Category Archives for The Almost Daily Catalyst

I Guess We Live Here Now.

My first pet as an adult was an adult shelter cat that I rescued from the PetCo in Union Square. The night before we met, I had a dream about an orange cat who slept at my feet. Then, as my then boyfriend, now husband, David and I were wandering around the city, there he was. Now this is not the cat you think you are going to rescue – he was “7-9 years old,” enormous, and plainly disinterested. And yet… he was so soft. And his eyes were a piercing green. I liked him.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“About what?” David said.

“The cat.”

“This cat?”

“Yes, what do you think of him? Is he OUR cat?”

The New Normal Emerges

I’ve noticed a shift in the world lately. We used to endlessly speculate with each other about when things would get back to normal.

• Do you think we’ll get back to school this year? (Answer: nope)
• Do you think we’ll go to a restaurant for Abi’s birthday in May? (Answer: nope)
• Do you think that people will feel weird coming back to campus when we go back this fall?” (Answer: nope, because we’re fully online until 2021)

Lately, as the realities of the breadth and depth of this outbreak settle around us, the conversation is shifting. We’ve begun to wonder: Where are we going? What are we heading towards?

Only one thing seems certain; we aren’t headed back towards “normal.”

I’ve largely opted out of these relentlessly speculative conversations because I hold two things to be true no matter what:

1. The human brain can get used to anything.
2. So very much of what happens next is CHOICE.

It Happens. How to Respond to Setbacks with Integrity and Intention

This is a modern tale, if ever there was one.

I wake up at 5 a.m., wander downstairs to get my coffee and do some writing. Life is good!

Around 6:30, as always, I take a look at the Almost Daily Catalyst to try to find the typos and make sure it’s scheduled properly.

I log into Convertkit, and there is no Catalyst. How did this happen?!

Panic! Searching! Realization. Acceptance? And then…

We All Need An Oasis

This is the 37th ^Almost Daily Catalyst, which means that we have entered the 8th week of the coronavirus quarantine.

How are you doing?

I live in the NYC Metro region and it’s been tough. Everyone knows someone who has been infected. Almost everyone knows someone who has died. Some of my students, clients, and friends have had multiple deaths in their close circle of family and friends.

These are hard times.

And while it is absolutely important to shore up and move forward, it’s also very, very important that we create space in our lives to recover from the emotional toll of it all.

Everyone needs an oasis right now.

How to Reclaim 25% of Your Time

Last week I had my first multi-day headache in years. It crawled into my head on Tuesday, hit it’s peak on Wednesday, and slunk out the backdoor leaving me delicate but better on Thursday. Right in the middle of everything, I had to stop and take a break.

It was terrible timing for an unplanned break!

• I’m running a free three-week “Website Retool Challenge” for Mental Health Awareness month with my friend and colleague Alyssa Adams, and the Pre-Party begins TODAY. We have ads running, videos to make, logistics to line up… there is much that goes into creating a breezy, fun-filled internet party!
• It’s the end of the semester and I need to stay on top of my grading and emails with students.
• My daughter turns 10 on Friday and I really need to figure out how to have a Zoom birthday party and get some gifts delivered and bake a cake and, and, and…

The least overwhelming way to pursue a goal

Ahh, do you hear that? That’s the sound of a lovely, high powered vision pulling on us like a rare earth magnet (the most powerful magnet on the planet!), encouraging us to get to work, make a difference, and create our dreams (in a healthy and balanced way, of course).

The next step is to get started!

So, what do I do next?

Well, here’s one of the paradoxes of change management: what creates excitement overall (a high powered vision statement about end results), makes for terrible motivation on the day-to-day.

When I think about having a “big platform and a small team” (from my vision, which I shared yesterday) it excites me… but then I realize that I can’t accomplish that today or even this week.

I won’t screw me

This week we have been talking about the strong, concrete vision for our business as a magnet. Yesterday we turbo charged that magnet with our why, investing it with our hopes for ourselves, our “we” (the people we seek to provide for and protect) and our “one” (the world we want to change).

On the first page of your guide, you should something like this (this is mine):

I want: A thriving and diverse practice where I offer limited 1:1 coaching, and accessible group programs while also writing, speaking, and being a known source on marketing, mindsets, and change. I want a big platform, a small team, and a lot of supportive friends, clients, and colleagues who help me make my vision a reality, while I help them make their visions come true.

Simon says… why?

Yesterday, we worked to make our vision statement a little bit more concrete, moving from broad notions of achievement and accomplishment and into the moments of our lives.

Take a moment and look at your mind map, then write up a simple summary on the first page of the guide.

Bam. 1/3 of your strong vision statement, DONE.

This alone will amp up the power of our vision’s magnet.

But if you want to turn it into a rare earth magnet (the strongest magnet on the planet!) then we have to add the “Why.”

Extract the concrete

This week we are spending some time thinking creating a vision for your business. While you were doing it, it’s likely that you felt motivated and excited. And yet, it’s also likely that when you were done, you weren’t quite sure what any of it MEANT.

In concrete terms, what are you supposed to DO?

Part of the reason vision exercises can feel so “froofy,” despite their clear and necessary place in goal setting, is that they don’t tell you what to do next. And without that concreteness, it can feel frustratingly like empty motivation.

To counteract that feeling, let’s do some brainstorming using what you came up with yesterday as our starting point.

You *DO* know what you want

Last week I talked about how so much of what we see, hear, think and do comes from what we are choosing to perceive. After sitting with that for a week I hope you feel, as I do, that almost anything is possible for you and your business.

Which brings us to the next obvious question:

What do you want?

Now if you are like most of the people I work with, this question feels enormous. It can immediately overwhelm you, and make you feel like you actually don’t know what you want.

But that’s not true. You DO know what you want.

I’ve had hundreds of conversations with therapists, coaches and other entrepreneurs where I ask them what they want for their business. At first they say something neutral like “I want to help people” or “I’d like to worry less about getting clients.”

And while I’m not arguing that they do, in fact, want these things (they absolutely do love to help people, and who doesn’t want to worry less?), I also know that there’s a whole lot more to what they want.

The same is true for you.