, especially.  I would find cut-out silhouettes of bats in my bedroom window to scare me when I turned on the lights.  Just when I would calm down, I might find a prickly shellfish (they affectionately named "Spike") at my feet under the covers.  They painted a wide black stripe down the hood of my first car.  Not so many years ago there was a video-taped reading of my diary entry that described my first kiss - shared with my entire family after "the boys" found it while cleaning my parents' basement. 

To this day, when I try to share an opinion at the family dinner table, I might hear a favorite quote, "Yea but what do you know?  You once exchanged a Peter Frampton Live album for Abba!"  (Laughs all around...)

And yet.  My brothers try to stay in touch even though I moved thousands of miles away.  They are all great fathers.  Present with their children. Family oriented in a way that - even for me - I know I will always be able to go "home" if I need to because their doors will be open in whatever form is possible.  Together we've celebrated holidays, family birthdays and little picnics.  We've made each other furious.  Hurt each others' feelings.  And endured through losing our father and others.

Guess what, Boys? It turns out that you and I have stood the test of time like - well, might I say it - Abba.  Mamma Mia!  Happy birthday! And much love wishing you, Abba and me many more.

Oh, and one sarcastic comment from any of you and the rest of the photos will surface.  I have a blog now, you know! :-)

Weeks 35 and 36: Should I try life as a flower shop owner?

Every morning I walk by this wonderful flower shop. Well, nearly every morning.  Many mornings when I walk by, I watch employees dragging plants and seasonal decorations onto the sidewalk. Sometimes I ponder, "Wouldn't it be great to own something simple and straighforward like this business?"  Imagine...

This morning, during Week 35 I felt the pressure of deadlines and added projects, I said to myself it might be great to "only need to open the door and sell flowers."   But let's get real:  this location requires high rent and probably the owner has a few deadlines, too. And employees. And corporate customers. It is a lovely "the stem is always greener" idea to own such a place.  I suspect, though, I bring better talent for communications than for artistic flower arranging.

My office is, anyway, just around the corner.  We open for business every day, too. 

Yesterday, on Saturday of Week 36 after I had survived a few more deadlines, I sat in a local cafe reading a newspaper in which it was noted that the Swiss are still the number one global buyers of fresh flowers (spend the most per year on them per person).

It's of course important when you bring something to people that they value. Something that makes them smile a little. I hope our businesses are not really so different after all.

 

Second Year Celebration

Given the busy holiday time on 20 December -- the official 2nd year anniversary of my business -- I moved the celebration to last night.  My business partner Sandra and I thought that people might appreciate a nice little apero on a cold, dark mid-winter's evening.

It seems they did.  Some twenty five of us toasted together at Rolf's Wine Bar in Zurich.  It's near a popular tram stop called Bellevue.  Small, modern corner cafe with good wine. Nice for a stop after Saturday shopping. Or a quiet morning coffee.  We enjoyed a lovely spread of Italian meats and cheeses as well as freely flowing, graciously served wine.

Sandra and I hope to create an open friendly spirit among people when we conduct training.  I felt good that so many of our participants really wanted to spend time together again.  Not to mention a few friends made along the way and business supporters who have made a difference.

I hope I can make this winter celebration a habit!

On the occasion of my second year anniversary

I officially founded my business on 20th December, 2005.  We still operate, with continuously new clients and what seem like steps in the right direction.  Made a few mistakes.  Mostly recoverable.  Will tell you more about how it feels when I have time to feel it -- after this week!

What I know for sure:

I'm fortunate for the people with whom I work.  Have developed new, strong and in-depth relationships through this adventure.

I'm happy with the kind of work I do now and what we stand for.  That was my greatest hope.  To be respected as open, excellent and honest in our intentions.  International and fresh.

And I am home to see little miracles.  Like this Christmas cactus that I bought for less than three francs last year.  Which grew to large proportions and miraculously bloomed in time for the holiday season.  To get this result, I see in hindsight that I mostly paid attention and sent along a few optimistic thoughts.  I added food, water and watched with as much patience as I've ever demonstrated in my life. 

Had so many interesting things to do, it was not so hard as in the past to put a young, tiny plant in the ground and let it grow.

Week 29: why we work together

Through the last week, I worked with a number of teams:  the people in our office, the people on the Executive Committee for the Professional Women's Group of Zurich, a business team with one of my clients.  What defines a team, I suppose, is a sense of shared purpose or goals.

Working with a team can be both the most humanly fulfilling and the most challenging aspect of daily professional life. And for me, I've realized that a successful team outcome does not necessarily drive the fulfillment.

Teams often create deep knowledge of each other through the work together.  We see how each person responds through a range of situations.  We learn how to support each other, how to rely on each other, and when to leave each other alone.  Collectively, we belong to something.  Together, we often create a result larger than we could have created alone.

It's challenging to let people "be themselves" and still work together as a team.  Takes maturity.  Overlooking little stuff that niggles.  Keeping your eye on the bigger purpose.  Fundamental respect that each person is trying to do his or her best, even when it looks differently in the moment.

Over the years, I grown to believe that three things differentiate the best team experiences:

1) The toughest challenges.  You always feel best when success was not a given

2) How strongly each person shares the personal commitment to the team result (not just to their own personal reward)

3) Team members keep the humanity and humor in the process out of respect for each other as people

When all three elements collide, the ride can be almost magical!

Real life

Two hours ago, I sat in a doctor's waiting room editing a document for a client.

At some moment, I put down my pen and asked myself, "Is this the way I would want to spend the last few minutes if I knew that the next hour would change my life forever?"

One hour ago, as I left the office relieved that the lump in my breast is not an emergency, I debated: do I go finish that document or do I go celebrate in some way my continued health?

I decided to celebrate by finishing the document and feeling happy that I face only the stress of a client deadline. 

In 10 minutes from now, I will go jog -- suddenly this afternoon not too tired to feel my body move.

This post is dedicated to a friend - who is also a wife, mother, and business woman -- as she is currently being treated for breast cancer. I understand only the beginning of her strength.

Starting a business

I am about to bump into the first year anniversary of founding my company.  Well, the official one on paper, which is important here in Switzerland:  jallé GmbH was listed in the Handelsregister on December 20, 2005.

   

Really, I’ve bumped into memories of the emotional stress I went through last year when implementing this new direction.  Although months earlier I heard my inner voice say I truly wanted to start my own business, I spent a while doing the intellectual homework of trying to talk myself out of it or make it feel more safe.  Financial plans.  Action plans.  First marketing plans.

    

But the truth was that only the financial plan made an impact on my thinking.  And that impact was only to consider how to work around all options of surviving personally through various scenarios of how the business might develop.

                                                                                                             

So really, the decision was made.

                                                                                                               

I know the real decisions that strike my soul because they are the ones that I make absolutely, solely on my own in private reflection.  After some period of considering options, I withdraw from all conversation about it.  And then I somehow decide.  I did this when accepting my first job that required me to move away from my family’s home town, when getting a divorce, when moving both the first and second times to Europe, and when deciding I really wanted to try to build a business of my own imagining.

   

I usually take the first few steps on my own, as well, before telling anyone who isn’t involved in those steps.  It seems to be my way to ensure I’m committed to my own path and action before talking about it with people who will ask 600 questions.

                                                                                                         

And it’s that first step in implementing my new plan that always seems most scary.  Take for example the day last December when I resigned my job.  I remember hanging up the phone after talking with my manager and plunging into a deep, dark, mental hole.  What had I done?  Had I lost my perspective?  Was I so ungrateful for the good things I had already in my life such that I needed to throw it all away (again) on some dream?

                                                                                                         

I took a jog, drank a glass of wine, wrote a little about it in my journal and slept 7 hours.  The world felt better in the morning.  And then I could talk with others again.

                                                         

There are always the next few adrenaline days when I learn if you made a good decision for me. If the instinctive relief of having “got on with things” follows, I know am on the right track.  A good friend reminded me this week what she remembered about those days last year.  She said, “You felt less stress, lighter and happier immediately.”

                                                                                                         

The first months that follow my new path always include creating updated action lists every 30 days or so.  I’ve learned that this stage of action planning is usually more valuable as an exercise to structure away the stress when my mind starts to think too far ahead than as a process to follow a rigorously executed plan.

 

Normally, my early action plans have two big, related flaws: 

1.       I put everything on a timeline that is twice as fast as possible to achieve, and

2.       I try to put every little step in the action plan that possibly needs to be done. 

Shouldn't I know by now that people can only focus on the next 2 or 3 most important things?  That's why I think it is an emotional process.

                                                                                                            

The prioritization does help, but I experienced this year my fair share of days when my energy was interrupted by not knowing what will result from my new actions.  It’s a leap of faith that requires some emotional discipline here and there. (I’ll write more about this later.)

                                                                                                          

Fortunately, it has equally often proven true for me that about 6 months into the new path, I finally get the feeling for it.  I sense the real flow of action and connection with my true vision.  I seem to need to let go of the old and try a few ways with the new before it settles in and finds its own rhythm.  If I have to heal physically or emotionally (which I thankfully did not need this year), it takes longer.

                                                                                                

I’ve learned that, for my personality and approach, if I get the flow in about 6 months or so, I’m on track. If not, perhaps I need to look more broadly at the context.  The latter has happened a couple of times, but more often I get the flow.

                                                                                          

It’s a good question if my new business has “settled-in” to my path now almost a year later.  I’ve accepted the stresses that exist – financial, feeling that I am the sole driver of action and results, continuing to watch my work-a-holic tendencies in the new role of entrepreneur.  And it is way too early to declare success, even with little signs of it here and there.

                                                                                                

So at best, I’m happy that – in one year – I have started something new.  One year for the “start!”  It fills me with energy, brings big ups & downs, and begins to give me the sense that others will want to participate.  And I can still say I have been willing to try the things my soul found most deeply compelling.

                                                                                                    

I will celebrate this big first year in an appropriately big way…by taking my one and only shareholder to lunch! J