Barbara Brooks created Flamingo Strategies LLC to help clients stand up and stand out, through telling and sharing their stories of impact and purpose.
Hacking Away at Happiness is her blog.
All in Entrepreneurship
Counterintuitive head scratchers thrill me to no end. Why? Surprise activates curiosity, excitement, and wonder. It intensifies our emotions by about 400 percent.
Whether our habit is to blow all our dough on Manolo Blaniks, or stuff it under a mattress, we really can improve our relationship with money.
Even on the days we feel scared or bored or invisible, of this we can be certain: The best years of our lives lie just “over the hill” up ahead.
There can be huge return on quitting (ROQ). But only if we actively commit to something that is of greater value to us.
With aging—as with cooking or any other creative pursuit—we need to master the basics before we can play around. Hooray for us. At 40 and 50+, we are masters!
Our rush to respond—to be answer-ready at all times—is habitual. And we don’t even know we are doing it.
I thought I was a solopreneur, but that’s not true. I think I’m a peoplepreneur.
Having left full-time employment to consult and write, I get to bake the time pie. And I get to slice it up.
My anxiety was palpable when I explained negative cash flow. But when we played Risk Bingo, everything that could go wrong, did.
Typically, contestants prepare and rehearse, but I put my name in the hat anyway. The theme of the night was “Tests,” and I was going in cold.
Downtime—because it's so utterly unfamiliar, can be excruciatingly uncomfortable. It can create stress. But it's also a great gift.
I toggled back and forth, between the moment and the meta. Am I living? Or am I already writing a story in my head? But I also felt glorious moments of calm.
For 2018, what if we resolve to re-solve? And in that process, we soften? We may see that we haven't always been right. We may see that we don’t have all the answers. And we never did.
Delivering on the promises we make to ourselves—no matter how small—is important. I've procrastinated enough. I need this now more than ever.
How can we be 10% truer? 10% more vulnerable? 10% more open? For me, it begins by knowing there IS another 10%.
When we are floundering—especially when we are floundering—how can we find and follow the through line of our lives?
I'm not scared. If I don't earn enough to feed the beast, I will change her diet or find new sources of food. Or both.
Since losing my steady income and free health insurance, I have also lost a lot of stuff. Stuff I didn’t really need and won’t replace. If abundance is such a blessing, why do we fritter it away?
Sadly, managers rarely expect employees to contribute at the level of HABU. Rather, they say, "That's Sally's job," or "Swim in your own lane."
Entrepreneurs launch when they have "minimum viability." So rather than planning or hoping for totality, I begin today with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. That's you! Let me know what you think.
