Mastering My Mind
Now that this blog is outlined, sorta, I can finally just start talking about what's going on today as if you’ve been along with me for the entire time since I was born. This is important because I am about to do something different from what I’ve done before because I am freaking serious about extricating myself from my job. Did that sound negative? Not trying to do negative. No. I'm freaking serious about moving on to the next stage of my life, that's all. Better.
This week, I will find out if a match has been found for me in a mastermind group I am trying to join. It’s called Savor Circle and Savor the Success runs it. (I highly recommend them.) This is a networking group I found and joined too many years ago to remember, but when my jigsaw puzzle business was put on hiatus (Remember, I know you don’t know the specifics of some of these things. They will be revealed in time though. Don’t worry.), I decided to stop paying for Savor, or STS as I write it.
I LOVED STS. Adored it. The website was bright and inviting. Angela Jia Kim was buoyant and encouraging. I was able to attend one of their Rock the World events with another entrepreneur friend and I was in heaven on Earth. We both were. This is how I know I belong, my friends. I am so in my element among other entrepreneurs. Rock the World was a creative atmosphere and I didn’t want it to end. So late last year, I remembered my favorite group and went back to visit. My profile was still there, but everything looked different. They had grown. They were doing so much more! It was mesmerizing. I had said to myself not long before I visited the site that I wished I had a mastermind group I could join because I like that kind of accountability. Lo and behold, they have something called Savor Circles. The commitment is 3 months at a time. The cost is about how much I spend on my therapist a month. Plus, I had been thinking it might be time to stop for a bit. This was more important.
I decided to do an exploratory call and found out they have something called Savor 101 for people like me who are just beginning to build a business. That’s it. I had to try. There was an application fee of $149. The therapist cost me $150 an hour. So I put her off one more week and invested in this. If I want something different, I have to do something different, right?
At this point, the interview was a week ago, so now I am waiting to see if there is a match – me with about 3 other ladies in my boat. If there is, Jan. 30th is when it all kicks off. If it doesn’t, I get a refund of the application fee and Plan B goes into effect. Plan B is courtesy of a business coach recommended to me by that phenomenal life coach I mentioned in my list who I met through my exploration of coach training programs. I won’t find out until Jan 27th though so for now the plan is to focus on an editing certificate I signed up to do through Poynter Institute and ACES (American Copy Editors Society). For the sake of my service, I want to make sure my skills are tested and refreshed, and that I can prove it.
Even though I hope this mastermind group pans out, I think I still want something in person. There’s nothing like that personal touch. But I’ll be patient. I am a Sagittarius after all and I really do have a tendency to be impulsive. I will wait it out to see if I still have that drive to start something in person once things get going. I already have plenty on my plate and part of taking care of me is not taking on things unnecessarily.
So at the time that I wrote this (because it's been a minute), the next most pressing thing was the book that Natisha asked me about. Basically she wondered why I wasn’t doing it now. “You can build your business from your book,” she said. Yes. True. But at the time I already had a launch in the works (Done!), a mastermind group on the horizon, an editing certificate to complete, a marketing plan I am trying to develop via the book Get Clients Now! by CJ Hayden, and an article in the works for TueNight.com (Done!). And oh yes, I have a full-time job, a husband, two kids and the freelance work that is already in progress. I think she thinks I am making excuses. Later in life, I might agree. If I didn't have a full-time job that takes me about an hour to and from, then I might even agree right now. But right now, all I see is that I already have a hard time getting through the daily to-do list I created to try to keep balanced all the things that matter to my life (I think I’ll share that list with you in another post.) AND getting to bed by 10:30 in an attempt to get 7 hours of sleep (not quite happening). Frequently I don’t successfully accomplish either. So at this time I don’t hear excuses. I hear me trying to finish what I set out to do this month. But the book? Yes, I do still want to write that book. I do still want to tell the stories I am seeking to tell. But there is this blog. Blogging is writing that I can eventually turn into a book, right? I can tell those stories, but maybe for now I can start with me, an everyday person who is not trying to grow a multi-million-dollar business, but instead use my editing and writing skills, and 24+ years of experience to start my own thing that will make me enough to quit my full-time job, start the coach training I want to do, and still have a life with the pleasures I enjoy, able to give my kids money when they ask – or not – because it won’t be a big deal to do it. Oh and bring Village Works back to life too.
One step at a time.
Jen Sincero is the author of You are a Badass. She was one of those inspirational people I came across umpteen years ago. She had a talk that I attended at a Greenwich library I believe called “Write the Damn Book Already.” I met her. I was inspired. I didn’t write the book. I started it though. It was something.
Recently, I went looking for those old things that inspired me like STS and I also went looking through Audible for new things to “read.” I fed two birds with one seed, as my pastor’s wife would say. I saw Jen had written this new, self-help book and she has a direct but quippy approach that I enjoy. I got it as an audiobook. I’m not sure how many times I’ve listened to it now. Maybe Audible can tell me that. But I am listening and writing notes and planning some things for my website and generally being inspired and motivating myself to think and do better. That is where my head is at this moment.
Let me leave you with a quote of hers that I love. You can do with this quote what you will:
"You have got to get a handle on your thoughts if you want to change your life."
That's the plan, Jen.
