Pause

Entrepreneurial Sin #3: Thinking too much

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a planner. Planning is a habit that has had enormous benefits for me in the past. I recall, several jobs ago, when I was a Web producer and launched a Web site with a team of exhausted writers and developers. I spearheaded the content launch, which included integrating a content management system with the reams of content we'd been generating for months prior. Though the team was too busy to worry about making our VC-induced deadline, I fretted over it constantly. I was the thorn in management's side, asking, if we only have x weeks left till launch, we need to do y and z. I often sketched out workflows and had documentation--a map for management of what needed to happen to make our deadline.

We celebrated our soft launch at a San Francisco brewery and toasted our outstanding effort. One of the founders of the company remarked at how organized I was. "It's quite amazing," he said.

"Actually," I said, "it's quite chronic."

Sure, always being aware of where things are in a process is helpful in accomplishing a goal. But even after being successful as a planner, I knew that being so controlling of outcomes had a downside. Even though I had an answer for everything, but I wouldn't have called myself the happiest person in the world. I couldn't schedule Mr. Right to come into my life. Nor could I plan for anything truly visionary.

Entrepreneurial Sin #2: Postponing Joy

I met with a mentor of mine who founded a firm 20 years ago, and is now enjoying the fruits of her prodigious labor as a chairman, but no longer a manager, of her company.

"I'm making up for it now in my 50s," she said. But I wish I'd done things differently. My company almost ended my marriage and permanently affected my relationship with my daughter."

She'd started her business with a young child in tow. Twenty years later, she was still working on revitalizing the relationships that fell to the wayside. She was also making up for the physical damage of years of no exercise and unwholesome eating--she never had time to prepare meals or take care of herself.

Now, many pounds leaner and with ample free time to travel and take classes, she seems younger than me, certainly lighter physically and mentally.

I had to ask her, "What can I do now to prevent that from happening? How do I achieve more balance?"

A new gig: Blogging for Fast Company

Just when I thought that I couldn't possibly fit in another blogging opportunity my favorite mag asks me to blog for them. I wrote for the print version of Fast Company last year about, among other things, blogging and distributed work. Now looky, I get to walk my talk. Thanks to FC Online editor Lynne D. Johnson for the opportunity.

In case you are wondering, I'll be writing about the changing work environment and women in the workplace. Sometimes these topics will be mutually exclusive, sometimes not. Relax, I'll save the TMI for Pause.

A Reality Check for Female Entrepreneurs

My post on BlogHer about a women entrepreneur who makes my obstacles seem like boogers in comparison.

Tag! I'm it!: Five things you never knew--or wanted to know--about me

Blog buddies Chris Owen, Dan Oestreich, Todd Sattersten, and Kirsten Osolind have called me out, and now it's time to get off my butt and offer up the goods. But seriously, what HAVEN'T I told y'alls about me? I almost feel like I should post my resume, since I rarely speak of what I actually DO for a living. But then, this blog is often a respite from all of that, and perhaps it should stay that way.

So, in no order of importance, here are five things few people know about me.

The Unemployed Woman's Guide to Enjoying the Holidays

This week's post on BlogHer: I wrote this after reading some great advice for people searching for jobs over the holidays. Time seems to stand still for these people at this time. I know, because I was one of them.

Entrepreneurial Sin #1: Assume the world will end when you stop working

I have a lot to say about the Entrepreneurial life, I realize. Including what NOT to do. I'm particularly expert at that. This is part I of a series on Entrepreneurial sins. As with all of my series, I make no claims regarding how many installments this one will have. Enjoy the ride, however long it lasts...

I've always found that the most introspective periods of my life have occurred when I've had time for them. Back in 2002, when the start-up I worked at went under, and I had nearly a year of "consulting" and thumb twiddling, I read stacks of self-help books, wrote a book, meditated and went on long walks that ended with me grokking something new about myself.

Intermittently in early 2005, when I quit my job to take on meaningful work (without knowing what that was), and before BlogHer, I had days that were fully open to me for nothing else but writing and jotting down inspirations.

But lately I've been in a distressed state. I've never been busier than I am now, and yet I'm equally introspective, and the two are duking it out for supremacy in a death match that's begun to eak its way into my consciousness. The first signs were small meltdowns, pissiness, and then moments of downright despair over the course of my life. I had a few months when I could blame it on planning a wedding, but now I don't have any excuses. Friends would ask, how's business? And the answer is always the same, "Fine." And it's true. But ask me, "How are YOU," and the answer is "Confused."

It's Not Just You: Exploring the causes of worker burnout

My latest on BlogHer.org about a fascinating study that implicates the workplace as being at least as responsible, if not more so, than the employee for worker burnout.

The Paradox of Greatness (part I): The lessons Rocky teaches about maintaining the edge

Basic cable has been a dangerous thing. H-band and I have fallen into the habit of browsing channels and getting stuck on watching old movies: Police Academy, Apocalypse now, the Highlander series...

I could have sworn that we'd caught enough of the Rocky series on Spike TV to have accounted for having seen the entire thing once, but H-band insisted on watching the original Rocky again. I must admit, I watched it with renewed eyes.

Somehow that film clarifies for me what I suspect to be a common mistake by anyone who has achieved greatness and later fails. Think of fallen celebrities, tarnished brands, start-ups in sophomore slumps; all of these failed to distinguish what the future would look like on its creator's own terms. The originators shut off their instincts and stopped listening to their visionary side. All took their authentic, "climbing" periods as a temporary means to an end only identified by being richer, easier, or more accepted, but not better.