Compared with the average person, I’m not very conventional. That’s why I find it interesting to observe the ways that convention has its hold on me.

It sneaks in and hides right there in plain site.

Ever wondered why you aren’t moving forward with something new, different or interesting? Have you considered that it’s convention that’s in the way?

By convention, I mean “the way it’s normally done”, or the status quo, or what and how people do something in an industry. Convention has it’s purpose. Afterall, we use it to make quick decisions – that’s why brand and design works so well. If you see pink, you think girls. Bankers are conservative. A businesses objective is to make a profit.  Those kinds of things.

At its core convention is the force that keeps us in line with others. It’s the force that encourages you to play it safe. And as kids, we learned that to not follow convention means you stand out  – as in stand alone.

The possibility of standing alone fires our survival instinct, triggering in us the compulsion to fit in.

And for me, since I’m not very conventional, the way my survival instinct has been triggered is to help me feel like I need to do some more organizing, update my brand, build clearer processes – BEFORE I introduce people to some new work I’m developing.

Well, it’s coming.  I’m working on some test runs right now. I’m even developing a line of posts to help build a foundation to explain it all. (AND I’m doing all the other stuff too.)

Not to leave you completely in the dark: it has to do with clarifying what you want for your business, happier workplaces and people, and energy work.

Stay tuned.

On this last Friday of 2011, I’m taking a moment to jot down ‘my numbers.’

In the online world, so much emphasis is placed on your numbers and stats.  How many Twitter followers you have, how big your email list is, how many Facebook friends/likes you have,  what your Klout score is, how many visitors you have to your site and so much more. While I’d like to turn my nose up at these numbers in total absoluteness, I can’t.

Of and by themselves, they don’t define your worth or contribution or the value of what you are sharing with the world. But what they do is give a measure of your potential impact.

See, I realized this year, that I want to have a greater impact in the world. I derive great pleasure in the difference I make with each individual person I touch. And that’s no small thing – it only takes one life changed to change the world.

But I’m a bit greedy – as in, I have an inordinate desire – to reach more people and to change more companies. Why? I want people to love what they are doing in their life, especially when it’s their ‘work.’

And that’s why I’m writing these numbers down. Because I want them to grow this new year.

So here they are, as of today I have:

• 101 Followers on Twitter
• 166 Friends in Facebook
• 200 Connections at LinkedIn
• 20 published blog posts
• 100 visitors is the greatest number I had for one blog post in 2011
• 803 unique visitors in 2011
• 43 Klout score
• 19 subscribers to my feed
• 1115 contacts on my email list

That about does it for me. My goal? To grow my numbers. By how much? Not real sure right now. I’m mostly curious what will happen if I just do a better job of posting good content.

Let’s see.

What’s your intention for 2012?

Yes, I’m a Christmas baby. And it’s incredibly fascinating the effects it has had on me. As a self-aware adult I’ve been spending some time untangling it all this year.

As a kid, I didn’t know anything else. I got Christmas presents and birthday presents. At family gatherings I would be wished a Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday. It all seemed pretty normal to me.

As I got older, I realized that I didn’t have ‘traditional’ birthday parties.  But, again, that wasn’t such a big deal because as a family of four kids with a really limited income, none of us had birthday parties.  My mom’s rule was we could have three parties, when we were five, ten and fifteen.  So, not having parties wasn’t so strange either.

And now, as an adult, I’ve realized I have problems with birthdays.   No, it’s not the ‘I’m getting older’ thing.  I’ll be 43 in few days and it really doesn’t mean much to me. I’m grateful for the experience of time but I’m as young as I imagine myself to be.

Here’s how it shows up: I declared a few years back that we would not be doing the whole birthday cake and singing thing on Christmas anymore. With kids, I just felt it got in the way of Christmas  – which I love. So, to appease everyone else I picked a day they could acknowledge and that has now been the winter solstice, December 21. Now what has happened is that I can’t hide behind the excuse of Christmas day for not having a party. And I think that’s what has really brought my weirdness to light.

So my problem with birthdays is not about age. Oddly, it’s about being seen.

Maybe you have this too – that quiet undercurrent of not shining too big or bright, not drawing too much attention to yourself, not distinguishing yourself too much from others. Why? Because doing so means that you aren’t really a part of your tribe/family/group any longer. It conjurs up feelings and fears of isolation and ostracism. (And I also know that as a Mexican American this is embedded in the culture. Gotta love how all this works.)

Anyone who knows me will think this is downright weird. I’m comfortably self-confident and have no problem stepping right up to the front to take care of things that need to be dealt with. And I have positively no issue speaking my mind or going against the norm.  That’s why this not-being-seen thing is so odd – and so hard to spot – for me.

Of course the irony in this is that my gift is ‘seeing’, which I do, and have done, for others as friends and clients all the time. It’s the seeing through the confusion, the blocks, the chaos and complexity  in their life and work – right through to the feeling, solution or experience that is needed right at that moment.

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!

Isn’t it just priceless then that deep in my unconscious I’ve been carrying and cultivating a fear of being seen?

I’m proud to share that for this glorious birthday, I’m giving that piece of myself back to me. The piece that has hidden away behind the fear.

I see me. And I invite everyone else to do so as well. I have some big things on my agenda for the year and years ahead and I certainly need to be seen to get them done.

Give yourself the gift of you this Christmas. I have.

You.

Yes, you. The business owner, the founder, the president – the one who set out to have her very own company so you could have that perfect place for amazing, talented people to work while they go about offering your extra special creation to the world.

How’s it working out?

Because I keep reading and hearing over and over again of people who left corporate or left their job because they couldn’t stand it. Because they wanted more meaning in their lives. They wanted to make a difference. They felt stifled, unappreciated, undervalued.

Is your company all you want it to be? Is your workplace the place that you imagined it would be – filled with passionate people who love their work?

‘Cause sometimes we forget…

You, your company and your workplace are the same thing and also different.

You – are your company, in a way. You dreamed it, built it, love it, sacrifice for it.

And yet, your company is not you. It is its own being. It has a life of its own, a personality of its own – that has probably grown beyond your entire capacity to shape it if you have more than a few employees.

And your workplace is something different again. It is an aspect of your company, and to a large extent a function of your beliefs made manifest. And the beliefs of every one of your employees.

Take a moment to realize that for all that work you do to make yourself a better boss and a better leader, to increase your own personal fulfillment and work toward your own personal transformation, your company and your workplace need the same thing. Just as you discover and transform your limiting personal limiting beliefs, shouldn’t you do the same for your company and your workplace?

As you journey toward awareness and consciousness for yourself and your place in the world, don’t you think there should be something similar for your company and your workplace?

Maybe you’ve thought of this and you’ve cared and wanted to have your company be an expression of your consciousness and your expanding personal awareness, and you’ve wanted your workplace to blossom with the same delicious delight you feel when you grow that next little bit.

So that your company grew with you and your workplace was filled with like-minded amazing, talented people working in the perfect environment contributing your creation to the world.

How do you create it and do it?

That’s what I do.  I help the business-owner-you, your company and your workplace -  in the same way a coach, a healer or a spiritual counselor helps the ‘me, myself and I’-soul part of you.

It’s amazing what you can learn when you are helping educate the next generation of leaders.  Yesterday, I found myself giving voice to a couple of beliefs I hold about business that I hadn’t realized were so obvious to me but are quite definitely not part of the traditional business undergraduate education.

As a part of the Business Ethics class at Southwestern University students were tasked with preparing a presentation addressed to the President and Provost on their choice of ethical issues related to recent university budget cuts. My job was to be the outside ‘evaluator’ as they made their presentation to the class. I had all the traditional comments on organization, thought process, delivery and team work. But what really stuck with me were some of my closing thoughts.

The first was around giving them permission to use emotion as a valid rationale for a choice or opinion. Remember, this was a class on business ethics and the content generally centered on making good choices when making budget cuts. It was interesting to watch them attempt to depersonalize or ‘business-ize’ a conversation about respect, valuing people, care, consideration and fairness. When I asked them why they took the approach they had, their response basically indicated their belief that business requires an abstinence from emotion or values.

This pains me. As a business owner who has worked with many other business owners I know for a fact that all of us have choicefully made decisions that balanced the health of the enterprise with respect, care and consideration for our employees, vendors and customers.  And each of us wanted employees who would make good decisions that demonstrated their skill and giftedness as well as their regard for other people. Care, consideration, and respect are all qualities that are the result of emotions. It is the emotional connection that matters -that makes the difference between good and bad business. We need the emotional aspect in business to create meaning and value – and ultimately, greatness.

The second point I found myself sharing: business may be defined as “an economic system in which goods and services are exchanged for one another or money” but in practice business is fundamentally all about relationships. Consider it.  Every business has a relationship with its employees, its vendors, its customers, its community, its industry. And personally, I don’t know how you can have any kind of relationship without some kind of emotional connection.  I believe that it is the nature of relationship to imply an emotional connection.

And good businesses cultivate really good relationships. I work with the vendors I do not just because they are good at what they do but because there is something more and that something more is the care, respect and often times, friendship that is cultivated. The same is true for me of employees.

My point is that for some reason we have believed that businesses exist at the expense of relationships, emotion, values and connection. I can see how that can happen when you end up dealing with mega-companies. But my experience is that there are many more companies where you do experience true connection and great value; and you can see firsthand that business really is about relationship.

I’ve recently begun the process of organizing my thoughts around business, the realities of change, and the power of entrepreneurs (and the entrepreneurial-minded) for the grand and daunting purpose of writing a book. It’s is truly amazing the effect that the commitment alone has created.  I am rapidly collecting all my thoughts in notes and recorded conversations. I’m exploring and following where it feels like I need to go. And one great benefit is the number of books that I have started reading.

I find it surprising that I have never read Good to Great by Jim Collins. I’m remedying  that now. And have come across one particular piece that seems especially relevant in today’s financially stressed climate. Allow me to share:

“Life is unfair – sometimes to our advantage, sometimes to our disadvantage. We will all experience disappointments and crushing events somewhere along the way, setbacks for which there is no “reason,” no one to blame.  It might be disease; it might be injury; it might be an accident; it might be losing a loved one; it might be getting swept away in a political shake-up; it might be getting shot down over Vietnam and thrown into a POW camp for eight years. What separates people, Stockdale taught me, is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.  In wrestling with life’s challenges, the Stockdale Paradox (you must retain faith that you will prevail in the end and you must also confront the most brutal facts of your current reality) has proved powerful for coming back from difficulties not weakened, but stronger – not just for me, but for all those who’ve learned the lesson and tried to apply it.”  Good to Great, Jim Collins, p.85-86

Collins explains that the Stockdale Paradox is the signature of all those who create greatness, be it in leading their own lives or in leading others. It is one of the qualities he believed defined the leaders of the Great companies.

I found that one single paragraph gripping and so very relevant to what so many of us are experiencing at this time due to the economy and our finances. It is relevant to each client I have worked with as they work on adjusting their business to meet the changes and challenges in their market.

I encourage you to keep your faith that you will prevail and take a good, hard look at what is happening in your business or your life and commit to address it, even if it isn’t fun, even if it is scary and even if you don’t know exactly what to do.

If Admiral Jim Stockdale could do this during the eight years he was tortured as a prisoner-of-war during the Vietnam war, surely we can too.

[Note: I'm cross-posting this here to spread the word. If you would like to follow the movement to bring coworking to Georgetown be sure and check in at www.georgetowncoworking.com.]

I’m interested in enjoying the benefits of a coworking community in my town. I’m actually so interested in it that I’m willing to organize and coordinate the movement for a coworking space here in Georgetown.

Now what I need is the rest of the community of coworkers… Would you be one? Would you know someone who would want to be a part of this?

What is coworking?

Coworking has been developing as an enriching, sustaining alternative to traditional workplaces for solo-workers. Coworking is a membership based office environment with community workspaces, private meetings rooms and conference rooms. But it is not the shared office environment that makes coworking a success. It is the membership that participates. It is the community formed by the membership.

What benefits does the membership community offer?

As an independent worker – whether a freelancer, consultant, telecommuter – you miss out on the collaboration, the engagement, the stimulating thought of being around other like-minded people.

That’s where coworking comes in. With a community of like-minded people you have easy access to colleagues – other bright, creative, interesting people. It is the engagement that happens when you take a break and begin a conversation with someone else in the room.

Coworking includes opportunities for collaboration, for brainstorming, for education and professional development. Members help inform the lunch and learn workshops and seminars, and they often lead them. We bring in the resources to help grow our community in the way it wants and needs to grow.

Basically, coworking facilitates collaboration, innovation and business growth – for the member and for the community. A group of like-minded entrepreneurs and solo-workers can produce some amazing things when they come together!

Get engaged!

If you are an independent worker – and that includes telecommuters – who wants an engaging, enriching, meaningful alternative to the isolation of working alone then join with me as we find a group to make coworking a reality in Georgetown.

Here’s how:

• Take the survey – so we can find out what’s important to you.
• Spread the word. Because we are independent workers here in Georgetown, Round Rock and surrounding communities – we can be a bit hard to find – so share this with everyone you know so we can get the word out!
• Come to a discussion meeting to learn more about coworking and to help inform what we can create right here. There are two meetings set so pick one or both: October 5, 2011 at 1:30 – 2:30 pm or October 11, 2011 at 10 – 11 am.
• Keep up with the conversation at our temporary website: www.GeorgetownCoworking.com. Join the email list and follow the blog.

If you have questions, let me know. If you want to help out, let me know. And if not, just help me spread the word! Thanks!

Additional resources: Take a look at what others are doing!

Independents Hall in Philidelphia

Link Coworking – Austin

Cospace Austin

I heard a story yesterday that really bothered me and really need to share with you in hopes that we will all remember to keep trust in our lives.

I’m sure that in some way or another the Bastrop fire disaster has touched your life.  You’ve likely been asked to donate money or have heard of a drive to collect clothes and needed items. I believe this is the amazing power of community and outreach.  I believe people are reaching out and digging in to help the thousands who have lost absolutely everything.

I was touched by a similar request from a neighbor whose daughter works with a woman from Bastrop. My neighbor is collecting what she can and will pass off to her daughter and the coworker. And this is a beautiful act of compassion and service. And I’m personally grateful – for the opportunity to help so personally, for the ease of doing so and for her time and efforts.

Thanks to SeattlePi.com for image

But what struck me as sad was the story underlying the request. The woman from Bastrop had shared with our neighbor that the number of people who need help is far greater and, that while there is government help available, it is not being offered without proof of the damage. And that the need is so great that the number of ‘verified’ homes is not complete and so the numbers we hear of homes lost is under-reported. People can not receive help until it is verified that their home was lost or burned. From a logical, logistical standpoint this makes sense. But the human, hurting side of me balks as this. I want people to get help now and then sort it out as things settle down.

(Pleases know that the Bastrop community has developed their own means of making sure that their own are cared for through informal channels  and churches. Neighbors are looking out for neighbors. And I’m heartened by humanity.)

Another part of this story involved the reluctance by some to give because they are not sure that it is getting to people who need or deserve it.  For some reason there’s a belief that people who were not affected by the fire will take the donations intended for the fire victims. And this breaks my heart.

Really?  We can’t extend a hand, a gift, a donation for fear that it will be taken by others who pretend to be fire victims?

People, that’s called mistrust. And is that really the highest expression of yourself that you can offer?

I know the media fills the news with stories of abuse and greed and dishonesty. And that does exist in the world. And very likely is present in Bastrop. But the number of people who are honorable, who do act with integrity, who do need help is far greater.

And if you do give a sack of clothes, or toiletries or any other household items, and someone stands in line and pretends to be a victim of the fire – you know what? they very likely need what they are asking for.

What I’m asking is for everyone to notice how readily we allow mistrust to creep in – in all aspects of our lives. And for some reason, mistrust comes along just right at the time when your best and highest self is considering helping others.  I’m asking that we not allow mistrust to over-ride our belief in goodness and the daily examples of selfless service we see in the world.

So make a donation to help your neighbor. And trust in the goodness of people. We’ll all be better off for it.

We all live with organizing principles. They are what give structure and order to our society, our world, our neighborhood. They are helpful because they show us how things are put together and how we can live within the construct of our world.

Invariably, as is the way of the Universe, they will change. And when they begin to change, we don’t always notice that they are changing. It is not until a whole lot of change has happened that we realize, something fundamental, some organizing principle, has shifted. And then for a while we live with the discomfort of the transition. And when enough time has passed, we can begin to look back on what was and assess what is transpiring and we begin to see the organizing principle that has changed, is changing.

Here’s an example – simply put but one that I can speak to from a personal perspective. There was a time when nearly all women (in the US) aspired to marry, raise children and keep their home. Some might work for a time, or pursue higher education but the convention was that women would ultimately cease working and stay home and raise children and care for their children and husband. Our society was structured that way. That’s how things worked.

However, World War 2 changed that. Women were called in to service by going to work. They stepped into factories, industry and many other areas that were traditionally outside the norm. And because of that experience we have women leading major corporations, running their own businesses and leading policy changes – we have women with completely different aspirations.

In the years immediately following the war, I don’t think many people imagined that such profound change would be birthed by such a simple necessity. But that change did happen.

Today, it is easy to look back on the organizing principle around gender roles and business and see how it has changed. Every area of business, of industry, of policy, of gender roles, of professional and personal relationship  has altered dramatically. But I don’t think that the people living through the ’60′s really had a full understanding of the change that they were undergoing. (At least not on this topic.) They were at the beginning of a transformation, but didn’t know it. The change was acknowledged in the ’70′s and a full movement was in swing by the ’80′s.

Here’s my point: When an organizing principle begins to change, we don’t recognize it is happening. In fact, we probably can’t even see the organizing principle since it is just so naturally what we are and how we live. And since you can’t see it, you don’t really notice the change beginning. You only notice the change after enough change has happened so that things don’t work like you were accustomed to them working. Or you feel the pain and discomfort of not quite fitting in. Or you begin to realize there is the next generation and the last generation.

Does all this make sense? Because it needs to.

Why?

Because it is happening all around us right now. In such profound ways and to such a degree that when we finally realize it has been going on we are going to be left reeling.

Here’s what’s happening:  the consciousness movement – the circumstances in people’s lives that are compelling them to find their heart’s passion, to find greater meaning in their lives, to find the way that they come to understand that they are a Spiritual being having a physical experience – this very movement is altering just about every organizing principle we have in every aspect of life as we live it.

The easiest way I have to explain it is to say that the fundamental organizing principle we have lived by is DO – HAVE – BE. DO these things  (get good grades, go to a good school, get a good job to make good money). So you can HAVE – all the comforts that money and possessions can give you. And then you can BE happy, at peace, successful. Isn’t that how it goes?

The consciousness movement re-orients life so that the formula is BE – DO – HAVE. BE worthy, loving, inspired, joyful, peaceful. DO – take actions from that state of being. HAVE success, abundance, reward.

Give that some thought. What do you suppose is going to happen when a BE-DO-HAVE person steps into the world of DO-HAVE-BE? Do you think it might look a little bit like our young leaders graduating from college only to find their way back home – unwilling to compromise themselves for what they find in the workplace? Or maybe it might look like the graduates who have been pursuing degrees in finance only to look out into the world and what awaits and decide that they won’t enter that field? Or maybe it looks like a a growing surge of independent and small businesses making up their own rules about exchange for services and work-life balance?

I’m pretty sure you’re seeing in some aspect of your life and never realized that it might be due to a shift in personal and societal organizing principles. If you have an example, please share with me!

Personal Note: I give credit to Neale Donal Walsch for initially introducing me the idea of Be-Do-Have in his work, Conversations with God.

Five months. It’s been five months since I have last posted.

A piece of me feels astonishment. Another piece feels like maybe I should be in judgement of myself. But mostly what I feel is disbelief.

How do five months pass so quickly? In the exact moment of living through them they don’t feel like five months. Maybe only two and that’s stretching it.

In truth a whole lot has been happening in all areas of my life and as it turns out I have some bottled-up writing that wants to get out. I also have some group coaching I’m getting ready to launch.

So, stay tuned. I’m back.