Remabulous

Ask Remabulous: How do I do what I love and stay in balance?

This week's question is one I think many of us consider as we pursue passionate work. Many of us spend a lot of time stressing about the long term outcome of working in jobs we don't love, but what about the balance we need to hold onto when we are pursuing what we love.

Here's this week's question:

"Dear Ask Remabulous,

I've been thinking about the colors of my life. There are so many things I want to do and try. I am making it a priority to surround myself with things that make me happy. But how can I make sure I don't go overboard?

I am scared that if I pursue everything it will suddenly be too much of a good thing. I'm not wanting to overload my life with too much STUFF. Even if all this new excitement and experimentation makes me happy, I worry that I'll end up losing sight of the simple pleasures.

I want there to be balance while I am expanding into a new and better life. I want to be healthy, while not knowing where life is headed at the same time!

How do I make choices that reflect my joy in new options and committing to my passion, while still having a life that isn't nuts. I guess that's what it all boils down to.

Thank you,

Wanting to climb all the beautiful mountains at once

Dear Mountains,

Thank you for this question! This is a topic we haven't really covered yet, that of taking care of yourself once you do follow your passion, and I am so happy to address it...

image: cessna 206

Ask Remabulous: The mysterious world of PR.

This week's question is one that I didn't even know needed to be asked until i got the answer. I met with magician Public Relations expert, Lisa Elia of www.ClearPublicist.com. She is really a gem.

During the course of our conversation, she mentioned that many people don't know what PR is, really. I discovered that I, too, was in the majority by thinking PR is simply press releases and interfacing with the press. Wrong.

So this week's question is:

What is PR anyway?

Thanks to Lisa, I now know the answer.

Ask Remabulous Earth Day: 6 Tips for a greener home office!

For this week's Ask Remabulous Column, I turned to my friend Lisa Tholen, founder of Greener By Design. As a LEED AP, Green Coach, and Sustainability Consultant, Lisa advises on a wide range of activities including LEED building certification, sustainability education sessions, green janitorial, recycling and waste reduction, eco audits, energy conservation, green team facilitation, and green moves and furniture installations.

I know we all want to do our part on Earth Day (and every day) so I asked Lisa what we creative people- many of whom work from home- can do to green up our workspaces.

Here are her 6 Tips For a Greener Home Office:

1.     1. Buy office products with the highest post consumer recycled content possible, and bleached without chlorine bleach.  Copy paper, note pads, file folders, letterhead, paper towels, napkins, toner cartridges, etc.  Search on “recycled” when placing your office supplies order.

2.     2. Narrow the default margins on your documents and print on both sides of the page.  Use mistakes for scratch paper.

3   3.  Turn off all office equipment and computers at night, or ensure that they go into energy saving sleep mode.  Make sure you turn off both the monitor and the system unit on your computer.  Only leave them on if necessary for backup purposes.

4.    4. Switch to compact fluorescent lighting (CFL) if you haven’t already.  CFL’s last much longer and use far less electricity than standard incandescent bulbs.  Home Depot and IKEA have a wide variety of shapes, base sizes, and color temperatures to meet your needs - including dimmable!  Both also take them back for recycling when they burn out in 5 or 10 years.

5.    5. When it comes time to replace office equipment, look for the Energy Star® label, which indicates equipment that is more efficient, costing you less money in the long run.

6.   6. Garbage in – garbage out.  Buy less stuff!  Do you really need that gadget?  Buy things with the least amount of packaging so that there is less to dispose of.

     Thank you so much for sharing, Lisa!  Lisa does consultations for business owners, so if you're looking to get a more specialized consultation, contact her! Her expertise has helped businesses not only go greener, but save lots of money in energy costs as well. 

     Lisa Tholen is a LEED® accredited professional with more than 15 years of experience in Sustainability, Facilities Management, Project Management, and the Design Industry.  LEED®, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the Green Building Rating System developed by the U.S. Green Building Council, is a voluntary, consensus-based, market-driven building rating system based on existing proven technology.  Becoming a LEED® accredited professional demonstrates a knowledge and understanding of green building practices and technologies.

On love and fear and writing.

I bow to the writers this week to answer the questions we might have about being creative people.

Many thanks to Gwen Bell for finding this video and sharing it a fantastic recent post on the creative process. It was too good and funny and sweet not to share. And whether you are a fan of Eat, Pray, Love or not, author Elizabeth Gilbert has wonderful things to say about writing and the process of putting yourself out there as a creative person.

I am loving the theme of writing this week! Let's take Elizabeth's words to heart and try to be artists who embrace joy instead of anguish in the creative process and how we keep going in the face of challenge, failure, or even a huge success. Enjoy.

Ask Remabulous and Edan Lepucki!

We're all about Edan Lepucki and Writing Workshops LA here at Remabulous this week. We just had a fantastic first call of the Reclaiming the Road Not Taken Teleseminar series with Edan as our guest. Callers had a chance to talk about the writing process and to ask questions about projects they are working on or that they have always dreamed of working on. It was a blast!

Last week, when I promoted the giveaway of Nicki Richesin's book, the winning question was about the writing process. This question seemed perfect for the giveaway, as it was for a collection of essays and as we were going to have a writing teacher on the call this week.

Congratulations to Fran West of Pruning Matters, who asked the following question:

"Dear Ask Remabulous,

For my business, I often have to write. I have been successful with my writing: I've had a number of articles published and always get great feedback. The problem is with the process. I find that I agonize over every little word and have a difficult time coming up with something I am satisfied with. This level of intensity is ok for print articles, I guess, but I tried writing a blog and a newsletter and found it was just too exhausting to kee them up.

Help! Wat do you suggest?

Fran"

This week, Fran is not only the winner of the book, she also gets to hear my answer to her question as well as Edan's... Here is what we had to suggest:

image: Eleaf.

My Ask Remabulous question: How do I stay motivated for a long-term project?

 
Yesterday, I met with my writing teacher Edan. I have been working on a novel for about two years- on and off- and for the past couple of months I have been in my second writing class working on completing it.

"I think it's time for you to have a complete first draft. By July 1st so you can revise before the fall," she said.

I know she's right, but the enormity of making this big book into just one draft is pretty intimidating.

"So how do I do that?"

Edan is a great teacher in that she gives precise feedback, is very supportive and excited about the projects we are each working on and she doesn't pull any punches when you need to get punched.

"What is this sentence?" she asked in a recent critique, holding up my draft and then proceeding the read the offending sentence out loud to the group. I ended up under my coat. I think I had used the same word five times in the long and meandering mess. In my defense, I had been on vicodin for my throat while I was doing this particular revision.

But I digress. This is a project I have had on my plate since November of 2007. I have done research, rewritten and put it through National Novel Writing month twice.

Here's what she told me to do:

PS- Edan will be a guest on the Remabulous Road Not Taken teleseminar this month.... sign up now to get your own great feedback from a real live professional writer!

Ask Remabulous: Ask Remabulous is asking you!

For the past several months on most Wednesdays, I have answered a reader question for Ask Remabulous.

But today, I am mixing it up! I want to know what you are doing to economize that feels empowering, exciting, and innovative.

This is a time for us to come together, share what we know and what we've learned. I've got two more days this week of what I am doing for my world of budgeting and shifting priorities.

What would you say to someone who wanted to cut back in an empowered way? What is your advice to the readers of Ask Remabulous?

I can't wait to learn from you.

Plus, how awesome is it that we can have Rosie the Riveter and Uncle Sam rocking out in the same image?

I couldn't resist.

Go team!

Angela Jia Kim's great 100 things tip!

         I just finished another amazing free Remabulous call. Such an inspiring group on the call today! I've decided to make this week's Ask Remabulous item a general one- we all want to connect with more clients, supportive community and expand our projects, even in a challenging ecomonmy. How do we do that? One person on the call asked this same question today.

The call subject was building vision and then making connections with people in the world outside in order to build that vision along with your business. I found that our conversation on the call lead naturally to some tips I had discovered, the main one coming from the video above.

The vlog came from Angela Jia Kim, who is co-founder of Savor the Success, a great site for entrepreneurs and anyone looking to connect and promote their business.

I loved her tip about 100 things in the video and wanted to share it with everyone on the call. We decided to share 100 ways we could each think of connecting with people around the vision of our current business and project. I think working through coming up with 100 ways to connect with people now is your best bet to expand. Let's all support each other in doing just that.

Please feel free to share your 100 things in the comments below!

Also- there is one more call this week: tomorrow morning at 10am. Please RSVP to [email protected] in order to learn about vision for your business.

Ask Rembulous: We have a winner!

Thanks to winner Krista Kahl who posted her question on the ask Remabulous post yesterday! She will be at the March event this saturday with Gina Ratliffe and David Neagle. I hope she takes good notes, since I will be on vacation.

Here is her question:

"The seed cannot sprout upwards without simultaneously sending roots into the ground," says an ancient Egyptian proverb.
How can I go about balancing and stabilizing my ascension with a downward penetration?

(For example: I am building a career while living in a city I have roots in (here in LA), however, my dream is to live in a different city (SF/Marin) but still have the same career. Why does it feel complicated and far-fetched?)

Thanks.

krista kahl

image: Jess, BeeMouse Labs

Ask Remabulous: Who wants to win a ticket to Gina Ratliffe's event this weekend?

Hi all... I am opening up for the column today by asking you to send in your questions TODAY! The one I pick to write about tonight will get to have my ticket to Gina Ratliffe's event this Saturday 3/7 in Santa Monica... Pretty cool. I will be on vacation this weekend and won't be able to attend the event, but I want someone who reads this site to get to go for free!

Write up a question for me to answer at [email protected] and you may be a winner...