dare to dream

My birthday post: Disrupt Yourself

On August 22, I published a piece on Harvard Business Review titled Disrupt Yourself.  I purposely published that date because it was my birthday; this piece was a personal manifesto, a birthday present to me.

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It turned out to be a fine present, in part because I got to hear many others' disrupt yourself stories, including this one from blogger Joanne Wilson titled Disruptive, Disruptiveness, Disruptively. Before telling her personal story of disruption, here's what she wrote:

women define disruptive.  we continue to change our goals, our jobs, our direction as we charge down the path of life.  men's careers tend to look like a growth chart starting at the bottom and slowly moving upward over the course of their careers.  women's charts tend to look a little more erratic as they go up and down depending on where they are in their life mostly because of children and also because as a group we have a bigger bandwidth of interests that might play out over time.  

Women are instinctively disruptors -- it's how we live our lives.  And in the context of this blog, when you dare to dream, aren't you really daring to disrupt your status quo?

Thoughts? 

What present will you give to you on your next birthday? 

How have you disrupted yourself?

Giveaway: The Entitlement Trap by Richard and Linda Eyre

Yesterday my daughter was taking a tennis lesson. Twenty minutes in, and trying to be helpful, I started to pick up the balls.  Her instructor stopped me.  "Parents," he said, "can mollycoddle their kids, but when they are with me, they clean up their own mess."

This conversation came on the heels of my reading the Atlantic article How to Land Your Kid in Therapy in which psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb tells of kids filing into her office, depressed. She's discovering that these kids aren't listless because their parents are mean, but because they are too nice.  As she has delved into the problem, she's asking the question:  "Is it possible that these parents have done too much?"

Source:  istockphoto

It seems the answer is yes -- certainly that's what Richard and Linda Eyre conclude in their upcoming book  The Entitlement Trap.  As I've noted, Linda Eyre would be on my personal Advisory Board if I had one, partly because of what she and Richard say, but mostly because of how much I like their three daughters:  this family walks their talk. 

Given that my children are already 15 and almost 11, listening to parenting advice is not always easy.  I've started down a parenting path.  I do some things well, others not so much.  A course correction in which I help my children take ownership for their money, values, decisions, education, relationships will require that I take more responsibility for my parenting. 

But I also know that I care deeply about their future, and the future of our society.  In fact, I can't help wonder if the debt ceiling negotiations that have sent the stock market into its current tailspin would have gone differently if we, as a nation, were less entitled.  Alexis de Tocqueville, in his famed analysis of America, summarized, "America is great because she is good. If she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great."

So, here's what I'd encourage you to do:  Pre-order the book.  If enough copies are sold before the official launch date of September 6, the book will start out on the bestseller list, sending a message that pulling ourselves out the entitlement trap is a priority:  won't it be lovely to help create a groundswell for good. 

Giveaway:  If you will share this post on Facebook, Twitter or Google+, and leave a comment here that you have done so, you will become eligible for one of two copies of The Entitlement Trap.  These will be courtesy me as my contribution to the cause.  The contest will end at midnight on Monday, August 29; I'll announce the winners on August 30.  If you've already ordered the book, and you win, you can give the copy you win to a friend.

Finally, once you've bought the book, so as to not become overwhelmed by feelings of imperfection (I can't be the only one), just note one or two things you start to do differently because of what you read.  For example, I noticed this afternoon that when my son asked where his computer was, instead of going to get it for him, I told him where it was.  He couldn't find it.  I still didn't get it for him.  It was hard, but I did it.

Thoughts?

Julia Blake: Living My Dream

Julia Bringhurst Blake's crowning act of juvenile rebellion was leaving her hometown of Logan, UT to attend BYU. She was welcomed home by her math professor father only after deciding to marry an actuary. She studied Food Science and Nutrition, but wishes her degree were in something business or finance related. She is still enjoying marital and motherly bliss after many years. Having given birth to 5 sons and a daughter, Julia is a recovering baby addict.  She is also a confessed dessert snob who will happily share her recipes. She is known to tell those she loves if their clothes are boring, frumpy or unflattering. She loves them even if they don't listen to her. Some day she hopes to have daughters-in-law who like her.

I'm not sure I should blame Dare to Dream for distracting me from my dream. It wasn't the first time I've been distracted. In 19 years of marriage and 17 years of motherhood distraction has been the norm actually. I was a pre-med major and sometimes regret not going to medical school. When I turned 30 I even opened up an old chemistry book to study for the MCAT. I have often looked around at mothers who are business women, doctors, investors, artists, architects, writers and dreamed of being like them. Since having children I have started successful businesses, managed record breaking fundraisers, had products featured in Boston Baby Magazine, renovated homes, and much more while being a 'stay-at-home-mom'. Yet none of these were my primary dream. They gave me some fleeting fulfillment and freedom, but my babies were growing up while I was distracted.

When I encountered Dare to Dream I was erroneously convinced that I was falling short of my potential if I didn't pursue some big dream outside of motherhood. Eventually, I pushed back at this distortion to recognize that I am living my dream and that I do not want lesser dreams overpower it. My dream is to enjoy a successful marriage and family.

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I didn't achieve my dream when I got married and had children - it had just begun. I was a different person the moment my first child was placed on my chest in the delivery room. I felt my life take on a significance that it didn't have previously. It is not always joy though, like the early years when one of my babies was born several years premature.  The pregnancy was planned, just not so soon. I was way over my head and clawing just to make it through each day. Today it still isn't joy when ungrateful kids ignore what I have taught them, pass bad habits along to younger siblings, fight with each other and let their gym clothes fester in the locker room all year. The sheer quantity of what is required of me overwhelms at times and it is arduous to feel peace.  I try to laugh at the reality that I can't finish the laundry, clean the house, provide nutritious meals, exercise and shower all in the same week (by the way, I love dry shampoo and I never skip showers for more than a couple of days).

Source:  istockphoto

This past fall I returned from a two year maternity leave (my guarded time for eliminating all unnecessary activities to enjoy my baby) to a plethora of labors surrounding the entire family. I had comically over committed yet at once comprehended that this was my time to be involved. I knew that my deepest satisfaction was in doing the work that accompanies raising children. For example, I noticed it makes me blissful to feed my teenage boys. They sincerely appreciate my food. It doesn't seem so long ago when one of them was six and asked me why everything I cook is 'totally disgusting'. When I sign up to feed the football team I'm not having it catered and I am not cutting corners. I'm making a complete dinner from scratch. This over-achieving briefly distracts me from the main goal, but my boys know that I put the time in for them and their friends. Admittedly, I love hearing that ours was the best team dinner. That's more than enough payment for me. All of the 'homemaking' tasks are the collateral to my dream and not what actually matters except to the extent that they bring happiness. If I can be happy doing the tasks and involve my children in them, then the work is an important part of the goal.

I love waking up in the morning and deciding what I want to do. I don't have a boss or a client dictating that. If I don't feel like doing the laundry - the kids can do it themselves or wear something else. If I don't clean the house - I am the only one who cares. When I skip the grocery shopping or don't cook we eat cereal. I love being able to choose. 

I get to go to my kids' sports events, help them practice the piano, tutor them academically, play games with them, read to them, listen to them, teach them to scrub a toilet and hang up their clothes, stay awake with them when they are sick, and so on. Of course there are parts of my job that I like better than others, and times when the words coming out of my mouth will surely land my offspring in counseling. Above all I recognize that I have the freedom everyday to choose how I want to improve, who I want to serve, and what I want to create and accomplish. Those years that I spent focused on other things were weaved with guilt. By some blessed chance I have come to a place where I don't feel guilt for what I do and don't do. When I take a few hours or days for myself and personal interests I don't feel the guilt that I once did. Maybe it is because I decided that this dream is enough.

In less than 2 years my oldest will leave home. I am clinging to every day I have with him. When my youngest is gone I will evaluate new dreams but for now this one requires everything I have.

Do you have a dream right in front you?

Ought v. Should

There are 'oughts' in life, things we do because of our character, out of moral obligation.  Then there are the 'shoulds', tasks that imply duty, which is sometimes the case, but quite often are self-imposed, and involve no moral imperative.  

There is a difference. 

Yet if I observe the language I use to describe the choices I make, I frequently conflate the two words, believing my self-imposed 'shoulds' are 'oughts'.  It is a simpler way to view the world.  When everything is an obligation, I don't have to make decisions.  I can just be an automaton that does.  However, if we really want to grow up, we 'ought' to learn to choose, and then own our choices. 

A few months ago, I urged us to decide to dare. 

Shall we now dare to decide?

Thoughts?

If you listen to your use of words such as ought, should, must -- what will you find? 

As you make decisions simply because you choose, how does that feel?  A little scarier perhaps, but good?

P.S.  Thank you to my 10th-grade social studies teacher Mr. Carson who taught me to appreciate satirical cartoons, and a hat tip to Kristiina Sorensen for sending this along.

Shannon Robinson: I Dream of a Fabric Store

Shannon Robinson is the mother of four boys who have four chickens, one bunny and a hive of bees.  She is passionate about family, boating, college basketball -- and opening a fabric store in St. Louis. 

***  

If you would have said to me 15 years ago that one day I would love to sew, I would have told you you'd lost your mind.  Sewing was for old people, I was certain of that.  But here I am, just 30 years old (clearly not old at all), not only knowing and loving to sew, but in the process of opening my very own fabric store.

It started nine years ago when I was pregnant with my first child.  Inspired by my mother-in-law, a fantastic quilter who can make anything, I wanted to make my first baby blanket.  Looking at the quilt now, I see so many mistakes.  The seams don’t line up exactly, some cuts weren’t perfect, but I didn’t see any of that then.  I was proud of myself.  It felt good to create something that to me was beautiful.

Picking out fabrics is by far my favorite thing about sewing:  fabric stores are candy shops for my eyes.  But because there aren't any non-traditional fabric stores in greater St. Louis area (my taste is a bit more modern, ecletic) I have to order online.  I then eagerly wait for the package, which I gleefully unwrap when it arrives. I then stare at the beautifully stacked fabrics.  Once I place the fabric in my sewing room, I look at the package some more.  If it's really beautiful I don’t use it.  Fabric is art in and of itself.  I suppose you can say fabric is my guilty pleasure.

I started dreaming about opening my own fabric shop four years ago.  I would sketch it out, decorate the shop in my head as I lay awake at night.  The idea made me happy.  But with three children (now four),  having my own business didn't seem like an option. 

In January 2011, my dream got a recharge.  I visited a fabric shop while on vacation.  It was hip and modern; all of the prints I love were in one place.  I bought as much as my pocket book could handle.  I was in heaven.  I couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful the store was and how good it felt inside.  My husband saw in my eyes that this was my dream and he told me to go for it.  I shared the idea with my friends as well.  Some are actually in or familiar with the industry.  Some are not, but all were supportive.  Their encouragement gave me the confidence I needed to take the next step.

Image courtesy Heather Bailey

I spent the next six months putting together a 15-page business plan, including financial projections.  We now have three investors and half of our money raised.  I have guilds and sewing groups contacting me asking when the store will open.  There is a buzz and excitement about this store. 

Here's my vision:

Fabric Nosherie will be a gathering place for sewers, a place where they can come to learn, to teach, to encourage and to serve.  We will sell the highest quality fabric and accessories, with the shop decor a cross between Anthropologie and Restoration Hardware.  We will encourage and support the local communities through service projects, such as; quilting blankets for the St. Louis Nursery, sewing stuffed animals for project Night-Night and making bags for orphans in Bulgaria.

I am so, so excited about Fabric Nosherie.  If you'd like to see my dream come to life, you can visit my blog at www.fabricnosherie.blogspot.com.

***

How do you respond when your friends and family and children share their dreams with you?  

Any advice you'd give Shannon?  If there were a fabric store in your community, which fabrics would you want it to carry?  What kind of experience would you want to have in her store?

Any suggestions on raising the additional monies?  Any types of bank loans or lines of credit that have been especially helpful to you?  Any thoughts on finding local investors?  Or people you'd connect Shannon to?

HBR Blog: What Job Does Social Media Do For You?

Here's the latest: What Job Does Social Media Do For You?

Specifically, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+?  And what did you fire when you hired them?

Or you wanting to do something, and then you aren't doing it, Bob Moesta's Equation of Progress is helpful in diagnosing why.

Thoughts? 

Lisa Duggan: Rowing Ahead

Lisa Duggan is co-founder and publisher of The Parent du Jour, an online documentary exploring contemporary families, one day, and one parent at a time.  Follow her progess on Twitter @theparentdujour.

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“Every time I scaled back on my career, to focus on my family and kids, I worried that I was letting down my young, ambitious self.” —Joanne Wilson, WE Festival, January 2011 

In January of this year I was one of 150 lucky attendees at the first Women Entrepreneurs Festival, hosted by the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. 

I’m sincere when I use the word lucky here: over 500 women had applied for a spot at this conference dedicated to, “sowing the seeds for a community of women entrepreneurs in NYC”. It certainly felt like luck, or some larger force, delivering me back to NYU, where I had begun my academic career twenty-five years earlier. Entrepreneurs at all stages of development were invited to participate. Opening keynotes included New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Joanne Wilson, one of three chairwomen for the event.

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Joanne spoke about her eclectic career path, from entrepreneur to angel investor, which included years of in-and-out, stay-at-home motherhood. She spoke of the lack of women in technology and her efforts to help change the ratio. But when she evoked the ghost of her “young, ambitious self”, hot tears sprung to my eyes. I had come to the Festival for many reasons, chief among them the need to fulfill a promise made to my own young, ambitious self.

In 1983 I was an NYU freshman full of hope, eager to pursue a career in psychiatry. Unfortunately, that was the same year my parents’ marriage ended and a series of extraordinary health problems for my mother began. The upheaval in our family made it impossible for me to concentrate on school. I finished my first year poorly and didn’t return after the break.

My summer job turned into a lucrative spot in IT, as a technical writer, and eventually I enrolled at The School of Visual Arts to study communications and graphic design. I found a job in newspaper production and worked my way up to manager. During that time I also met my (second) husband and fell in love. We married and started a family.

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I was successful by many measures and happy, but never entirely satisfied. My life did not feel like a series of choices, but rather a series of obligations. While I was glad to have been there for my family during a crisis, I continued to carry a deep resentment for having lost my own way in the process. My anger was holding me back from creating a truly satisfying life but I never realized it—until I met my younger self again, in the strong-willed, clear-blue eyes of my daughter.

I had willingly quit work to be with her but suddenly stay-at-home motherhood felt like another obligation imposed on me, rather than a choice I freely made. It relit the fire of my old resentment, the inner conflict between familial duty and following my own passion. How could I teach Alice that she could be anything, do anything she wanted to do when I had not pursued my own dreams? How could I preach personal responsibility when I had lived a life of blaming others for my own lack of trying? 

Yes, my early plans had been disrupted, there’s no denying that. But it was my choice to remain defeated by the obstacles life put in my way, rather than be determined to get around them. Insecurity, blame, shouting “It’s not fair,”—these are the luxurious emotions of childhood.

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The day you realize that you’ve always had, like Dorothy's ruby slippers, the power to get where you want to be is sobering.  It’s the day you grow up. You finally understand that the quality of your life, good and bad, has been in your hands all along. Now you have to make the choice to perceive that reality as a burden, or a gift.

I chose, I choose, to see it as a gift. This new perception has re-connected me to the passionate twenty-year old I was, who cared deeply about people in all their complexity, and together we proudly took our seat at the Festival. As I work to bring my vision to reality, riding a wave among a sea of newly charged and powerful female entrepreneurs, I know there will be new obstacles in the way. But I made a promise to my young self, and to my daughter, that come what may, I will keep rowing ahead.

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I love this -- "you have to make the choice to perceive your reality as a burden or a gift."  Is there a reality that you are looking to reframe?

Are you rowing ahead?

Will you consider participating in Lisa's Parent du Jour, an online documentary exploring contemporary family life, or nominating a parent you know?  Or both?  And if you'd prefer not to because you're not so sure you're a good parent (c'est moi), then I dare you to.  You might just discover that you parent better than you think you do. Lisa can be reached at [email protected].

Would you like to join me?