On Wednesday of this week, I’ll be going in for my Fresh Boobs (which is what Luke calls my bilateral mastectomy + reconstruction surgery). It was supposed to be on May 30th, but I got a call last week that said, “We’re moving it up!” I didn’t even know that could happen, but I did the rescheduling dance with some calls and clients, cleared my schedule almost completely, and freaked a bit about How Much There Is To Do and All The Loose Ends That Need To Be Tied Up. But really? After coordinating with my Virtual Wizard, Arwyn – who’s taking over loading blog posts and newsletter content, thankyoubabyJesus – I took a look at What Had To Get Done and, really, it’s writing newsletters and blog posts in advance. And when I look at it from afar, if there are 2 blog posts that go up one week instead of 3, will it really matter? And if I miss a week with the newsletter…will I have to go back to Corporate America? No. No I won’t.
What’s important, then? Taking care. Letting go. Getting better. Feeling good. Trusting my support system. Over the next few weeks, that’s my main job.
I won’t lie about being really scared of this huge surgery I’m having (I’ll be under for something like 4 hours) – enough so that I’ve had to take anti-anxiety meds to fall asleep lately – and all the pain I figure I’m gonna be in (enough that they’re gonna give me an epidural pre-surgery to keep it at a minimum when I wake up. Blech!). As you might imagine, I’m not so great with being the patient, or feeling out of control, or, um, having a high threshold for pain (which is why the tattoo I’ve wanted since I was 16 has yet to grace my body)…so this is Big Time Scary, you guys. And no, I don’t have it in me to write a ukulele song about it (yet). Read the rest of this entry »
While New Kids on the Block and Jonathan Brandis posters hung on my walls as teenager (to be replaced by generic hot guys featured in Jane), I was a total Gleek. My room would often fill with the music of Stephen Sondheim (my Mom was once shocked that the majority of her friends didn’t know who he was. Shocked!), the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Miss Saigon (yes, my mother had to overnight me a new copy of the double cassette to summer camp because I worn mine out playing it over and over and over (and over!) again), the belt of Patti LuPone (she’s more than Corky’s Mom from Life Goes On, ya know). I went from dance class to singing lesson to to acting class to rehearsal to audition, until I enrolled in a Fame!-like school for half the day my junior and senior years of high school, getting to drop science and gym (oh, the sweetness!). I applied to 8 universities and cancelled my auditions to 6 of them when I got into NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in December of my senior year. “This is it! This is my ticket to Broadway!”, I remember thinking/feeling. I was on a one-way train and I couldn’t have been happier.
16 (!!!!) years later , here’s 10 Things I Wish I Knew (in no particular order)
(Click on the art to be taken to the Etsy listing!):
Have you ever felt stuck and overwhelmed and scared, gone to get advice as to what to do next in your life or career, and…
…it wasn’t the right advice (But the last thing I’d wanna be is a lawyer! Blech!)
…the person who gave it to you had no clue how to relate to a creative person like you? (“I can make a full-time living as a designer, Ma – I know people that can prove it!”)
…it wasn’t aligned with your values and priorities in any way, shape, or form? (I could care less about having stock options!)Read the rest of this entry »
Last May, I appeared on The Career Clinic with Maureen Anderson, a national live radio show that’s also distributed as a podcast. When Maureen heard about all the boobs*** I’ve been going to, she sweetly and gingerly asked me if I’d want to talk about it back on her show. Of course, me being the open book that I am, I responded emphatically with a great big, “Of course!”
Click here to listen to my 39 minutes on managing a health crisis, and feel free to download it to listen on-the-go. I really open up here as to:
why I decided to tell The World about my boob cancer (and how my ukulele ditty came to be)
how I’m remaining in control (work-wise and personally)
what I do to keep my spirits up as best as I can
my prescription for getting better (medically and otherwise)
what happens when you make yourself vulnerable
how my 2012 plans have really changed (and the disappointment that has come with it)
why I still consider myself a very lucky lady despite all the cancer stuff
While I’m not necessarily planning on keeping up with a video in my I Quit My Day Job series now that I’m past the 2 yr mark (it still knocks me over!), I felt call to make one today (today being Monday the 16th. Yes, I’m a scheduler – especially this week!). I was, however, called to do a video right now because (a) I know you might be worried about me & wanna show you how OK I am and (b) it sounds delusional, but when I record a video for you guys it’s like I see you and can talk to you, and I really wanted to see you/talk to you right now. Awwwww/don’t cart me off to the loony bin.
Oh! And it’s worth noting that I recorded this on Monday night. I’m probably sitting on the couch watching as much of Friday Night Lights as I can handle, so while I’m probably not feeling as good as I come off here, I don’t think I’m doing too bad neither.
So, click below to find out:
what my upcoming surgery means to my business (it’ll be mid-May, although I don’t have exact dates yet)
what my husband tells me I’m not
my mantra for the next month
who’s gonna help me
what I’m looking to learn (yes, there’s still stuff to learn, alwaysalwaysalways!) and how I’ve already been tackling it with some A+ help
I’ve been hopping & bopping all over The Interwebs lately & have yet to tell you guys about it! (slaps wrist) Here’s where I’ve had the pleasure of visiting:
Rachel Cole (my entrepreneuriversary twin, practically!) interviewed me for her The Well-Fed Woman series, and I got to share my cravings – both figuratively and literally! Super yummy.
Manohmanohmanohman. When I saw my Inbox fill up with info about the 2012 Etsy Success Symposium, I did two things almost simultaneously: First, I went, “Ohmygosh already?! How is that possible?!” Second, I ran to my calendar (and by “ran” I mean “clicked”, but I did it super fast, you guys) to see if I’d be free to go. Last year’s Symposium rocked my world (and gave me the after affect emotion of tears-and-gratitude, which is the sweetest place to be in), and while I didn’t trust that I’d feel well enough to make an in-person appearance (my last schmemo was Tue, and usually by Fri I have a case of the Big-Time Tireds), I RSVPd to the Online Labs with the hope I’d be able to plop myself in front of the computer for a workshop or four.
So the point of this post is not only to tell you that The Etsy Success Symposium Is Always Amazeballs And You Have No Excuse To Miss It Since It Streams Online So Mark Your Calendars for Tomorrow And Get All The Info Here , but also to reflect/celebrate/expand on one of the major highlights of 2011 for me: being a speaker at the 2011 symposium. I look back at my workshop, Ascertaining Your Awesomeness & Articulating It Without Sounding Like an Ass, and still beam: it’s something I still wanna preach to the choir, something I still think could help those now who are looking to craft their mission statements/ elevator pitches/ manifestos (if that’s you, watch the recording above & grab everything that went with it right here – it’s time well spent, I promise!), something that I still base my workshops around both in subject matter (my next one’ll be Unveiling Your Uniquity (& How the Heck to Apply It to You Passionate Career)) and presentation style (I tell stories and give my a-has/takeaways, then ask questions and make ya answer ‘em on the spot, then leave ya with a bit of homework). I’m still new to speaking and know I won’t be able to do more ’til next year, but I’m proud of myself for creating virtual workshops so I can still workshop-it-up at home.
I’m dying to know …if you worked through my workshop last year (or have done it since then), did it help you, um, ascertain your awesomeness & articulate it without sounding like an ass? What stuck? What’s changed since then? Do you go over your mission statements/ elevator pitches/ manifestos semi-regularly to see if it’s still applicable to your goals/business? How do you still need help in discovering your uniquity and/or being able to talk to people about how amazeballs you are without feeling like a slimy salesman? Please leave a comment & give it to me straight. I wanna hear (and help)!
In keeping with the you’re-not-alone-if-you’re-an-entrepreneur theme o’ the week, allow me to introduce you to The People That Help Me Do It All. Like yesterday’s Products/Platforms That Help Me Do It All, this is the same post from last April, but updated with new peeps I’ve grown to love. Hope they’ll go to the sock hop with me.
Thank the Heavens Above for my husband working in advertising with the one and only Bekky Pollock. He recommended her to me when I was looking to have a super-professional-yet-playfully-fun site in the summer of 2009, still a full-time Corporate America drone but a recent life coaching certificate grad. Having a website I could be proud of was one of the ways I knew I could leave my job effectively, and Bekky delivered it painlessly, easily, and in a way that makes me look reeeeeeal good. Read the rest of this entry »
I actually ran the bulk of this post last April, so while some of ya may be experiencing dejavu with it, know that (a) I only included the products I’m still in love with and (b) I updated it to include the things I’ve falled in love with since then! Oh, and some of the links are affiliate ones, but for serious, I wouldn’t put the hooplah around it unless I’ve used it for myself and wanna marry it. Don’t tell my husband.
For CRM (Customer Relations Management): Batchblue
I’ve used SalesForce in my Corporate America life, and hated the unprettiness/ clutteredness/ textbasedness of it all (although it looks like they’ve updated it since). Thankfully, I found BatchBlue early in the game and used their basic plan ($9.95/month) for over a year before adding my Virtual Assistant to my mix and throwing ‘em an extra $10/month, happily. The most amazeballs thing about Batchblue is their super-sophisticated social media integrations. If you have a name and an email address, you can click the Search Social Network button and have Batchblue find their Twitter account, Facebook profile, Flickr username and LinkedIn profile, which you can then add to that contact’s Social Media tag. You can also add RSS feeds for, well, anything (I set ones up for blogs, Etsy and Pinterest) – so that person’s latest tweets and posts and pins and pics are all within their entry. It’s also really easy to attach files, create To Dos and Events (that sync with your calendar), run reports for whatever you find important (i.e. I have one that tells me how many consultation calls end up signing on as clients), create web forms that then sync with the contact’s info, and keep track of Deals. And seriously, the company is generally awesome. They not only send me goodies all the time, but the donated to my boob cancer walk!
Wanna be a sponsor? Shoot me an email at michelle@whenigrowupcoach.com and I'll shoot ya the info! Figuratively, of course.
KNOW WHO I FOLLOW!
BLOG BADGE to BESTOW onto your BEAUTIFUL BLOG
CREATIVE COMMONS
Basically, what this means is that everything I write is my own property (duh), but you can use it on your blog or in your newsletter or as skywriting as long as you don't change nothin' & you add the following : "Michelle Ward, aka The When I Grow Up Coach, helps creative people devise the career they think they can't have - or discover it to begin with! A certified life coach by the International Coach Academy, a musical theater actress with her BFA from NYU/Tisch, and a Corporate America escapee, Michelle has served as an expert source and contributor for such outlets as Newsweek, Forbes, and Psychology Today, as well as leading workshops and seminars at SXSW 2011 and the sold-out Etsy Success Symposium. She could be found coachin', bloggin' & givin' away free stuff at whenigrowupcoach.com."
