My Journey | What's On My Mind Articles

This is the third installment of Christine and my monthly Peer-to-Peer Mentoring series. Funny enough, this month, we asked each other near identical questions… on her blog, I answered her question: I LOVE doing everything myself. While I joke that I need a clone, I always feel like the job is done best by me. How do you decide when it’s time to ask for help or hire another professional?

My Question to My Mentor:

As an independent business owner, I often find I am tempted to do ‘everything’ myself. How do you go about determining the roles you take on and which you will employ an outside professional for? When you do determine you need outside help, how do you go about finding the right person for the job?

July was the second installment of Christine and my monthly Peer-to-Peer Mentoring series. On her blog, I answered her question: Along my career path, I travel wearing many hats. From a writer and designer’s perspective, what tools do you use to portray career evolution to your audience? More specifically, how do you keep your bio updated to portray the ever-evolving you so it represents your business as extension of yourself rather than a mere list of accomplishments?

My Question to My Mentor:

Do you have difficulty feeling confident about the work you do and the value it adds? If so, how does it manifest itself? And do you have any tools you use to boost your confidence when you feel it faltering?

Christine’s Answer:

For starters, I’ve never felt like I fit into the status quo. Not at school as a kid, not at other jobs etc. Now I can look back to see this was an opportunity I’ve been able to grow exponentially from. Not fitting in raises questions early on, “why am I not like the others?” “don’t they like me?” “what should I be doing to fit in?” Turns out when I pushed and pulled to fit myself into the confines of spaces I wasn’t shaped for, it felt uncomfortable. And, when I did at times wedge myself into spaces I didn’t fit, turned out a lot of the other people in there, weren’t so happy either. So, I decided, (sub-consciously perhaps), early on to be a shaper. It was a risk I had to take because the other reality wasn’t working for me.

Okay, here we go! Today is the first installment of Christine and my Peer-to-Peer Mentoring series. I’m excited to see how we will learn from each other. On her blog, I answered her question: How do you apply the advice and suggestions you offer your clients to your own projects and endeavors?

My Question to My Mentor:

What do you do to cultivate mutually supportive female relationships in your life?

Christine’s Answer:

Historically, I’ve been a “guy’s girl” so answering this great question took a bit of thought! Cultivating supportive female relationships wasn’t always part of my Modus Operandi. Quite frankly, I always felt more at home with my male counterparts. I had more (or so I thought) in common in both my business and personal life. And then, one day out of ( ? ) somewhere I had a feeling that I needed some relationship balancing.

Trying to be good enough for Them, I’ve created an image of perfection, that I do not fit.

Not being perfect, I reject myself.

Getting older, I see that perfect is no longer about being good enough for Them — it’s about being good enough for my Self.

I’ve been hiding from you.

Okay, I’ve been hiding from myself.

I’ve been calling myself a coach for a while now – and it does fit, sort of. I mean, it is a part of what I do…

But at the heart of me, I am not a coach.

At the core of me, what I am, what I have always been, is a designer. A designer and a writer. Doing those two things brings me the greatest pleasure in this world.

The wonderful people I meet and co-create with, and the way in which we design together (through coaching) is important, but is secondary to my deepest pleasures and god-given talent.

I was hiding my designer behind a coach because…

I thought I’d like me better as a coach.

I thought I sometimes think that my value lies in what I do for others, not in who I am. Being a designer, in my old mind, wasn’t “good enough”, it was too much aesthetics and not enough about strategy and helping others. Even though design, to me, is all of those things and more.

Coaching felt safer. It kind of fit and I felt more confident with the description. It helped me to not deal directly with my denial of my designer.

Wishing you a 2011 full of adventure, growth and joy!

With love and light,

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Perhaps this idea inspires you?

For the past two years I’ve given a monetary gift to charity in gratitude of the client relationships I’ve cultivated. I sent this festive note to my clients this holiday season:

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Our soul – it thrives on adventure.

Adventure is a nutrient. We need it.

When we ignore our desire for adventure, we ignore our very nature.

It’s not a frivolity.

Sometimes, usually when I am leaving for a trip, I think about my adventure and it’s costs, and I question if I need to be less self-serving, less self-ish, and not take the risk.