You’ve spent the past three months either staying close to home, sheltering in place, or some variation of that. You’ve given yourself to others during this time. Perhaps you were unexpectedly homeschooling. Or caregiving in your home for someone who was sick. Or sharing your workspace with your spouse. Or just worrying about keeping your life and business going. 

Add to that the racial and political turbulence that came to a head in the past couple of weeks. Perhaps you were one of the many who participated in peaceful protests over the weekend. Or maybe you simply paused social media on #blackouttuesday. 

If you kept up with any of what has been going on in our world, you can see that it’s noisy. Emails, blog posts, podcasts, traditional news outlets.

I recently read that the “typical” person receives 120 emails a day. That same person spends 11 hours a day connecting online with media. On a daily basis, you can read 1,331 newspapers, listen to more than 550,000 podcasts, and read more than 2,000,000 blog posts.

It’s enough to give you a headache or more if you try to keep up.

I’m sure you realize that your relationship with money is important to your business growth. Seems obvious, right?

And, I know that you had a lot of reasons for starting your business. One of them was to make money at something that you loved.

What is odd is that we want to make money to support our lifestyle and make a contribution. At the same time, we can sabotage our efforts with our mindset. You could also call them “money blocks.”

So what does this have to do with my dog?

Recently our dog Button went through a picky-eater stage. We would end up throwing out partially used cans of food because she would no longer eat them. I found it frustrating “throwing money away.”

Are you a “yes” person?

I know I used to say yes to lots of opportunities. 

Some of them moved the needle in my business; some did not.

Some I said yes to because the opportunities were cool. I didn’t want to miss out on cool. 

If I look back I probably should have said no more often or at least sooner than I did.

If you really think about it, every time you do say yes to something you are saying no to something else.

Good things come to you when you learn to say no. Here are some ways to know when to say no.

One day recently I was stopped at a railroad bridge and started thinking about what we learned as kids about crossing the train tracks. Stop, look, and listen. Do you remember that?

The next morning I looked at the mountain of work on my desk – as well as those bright, shiny objects across the room – and wondered where I should start. I picked up the task on the top and started to work.

Shortly I became distracted and found myself on the way to the kitchen for another cup of tea.

Back to my desk. What was I working on?

Read more…

A couple years ago, I was at a gallery opening with some creative women, and they were each sharing what they did. After hearing one woman say she was a mixed-media artist and another say she was a photograph, the third said, “I’m just a longarm quilter.”

Why did this person’s passion become a “just a?” And why did she think she was “less than”?

If you grew up in the 60s with the women’s liberation movement, you might remember hearing people say “just a housewife.” I can remember thinking I would never be know as “just a.” In actuality, being a housewife is probably the hardest job around, raising healthy, happy and productive kids. It’s definitely not “just a.”

Back to the artists I met. I know that this longarm quilter is not the only one who says “just a” when someone asks what she does.  Maybe she has second thoughts about the phrase, and I hope she does. Maybe she doesn’t.

When I started to reflect on what this woman said, I wondered where she placed her value.

Read more…

Mindset
Carol S. Dweck, PhD
Ballantine Books; $16

I read this book, subtitled The Psychology of Success, earlier this summer at the recommendation of a friend. I have come to believe more so over time that our mindset, not our knowledge or how hard we work, is really the key to our success. For more than 20 years the author, a world-renowned Stanford University psychologist,  has studied mindset. In this book, she discusses two different mindsets: the fixed mindset, which “creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over,” and the growth mindset, which is “based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.” The growth mindset allows for growth as we stretch and challenge ourselves. What is key for all of us is that our mindset is not fixed and we can learn to use a growth mindset to become successful and happy. What I found fascinating was the look at leaders in both sports and business who had fixed or growth mindsets, e.g., Jeffrey Skilling of Enron contrasted with Jack Welch of General Electric or Bobby Knight contrasted with John Wooden, both legendary basketball coaches. Dweck includes help for looking at the world in a new way to change to a growth mindset. She also includes a graphic by Nigel Holmes to remind yourself of the differences between the fixed and growth mindset to help you make decisions that lead to a future you decide.

You can look for the book at your favorite quilt shop or book retailer. Here’s a link to Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.