I had the good fortune of having a group of wonderful, smart women answer my call for help the other day. They gave me feedback and info on branding and marketing my business, in exchange for brunch.
During that amazing meeting, I was reminded that in a sole proprietorship - especially in my line of work, my brand is ME. I was further reminded of this great book I bought some time ago and intend to read again this month.
If you're in business for yourself, it's a very useful book. The thing is, it's a very useful book for everyone, because even if you're not "in business" for yourself, you are still your own brand.
Something to think about.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
2010? Says who?
I would like a recount please. As much as I am de-fricking-lighted that 2009 has finally effed off, I don't think I'm ready for this year yet. Too much went on in the last couple of months of '09 and I'm still unpacking it all. One more week of Non Year and then I'll really start the New Year, okay?
Kthxbye.
PS: Seriously 2009, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Go. Get. Scoot.
Kthxbye.
PS: Seriously 2009, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Go. Get. Scoot.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Remembrance Day
November 11th is important to me in a very personal and emotional way. My two grandfathers served, in different uniforms, in World War II - both very young men at the time. In the case of my paternal grandfather, much too young - he lied about his age in order to enlist, as many boys did. He travelled to Europe and directly into the fighting when he was barely seventeen.
The reason November 11th is so very close to my heart is that it's the day I pay tribute to both my grandfathers, in a way I don't do throughout the rest of the year. I never knew my maternal grandfather, Wilfred McFarland. He died when my mother was about 12, so even she barely got to know him. His grave is at the far northern reaches of Toronto and is not all that easy to get to for someone with no car, like me. And, as he died when Mom was about 12, she was not helped to deal with it... it was another time, another world then - and (I hope) things would have been handled differently now. She does not go to his grave site regularly, and so I never have either.
My paternal grandfather, James Henry Challoner, is a different story for me. I knew him well and loved him dearly. He died in 1995. He taught me some of the values that I hold within me... that money isn't everything but that it needs to be taken care of; that family is worth more than everything else put together; that hard work and perserverance are sometimes their own reward; and that you can't make a really, really good devilled crab with margarine - it simply has to be butter. When he died I lost a mentor, a confidante, a fellow joker and prankster, and a potential tap of ancestral history that I didn't even know I wanted at the time. His grave site is in an ancestral cemetery, several hours away from here and I don't go there either.
In WWII, he was in the radio corps - that is, he went ahead of his military unit, sometimes into No Man's Land, to set up communications systems so that his unit were never out of touch. To my mind, it's a seemingly inocuous but extraordinarily dangerous, selfless and essential duty. And I feel as though he spent four years doing that in order to help the granddaughter he would have, some thirty years later. In the past few years, I've been doing a lot of introspection and work within myself. Some of this has been questioning and evolving my idea of what God/a higher power/a spiritual force is for me. I don't have a definition of what my higher power is, but I have a way of communicating with it... I simply talk to my Boppa Challoner, assuming that he has gone on ahead to set up communications, and I ask him to pass the message along. He has been doing an excellent job.
And so, because I don't go to the final resting places of either of my two grandfathers, Remembrance Day is set aside - for me anyway - to think about them both. To honour them. To marvel in disbelief at the things these men had seen and done at such terribly young ages, and then were asked to put it all aside once they came back home to live the rest of their lives. This is the day I remember to thank them for what they did for their country, for their family, and for me.
And this is the day that I really hope that they've met each other now and are fishing together.
Thanks Grandpa Wilf. Thanks Boppa.
Love you and miss you both.
The reason November 11th is so very close to my heart is that it's the day I pay tribute to both my grandfathers, in a way I don't do throughout the rest of the year. I never knew my maternal grandfather, Wilfred McFarland. He died when my mother was about 12, so even she barely got to know him. His grave is at the far northern reaches of Toronto and is not all that easy to get to for someone with no car, like me. And, as he died when Mom was about 12, she was not helped to deal with it... it was another time, another world then - and (I hope) things would have been handled differently now. She does not go to his grave site regularly, and so I never have either.
My paternal grandfather, James Henry Challoner, is a different story for me. I knew him well and loved him dearly. He died in 1995. He taught me some of the values that I hold within me... that money isn't everything but that it needs to be taken care of; that family is worth more than everything else put together; that hard work and perserverance are sometimes their own reward; and that you can't make a really, really good devilled crab with margarine - it simply has to be butter. When he died I lost a mentor, a confidante, a fellow joker and prankster, and a potential tap of ancestral history that I didn't even know I wanted at the time. His grave site is in an ancestral cemetery, several hours away from here and I don't go there either.
In WWII, he was in the radio corps - that is, he went ahead of his military unit, sometimes into No Man's Land, to set up communications systems so that his unit were never out of touch. To my mind, it's a seemingly inocuous but extraordinarily dangerous, selfless and essential duty. And I feel as though he spent four years doing that in order to help the granddaughter he would have, some thirty years later. In the past few years, I've been doing a lot of introspection and work within myself. Some of this has been questioning and evolving my idea of what God/a higher power/a spiritual force is for me. I don't have a definition of what my higher power is, but I have a way of communicating with it... I simply talk to my Boppa Challoner, assuming that he has gone on ahead to set up communications, and I ask him to pass the message along. He has been doing an excellent job.
And so, because I don't go to the final resting places of either of my two grandfathers, Remembrance Day is set aside - for me anyway - to think about them both. To honour them. To marvel in disbelief at the things these men had seen and done at such terribly young ages, and then were asked to put it all aside once they came back home to live the rest of their lives. This is the day I remember to thank them for what they did for their country, for their family, and for me.
And this is the day that I really hope that they've met each other now and are fishing together.
Thanks Grandpa Wilf. Thanks Boppa.
Love you and miss you both.
Left, James Challoner. Right, Wilfred McFarland.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Good riddance, October.
Usually October is my very favourite month of the year. I love the crisp weather, the intoxicating colours of the arboreal palette (oh yeah, i know the word arboreal), the rustling sound of leaves being walked through, the smell of the first fireplace fires in the air, and Hallowe'en.
This year all those things were in place, and brought me moments of soulful satisifaction. But also this year, October just plain sucked.
The theme of the month seemed to be an attempt at snatching bits of future away from me. Career, money, encounters with others' mortality, and even serious news about my own health. Somehow the universe wants me to remain firmly grounded in the present and release or seriously rethink the way I've been looking at my future. Opportunities I thought would be mine literally vanished from possibility, and challenges I never thought I'd have to face suddenly became all too real.
Incredibly, I'm pretty much okay with it. If I had my druthers, things would go differently - but I take solace in trusting that my druthers may not be in complete alignment with the universe's plan for me, and that there are endless possibilities and opportunities that I have not even considered yet. Don't get me wrong, this peace and maturity isn't in me 24/7 and I've been throwing more than my share of fits; but always, eventually, I come back to realize that this is a journey - I am the driver, I am the navigator, I can stop any time I want or forge ahead, but I didn't build the road. A better road-builder than me did so.
This year all those things were in place, and brought me moments of soulful satisifaction. But also this year, October just plain sucked.
The theme of the month seemed to be an attempt at snatching bits of future away from me. Career, money, encounters with others' mortality, and even serious news about my own health. Somehow the universe wants me to remain firmly grounded in the present and release or seriously rethink the way I've been looking at my future. Opportunities I thought would be mine literally vanished from possibility, and challenges I never thought I'd have to face suddenly became all too real.
Incredibly, I'm pretty much okay with it. If I had my druthers, things would go differently - but I take solace in trusting that my druthers may not be in complete alignment with the universe's plan for me, and that there are endless possibilities and opportunities that I have not even considered yet. Don't get me wrong, this peace and maturity isn't in me 24/7 and I've been throwing more than my share of fits; but always, eventually, I come back to realize that this is a journey - I am the driver, I am the navigator, I can stop any time I want or forge ahead, but I didn't build the road. A better road-builder than me did so.
Friday, October 16, 2009
let down
It's been a week of let downs.
Found out yesterday that the government program I've been trying to get into since June has been discontinued, effective last week. I was meant to start on December 7th. This has been a hell of a lot of work for very little intrinsic gain, and now I am out the $20,000 the program was going to pay me while I launched my coaching business for real.
Have also been in a ... um ... slightly diminished state of contact with a few people. That always pulls on my fear strings, and puts my insecurities under a magnifying glass. The worst, very worst, most horrible feeling for me in the world is feeling forgotten about. It can come upon me quickly and is very nearly always completely irrational. See, if I'm not in a room with you or actively communicating with you at any given moment, I have a sick tendency to believe that there's no way you could actually be thinking about me at all, and whats worse is you might be trying to avoid any future contact with me too. I know it's weird. I know it's irrational. But that's what feelings are, and that's what I feel from time to time.
Interesting thing is, I suspect the universe was preparing me for this in a vague way. I haven't done any cooking or baking just for the hell of it, in MONTHS. And yet on Tuesday, I made two casseroles of comfort-y goodness in the form of my mom's recipe of macaroni with real cheese and tomatoes and a crunchy breadcrumb crust on top. I also made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. These have been most helpful in the wallowing stage of this disappointing week.
Next week will be better.
Found out yesterday that the government program I've been trying to get into since June has been discontinued, effective last week. I was meant to start on December 7th. This has been a hell of a lot of work for very little intrinsic gain, and now I am out the $20,000 the program was going to pay me while I launched my coaching business for real.
Have also been in a ... um ... slightly diminished state of contact with a few people. That always pulls on my fear strings, and puts my insecurities under a magnifying glass. The worst, very worst, most horrible feeling for me in the world is feeling forgotten about. It can come upon me quickly and is very nearly always completely irrational. See, if I'm not in a room with you or actively communicating with you at any given moment, I have a sick tendency to believe that there's no way you could actually be thinking about me at all, and whats worse is you might be trying to avoid any future contact with me too. I know it's weird. I know it's irrational. But that's what feelings are, and that's what I feel from time to time.
Interesting thing is, I suspect the universe was preparing me for this in a vague way. I haven't done any cooking or baking just for the hell of it, in MONTHS. And yet on Tuesday, I made two casseroles of comfort-y goodness in the form of my mom's recipe of macaroni with real cheese and tomatoes and a crunchy breadcrumb crust on top. I also made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. These have been most helpful in the wallowing stage of this disappointing week.
Next week will be better.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Blog Action Day 2009
One very small step for this woman, one huge step for personkind. Does it take a lot for me to write a blog post about climate change? No. Will this single action change the world? No. But, might it put climate change into your mind, get you to think about it consciously for a minute, or remind you about an important issue? Yeah, maybe.
So this is one small step I can take. I signed up for Blog Action Day 2009 and am following through.
What's one small step you can take? Do it. Now. There is no spare planet in a cupboard.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
bringing SexyBack into the kitchen
Haven't cooked anything, seriously, for quite a while. Today I got down to a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and a couple of Mom's Macaroni & Cheese casseroles to put away for later comfort-y goodness. Cooking for just me loses a lot of appeal... I don't dig eating leftovers much. Not in a snooty, I'm-better-than-leftovers kind of way, I just get bored of eating the same thing for days on end. However it's times like right now, when my home smells pleasantly of warm cheesey casserole and fabulous chocolatel chip deliciousness, that I remember how much I really do like cooking. I also like having a dishwasher. A whole lot.
Tomorrow I'm going to have coffee with a guy I haven't seen since high school. He's now a sargeant with the police. I'm certain it's all just a ploy to finally bust me for buying booze for literally hundreds of underaged kids back in the day. I never ever had trouble buying at the LCBO or Beer Store... it was all about attitude. If they looked at me funny or it felt like they were gonna give me trouble, I'd just tell 'em to "Hurry up." Never got carded buying. Not once. Once I turned 19 and it was all legal, buying booze and drinking really lost an awful lot of their appeal for me. Thank god, because I've seen the other side of that coin and it's not pretty.
Weird. That was ages ago now and absolutely feels like another lifetime. But I don't feel old at all. Well, except for right now because I have totally lost the remote control and have no freaking clue where it is. Send the nurse in with my tapioca, won't you?
Tomorrow I'm going to have coffee with a guy I haven't seen since high school. He's now a sargeant with the police. I'm certain it's all just a ploy to finally bust me for buying booze for literally hundreds of underaged kids back in the day. I never ever had trouble buying at the LCBO or Beer Store... it was all about attitude. If they looked at me funny or it felt like they were gonna give me trouble, I'd just tell 'em to "Hurry up." Never got carded buying. Not once. Once I turned 19 and it was all legal, buying booze and drinking really lost an awful lot of their appeal for me. Thank god, because I've seen the other side of that coin and it's not pretty.
Weird. That was ages ago now and absolutely feels like another lifetime. But I don't feel old at all. Well, except for right now because I have totally lost the remote control and have no freaking clue where it is. Send the nurse in with my tapioca, won't you?
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