Author: Allie P.

You have to dance like nobody’s watching

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it, Personal Favorites
Dance like nobody's watching
Dance like nobody’s watching (Photo credit: fmgbain)

Have you had the pleasure of watching the Lego Movie, or heard the What Does The Fox Say song yet? No? Well if you ever found yourself near my house on a Friday night you would hear song, Everything is Awesome and the aforementioned song blasting on our speakers over and over again as my boys engaged in what has become our “beginning of the weekend dance party!”

Dance Floor
Dance Floor (Photo credit: enric archivell)

My eldest son’s dancing consists of jumping, running in a circle, spinning on the floor, and imitating a robot. My youngest is still mastering walking and mostly performs a series of squats and sways while pointing his fingers in the air. I am not even going to attempt to describe the series of movements my husband and I consider our own dancing style, but needless to say we likely won’t be contestants on dancing with the stars anytime soon.

We may be somewhat rhythmically impaired, but it doesn’t stop us from letting loose every weekend. I am going to miss these moments when my boys age into the tween years and are too embarrassed to be seen walking with either my husband or I, let alone be seen dancing with us. The party is going to be over way too soon.

 

Susanna Clark and Robert Leigh penned the following lyrics for their song, “Come from the Heart”

You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money,
You’ve got to love like you’ll never get hurt,
You’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching,
You’ve got to come from the heart if you want it to work.

These words are proven true over and over again.

Nicolas Cage was recently interviewed about his Oscar-winning performance for Leaving Las Vegas. He said, and I paraphrase, that he was so sure that the film would never been seen that he didn’t worry about what the critics or academy would say, he just committed himself to the role. By not worrying about being watched, he was freed to do something remarkable.

I struggled severely with my first several attempts at writing, not for lack of imagination, but because I was too concerned about forcing my words be best-seller caliber, or at least be quote-worthy. Then I saw a rebroadcasted interview with the late Elmore Leonard, author of dozens of novels.  He repeated his longstanding advice, “If it sounds like writing. Rewrite it.” I realized I just had to start typing, and stop worrying about who was reading. As long as I gave it my all, it would work out in the end like it was supposed to.

If you are reading this, then the process worked, and if you aren’t, well… I’ll still be dancing on Friday.

 

Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured ...
Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured in dance: an early moving picture demonstrates the waltz. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

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Separating Business from Hobby

by Allie P., posted in General Tips and Tricks, Life Hacks
Hirst's Shark Tank by the Little Artists
Hirst’s Shark Tank by the Little Artists (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What separates a business from a hobby? My husband and I watch a fair bit of the show, Shark Tank, and often one of the investors will explain the difference to wannabe entrepreneurs. It is one thing to have an idea, and I am in no way diminishing the importance of that crucial element, but there is more to building a business than just having something to sell.

In order to transform a hobby into a business yes, you need a product or service. But you also need a path to market, a sales strategy, a plan for what to do with revenue once it is received, a plan for what to do when the money doesn’t flow as it should, and a plan for what to do when faced with an outright threat. There is so much to do that having the actual innovative spark is almost more window dressing than requirement. That is a minimum of five parts plan to one part innovation!

While at my day job, I usually deal with established companies releasing their next big product offering, but occasionally I get the opportunity to meet with the independent idea person. Typically these are people fresh from one of the nearby university technology incubators. These people a fun to meet with because they are so incredibly passionate about their product, but really have no idea how much they don’t know about the challenges of bringing an invention out of their garage.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the biggest mistakes they make in their plan is forgetting that though they might have a great rapport with the person at the other side of the table, at the end of the day, “its nothing personal, just business.” I have to watch as they are forced to question their own faith in their product and their existing partners. For example, patents are only as good as they are enforceable and established companies usually have much deeper pockets along with capable supply chains and effective sales channels.

The reaction varies. Sometimes the innovator’s ego doesn’t allow him or her to accept these questions. They get angry and defensive. Of course their product will sell itself and they will become overnight millionaires. They are such geniuses that no one could possibly find a way to build it cheaper, quicker, or in a way that gets around their patent. The public will never accept a lower quality solution at a cheaper price – they will demand the real thing. All of their suppliers will deliver and all their customers will pay on time just because they have put some words together on a piece of paper and called it a contract.

Some throw their hands up in despair. They give up on their dream the moment they are asked to answer tough questions. Others listen with open minds. They are humble enough to realize that they don’t know all the answers and that their product may not be ready for the mass market. Perhaps it is not in their best interest today to accept that large purchase order with all its many zeros. These are the people who will buckle down and return to pitch their idea another day. They leave even more committed, but with their eyes wide open.

English: Figure 10: SWOT-Analysis of the organ...
English: Figure 10: SWOT-Analysis of the organic business idea. Belongs to The Organic Business Guide. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As much as my novels are the children of my imagination, I have to treat my writing as a business, and books as its product. While so far I have found there to be quite a bit of cross over, I recognize that I am new to this industry. I recognize that I can’t rely entirely on instinct alone. What I believe is my best strategy may well be wrong.

In fact as I near the final weeks of writing the first draft, there are a number of things that I intend to do differently this second time around. I enjoyed the speed to market that self publishing offered, but I do think that this time I am going to at least query a few other channels. Yes, I will likely get rejected, as that seems to be a recurring pattern in the industry, but I’ll never know for sure that I picked the course best suited for my own business needs and personal style if I don’t at least ask for other opinions from time to time.

 

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Help Wanted – Embracing Outsourcing

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it
Good Housekeeping is one of several periodical...
Good Housekeeping is one of several periodicals related to homemaking. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve recently suffered a terrible loss. My part-time housekeeper has found a better opportunity elsewhere. While this is great news for her (and I wish her all the best), it is awful news for me. I am going to have to somehow figure out how to insert deep cleaning back into my already full schedule. Cue the nervous tics.

She wasn’t coming by weekly, and I have never completely abdicated my responsibility in keeping the house habitable in between cleanings, but I am probably not going to have my house featured in Good Housekeeping Magazine based on my efforts alone anytime soon.

The days she did arrive were near magical. I would open the door and all the surfaces were polished to a high shine. The kids could be shouting or running around like maniacs and I could sit back and enjoy them rather than feel the stress of needing to straighten everything up pile up on top of the stress from the work day.

I get asked all the time how I manage to work a full-time job, raise two kids, and write. I’ll let you in on my little secret – I now outsource whenever possible. But I wasn’t always so willing to let go.

I spent the first several years of my career with the idea that the only way to prove myself as an effective team player and overall value to the organization was to do everything myself. I rarely turned a task down. Obviously a person asking me for my help was doing so because they knew I could take care of it effectively and on time. Saying no would be admitting to a weakness or other failing. Saying yes to such a request was the easiest way to accept their high praise of my work. Right?

A few years later a position in management opened up. I thought to myself, I’ve shown everyone how great I can be, I know I am going to get asked to fill the position. I am the clear choice.

Only then did I realize that I had made some major tactical errors:

  1. I had made myself too valuable in my current position
  2. I had not shown that I could delegate or push back on tasks effectively
  3. I had assumed the position was mine for the taking

Luckily I was able to identify a quick fix solution for the first two errors. I would train my peers making my replacement easier to find. I did this by delegating tasks, because hands on experience works best. Additionally I learned how prioritize and how to say no. I needed to focus my time on only the most important tasks.

Up until this point I had a great relationship with my boss. He was well aware of my career aspirations. Unfortunately his departure from the company was the reason for the open management position. I did not have nearly the same relationship with the remaining hiring manager. He would not know I was interested in the position if I did not have the confidence and courage to ask for it outright.

I wrote a whole essay on why I deserved the position in the most basic persuasive format: intro, reason 1, 2, 3, summary close with action statement. It must have gotten my point across.

I was offered the position, and could have easily reverted back to the friendly co-worker who said yes to everything. Sure, I would have been liked by everyone, but I would have been positively buried by work. My first year in management might have been my last. I either would become burnt out, or so ineffective at the job I was hired to do that my boss would have had no choice but to replace me.

Saying yes to happiness means learning to say ...
Saying yes to happiness means learning to say no to things and people that stress you out. -Thema Davis (Photo credit: deeplifequotes)

Sure, I like to think that I can take on any task my company throws my way, but I’ve learned to recognize that so could a number of other people, especially if given a little bit more practice. If I want to develop my staff to their fullest potential then I owe it to them to delegate more from time to time.

Additionally while no one likes to be told no all the time, the occasional “no” can be liberating. I may not be able to say I have it all, but truth be told I don’t want it all. I don’t want to spend every waking hour during the week working, or my weekends cleaning. I don’t want a life full of stress.  I’d rather spend my time with my family or the working on the tasks I enjoy such as writing my next project.

Unfortunately until I find my next great hire, it would appear that I need to become re-acquainted with my vacuum.

 

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What is your personal mission statement?

by Allie P., posted in Life as I know it

an-uncertain-faith-webRecently I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by fellow author, Megan Cyrulewski on her blog. She asked me during the interview what I hoped that people would feel while reading my novel, An Uncertain Faith. I have to admit that I did not have a ready answer for this question, at least not one that I could answer succinctly.

I actually did have a goal in mind when writing, an intended call to action, but to explain properly, I was afraid I might inadvertently give away the ending. The whole book actually was a result of a fairly simple basic writing prompt. Think of one thing you feel truly passionate about. Explain in one sentence your position on the subject. Now build up a case to support your belief. Poof, thousands upon thousands of words later there was a story.

If I consider my writing a business, and my book a product, this exercise was similar to crafting a mission statement.

Since then, it’s almost become a game to see the hidden message behind some of my favorite works and not just the literary variety. There have been a number of ads lately for the upcoming Muppets movie. I’ll use that as an example.

Example of Fraggle dreamsharing as seen in &qu...
Example of Fraggle dreamsharing as seen in “Boober’s Dream.” Clockwise from top are Red, Gobo, Boober, Wembley and Mokey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Muppets were just one of the creations of Jim Henson. Another was a show called Fraggle Rock which I positively adored growing up. According to the boxed set of session one that my family was so nice enough to gift me with, Jim Henson and his team created Fraggle Rock as a means to inspire no less than World Peace. By showing the interconnection between cultures, he attempted to teach children of my generation how we are all part of a much larger world, and while could be huge differences between cultures, there were some universal similarities.

The show only ran for a few years, but he actually did manage to reach out to the world with a simple children’s program. Fraggle Rock actually became the first US television show to be broadcast in the Soviet Union. He helped to make the world a little smaller years before Facebook or Twitter, and he did it with puppets and an amazing imagination.

How many of us can honestly say we aim so high when we develop our own mission statement?

Often we write mission statements which resolve around monetary goals. The specific words used can be fancy, but usually, can be summarized along the lines of we are in the business of adding value for our customers and stakeholders.

I am hardly the exception to this rule. The company I work decided that it was time for us to revisit our own mission statement and core values. I learned from the process that I definitely shouldn’t be submitting my resume to Webster’s anytime soon as, in my opinion, there was way too much time spent debating the definition of the word attitude.

At the end, we selected four words and a semi-catchy phrase that we hoped would help us focus as a company towards activities which would result in a greater return on capital employed than had the owner of the company merely placed money in the bank. My company prides itself on its own contributions to the community as well as the contributions of its employees, but the words on our home page are definitely not as noble of an aspiration as Jim’s.

I do wonder what else Jim might have been able to accomplish if he were still around today.

Rather than try to summarize this post with my opinion I would like to close with an open-ended question. If neither time nor money were an object what would be your personal mission statement?

Blue Marble Animation
Blue Marble Animation (Photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video)

 

 

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Leadership and Management – is it so easy a caveman could do it?

by Allie P., posted in Personal Favorites

My kids recently discovered the movie, the Croods, which is about a family of cavemen who have to leave the safety of their cave due to a series of earthquakes and other eruptions. Mid way through the father, quite bewildered by his family’s behavior, tells his daughter, I kept you safe. To which his daughter replied, we weren’t living, we just weren’t dying, there is a difference.

The Croods8
The Croods8 (Photo credit: TheCroodsGame)

It is very easy to confuse leadership with management. In the case above, the father was a great family manager. He was able to assess each of their strengths and weaknesses and as a result they were able to hunt for food as a team. They all shared in each other’s success and when the food supply ran short, the father did the noble thing by skimping on his ration so that his children could grow stronger. He also went out of his way to protect them from dangerous threats such as sabre toothed tigers and other weird creatures I am glad aren’t around today.

But he was a terrible leader. Why? Because he was so focused on ensuring that all were aware of the near certain danger, his family wasn’t able to rally around an image of a better future. Without the ability to visualize the future, the family accepted the threats at face value and never tried to find ways around them. They were well-managed, but they were stuck in a dark cave, ignorant of the larger world, and would have remained there as the land collapsed around them had it not been for an injection of fresh ideas in the form of a stranger.

Illustration from The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Illustration from The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

That same stranger never showed whether or not he had managerial chops. He cared about the teenage girl, and eventually bonded with the father, but never went out of his way to really get to know the others. He gave them some nice tools and shared innovative survival strategies, but really in the end only made them more like himself rather than try to capitalize on their individual potential. He had no assurance that there would actually be a better tomorrow, and could just as easily placed the group in an even riskier situation like a Pied Piper. He proved you can be a great leader, but also be lousy manager.

Great leaders are champions of change and not afraid to take risks, they pull their teams along with them. They are the hunters. Great managers are efficiency experts and nurturing by nature, they minimize risk and push their teams into situations where success is achievable. They are the gatherers. Whether you are a great leader or a great manager you are going to get a workout.

A word of caution though. There is a reason that there is usually a trusty sidekick in every hero story. It is nearly impossible to be both the leader and the manager at the same time. The mentality is just too different.

So breathe. You don’t have to be both. It’s actually a lot less stressful for everyone if you simply pick one role and be the best possible version of that singular role you can be. Look in the mirror long and hard and figure out which route is best for you. Then go out and find your compliment. Recruit or train up. You can also still find your leadership or management balance in the form of a trusted business advisor. Self employed or other team of one? It’s still worth recognizing your strength and building up on those skills, with any luck they will come in handy before you know it.

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