Category Archives: Entrepreneurism
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Financial Details Drain Me … And I’ll Be on CNBC Talking Money Thursday
Spent the entire morning so with the COO/Executive Vice President of the Family Wealth Planning Institute Laura Lee Sparks and our bookkeeper.
Here’s what’s weird. I help other people take control of their financial future and yet doing it for myself and my business is completely draining.
I’m more of a big picture person. The nitty gritty details of where this $1.08 was spent or that $252 came from is more detail than I have the attention and patience for. And yet, it’s critically important.
What This Blog Was Supposed to Be About … The Ups and the Downs
One of my favorite online gals, Patricia Handschiegel, posted today that her blog would become an online documentary chronicling her quest to become the next big thing. That’s what this blog was supposed to be.
But then I got scared and didn’t do it.
What if I wrote something and a TV producer saw it and decided I wasn’t a good fit because of what I wrote? Or, what if I was going out for investment money and potential investors saw my posts and thought I was weak? What if one of the lawyers considering becoming a Personal Family Lawyer saw that I’m not perfect and I get scared too and then didn’t join?
BlogHer Day 1 Redux – Baby Spot, Savvy Auntie, Overwhelm …
The first day of BlogHer is officially over and while I’m tempted to get out of bed and head out to a bar around the corner from the hotel to meet up with a whole bunch of cool people I’d really like to meet, I’m not going to do it.
Instead, I’m going to recap my day and what I need to not forget to do after leaving here.
As with all conferences, I am reminded that the conference sessions themselves are generally not the best part of the conference. It’s all about who you meet in the hallway.
BlogHer Session #1 – Truth/Taxes/Your Business
So, I did end up missing breakfast, the welcome session and the ice breaker.
We were staying at a different hotel last night and had to switch over to the Westin St. Francis where BlogHer is being held this morning. So no ice breaker for me. You’ll have to hear from someone else about that.
The first session I am attending is the What We Do: Taking Care of Business with @taxgirl (Kelly Phillips Erb), @linseykrolik (Linsey Krolik), and @mommyceo (Sabrina Parsons).
A single mom … after being divorced for three years
I moved out of my marital family and into my own apartment three years ago. Independence Day 2005. It truly was in so many ways.
But, until now, I haven’t truly been a single mom.
One week out of every two, I was a single mom. The other, I was a young woman, business owner, entrepreneur, with no children.
For the week they were with their dad, I was free. And yet, I was in far more bondage then, than I am today, or that I even knew. Becoming a full time single mom has brought me a freedom that was not fathomable to me when I had two weeks out of every month free.
What Will My Children Think?
As all my personal dreams come true, I’ve spent hours mulling over the impact on my kids. How will they interpret their childhood when they reflect upon this time?
Will they appreciate my decisions and be aware of how many I’ve made with them in mind? Or will they find fault and condemn me for my focus on my business?
I’m reading the new Augusten Burroughs book, “A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father” and I’m aware of both how great my kids have it and yet how they could oh so easily believe themselves deprived. Do I have any influence?
How Did I Make the Business Leap?
Many of you have asked me how I went from being a lawyer to now living my dream and fulfilling my passion of coaching other lawyers, about to release my first book, and the founder of a national company that will change the way lawyers think and the way the American public thinks about lawyers.
It was not an easy journey, that’s for sure.
I spent a lot of money and wasted a lot of time hiring a number of false prophets, experts, consultants … you name it, each one promised me they could teach me the secret of taking my business and my life to the next level.
Raw honesty … it’s really scary
I find myself struggling with how much to share here and how much to hold back as I am experiencing one of the most exhilarating, frightening, mind-blowing, fearful times of my life. It feels a little like giving birth in public. I’m letting go of a safety net that is really, really safe and stepping off into the great unknown.
I have truly stopped taking on any new clients in my law firm so I can focus my entire attention on training other lawyers on how to be a true Personal Family Lawyer, promoting my first book, writing my next book, twittering, preparing for my Better TV segments, lining up strategic alliances and otherwise building the Family Wealth Planning Institute so I can change the way lawyers think and the way you think about lawyers.
She Was 9 Months Pregnant …
Last week I had one of the most difficult days of my life.
I found out that a woman who has been working with me for the past three years was stealing from me, disclosing confidential company information to competitors, and bad mouthing me. This was a woman who started with me as a $12/hour employee and worked her way up into the role of a $4,000/mo. Contractor who I was coaching into her own business that could have had limitless potential.
Ouch.
And, despite all that, i agonized over the decision as to whether to fire her because she’s 9 months pregnant.
