Life and Latte's

Last Stretch of the Pregnancy . . .

I am finally onto the home stretch with the pregnancy. I am just over 36 weeks pregnant, and for the first time, am really feeling the extent of it. I have been blessed with an amazing pregnancy. It has been easy, and I have maintained a good level of fitness, and been very careful with my diet. However. I am now feeling wiped out. I am finding it really difficult to focus on the work that I need to get done each day, and feeling incredibly stressed out at the same time as I know that I should be doing more work in anticipation to Isobella arriving. I need to be selling my product into more stores, I need to be focusing on getting us marketed well, I need to be getting the house in shape, I need to be taking care of myself, I need to be looking after my wonderful fiance, I need to be focusing on getting us positioned well in the market. And I just can't. I am sitting here, flat out pooped, wanting to cry (which seems to be a constant right now = damn hormones), and looking forward to napping after I have made lunch.

I just am feeling frustrated. I know that I need to be getting stuff done, and I know that I am often not the best at working as hard as I should, and I want to kick myself now for not doing it when I in fact had the energy to pump into it. GRR! I sincerely hope that a nap this afternoon helps. I need to be getting tasks completed. I need to be making sales. God I wish I could drink a venti latte right about now, with a hint of vanilla. Maybe make that two, and could I have brownie while Im at it?

Pregnant and Sexy ?!

You'd think with increased weight gain, no control over the size of your stomach, swollen breasts, and always feeling 10 degrees too damn hot - your confidence would take a bit of a bash.  Truth be told, pregnancy has done nothing but work wonders for my confidence.  I love every little bit of me.  Round bum, very round tummy, and super curvy everything else.  I have a new found respect for my body and its capabilities and for me as a person.  I'm more at ease with who I am, and a lot more proud of me as a person.  I am more aware of my strengths, and have even discovered what I believe to be my life's purpose - Empowering and Inspiring Women.  I can only hope that each women gets to feel as much happiness and emotional gain as I have felt in at least some part of their lives. 

One down aspect to the pregnancy, is a mans complete lack of understanding for what is going on.  The most recent comment I received from a male friend was "Pregnancy is a time when you realize just how much of a machine a womens body is".  The comment was not hurtful or prodding, but it truly struck me at just how different the experience is between the sexes.  Men don't get it.  In fact its like the opposite kicks in.  They find us ten times less sexy (which is such a pity from my view, as I feel like a Ferrari in my body is just waiting to be taken out onto the race track, or the more common analogy of I feel like an absolute tiger!), even though we feel so incredible about our bodies and selves.   The best explanation I have heard about this as yet is that men are so accustomed to the vision of sexy being a scantily clad toothpick woman, and that as we develop into this "machine" we are more associated as a motherly figure than the sex kittens we feel like inside!  PITY!!

I guess to take out from this something amazing is the following:  A woman's confidence after pregnancy must be even more phenomenal if you take care of yourself and get back to your normal figure.  Not only do you gain an immense appreciation for your body, but intense feeling of self worth.  I myself am stoked at the thought of my old clothes, with the essentially new me.  I not only gain the most precious thing in my life - my little daughter, but I gain a new and improved me.

Simple Pleasures

Each morning, my fiance, Bill, and I have coffee in bed together.  Sometimes we don't say much at all, and indulge in a few more pages of whichever book we are each reading, and sometimes we have the most amazing conversations.  Either way, this time of my day is some of my most treasured.  Not only do we have the opportunity to clear the air if we need to talk about something difficult, but we get to talk about anything.  Politics, life, our little girl on the way, the house, finances, family, successes, failures, health.  These talks have helped me grow, and I didn't realize exactly by how much until this morning.

Yesterday, we left the bedroom in agreement that each of us would spend 30 minutes thinking and writing about our dreams.  I did so, and at the time of doing it, I didn't realize the significance of some of what I wrote down would have.  I did uncover a few aspects about myself that I found impressive, and I was very happy to have done it, as it clarified some of the goals that I had been trying to pin down.  However, not until our talk this morning did I realize its full impact.  Today, the topic of having a Life Mission came up.  We discussed how it is so easy to sometimes become immersed in the goals we set for ourselves, but how we can get lost in them as we are not working towards and for our Life Mission.  As we spoke further my mind drifted to my 30 minute dreaming session, and a lightbulb went off inside.  It was my "AH HA!" moment.  One of my dreams was - I want to inspire women.  I want to inspire creativity, and I want to inspire a sense of self awareness and love, and I want to inspire them to acheive their dreams.  At the time, I did not recognize that what I had just written was not just a dream.  But it was what I wanted to be my life's mission.  The interesting part of identifying this as my mission, was that everything else suddenly aligned more easily.  I recognized the significance of me wanting to teach classes.  I recognized the significance that I want my company to have.  Most importantly I uncovered some of the center of my soul. 

Its so interesting.  For the last year I have flailed around in trying to reach this goal of creating a cosmetics company.  I knew that it was important to me, and that it would mean an excellent source of income if I could do it, but it held very little substance for me.  I could never place my finger on it.  As a result I truly battled in becoming inspired about doing it, and as a result it never fully came into fruition.  I thought that "creating a cosmetics company" was my life's purpose.  It wasn't and isn't.  I think that it is easy to make this mistake.  Many many people do.  We become trapped in ego driven goals that we mistake for our Life's Mission.  I will tell you what though.  Having identified my purpose, suddenly the other parts of my life that I was having trouble with seemed to have healed themselves. This does not mean that I am abandoning the creation of a company and a cosmetics company.  What it means is that the creation of these company's now has a goal.  They each have a purpose to serve in assisting me in following my life purpose.  This gives my work a new sense of life and luster that it never held before.  I am not just waking up each morning to work.  I am waking up each morning and following my dream.

   

Baby Products - Safe for you little one?

Johnson's has become a standard in household products for most Americans and their babies.  I mean who here has not washed their childs hair with Johnson's baby shampoo?  We are all "suckers" for that baby smell, and some of us go as far as washing our own hair with it for a mild indulgence. 

But what are we really getting in that sweet smelling bottle?   And not only the shampoos, what about the baby wash, the lotion that we religiously put on their soft skin every day, and even the diaper rash cream?  Truth be told, even if we did read the ingredient labels, would we really understand them in their entirety?  Probably not.  Labels are littered with words that most of us can barely pronounce aloud.  So let me say this when it comes to the products that line the baby isles enticing us to make our baby's smell cute.  The products are shocking!  Would you really put skin irritants, hormone inducers, cell destroyers, DNA changers, and carcinogens (cancer causing agents) onto your darling?  Probably not.  However, this is what almost every product contains.

So what can you do?  Well, you have two options.  Either you start being a savvy shopper, and you research the products that you buy for your baby.  The prices are higher for the organic options, but at least you can feel great about your choice and what your baby is consuming.  If these prices scare you.  Fear not.  Making these products at home is really not as hard as it seems.  There might even be classes in your area teaching you just this - How to make beauty products at home from ingredients in your kitchen and garden.  I am very excited to say too that I will be offering classes like this in Boulder, CO.  Making your own products is rewarding, and gives you an immense sense of safety, responsibility and pride.  You get to choose how it smells, you get to pick the ingredients and essentially the functions of each product.  And most importantly you are keeping your baby free of some incredibly unsafe chemicals.  This extends to you too.  We are often so careful with our children, and yet do not apply the same respect to ourselves.  We all deserve to be loved and cared for.  Looking after yourself and your children, by making responsible choices in what you are putting on your skin is incredibly important.  Everything put onto our skin is absorbed straight into your body and blood supply and thus reaches every part of you.  Your brain, your stomach, your heart.  Everything.  So, be responsible!

This is not meant to scare you.  Just make you aware, and hopefully steer you in a direction towards health (and safety!!). 

Real Kicker

Trying not to be negative when you are feeling very pressed to earn money is terribly difficult. I do my best each day to be in a positive mood, and to be in a mindset that will manifest my companies growth and my personal growth. I have been successful thus far, and I feel like I am taking good and positive steps towards this. I have not managed to manifest any money as yet, but I have trusted that it will come, and that I am making the right choices to help myself get there.

This morning placed stress on me however, as I realized that we have a lot of extra expenses this month. It set me into a bit of a frenzy. I feel angry that my work is not producing the results that I have been working so hard in believing in, and I have just not manifested enough extra money for my fiance and I. I just honestly felt slightly like a failure. I am doing my best to wipe this mood, as I know that it is not helping, and that success takes incredibly hard work. To achieve my dreams, it takes sacrifice and failure and most importantly the gumption to bounce back and move forward with even more steam.

It is a tough lesson learning to understand that failure is an essential part of success. To succeed greatly, we need to fail even more greatly.

So I sit here this morning, fighting against my instinct to just bury my head like an ostrich. I am doing my best to reset, and allow the motivation to flow back into me. Allow myself to find the strength that I know that I have deep inside that I have just not tapped into yet. I truly believe that I have this inner core that burns with desire, and I have barely scratched the surface at beginning to release with. I am having a frustrating morning. So be it. Who doesn't have those. I need to find my strength and prove my worth, and move forward without any self doubt.

I will end with a quote from Napoleon Hill:

“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.”

Here is to plans anew!!

Joining

Starting out 9 months ago, it would have done me a lot of good to take a few business classes, join a few networking groups, and just in general immerse myself within the terrifying world I was about to throw myself into... *Gasp* ... The business world! I denied it however, and failed at getting a good start to my company. No. Wait. Found a way NOT to succeed in building my business.

Lately, I have taken it on. I have enrolled in my first business class. I have set up a meeting with the counselor at the local Small Business Development Center. I have joined a couple of networking groups, and I am doing the reading that I need to do to improve myself and my business savvy. The really interesting outcome of all of this has been the positivity that has started to shine through in me. Suddenly the friends that I have in the business world are offering me help. A friend of my fiancé's shared priceless information and contacts with me in the cycling industry. The counseling at the business center is free, and always has been, I just never cared to look. I am meeting with an amazing woman in the cycling industry this week in an effort to work with her company, and possibly volunteer with the Junior Cyclists that she works with. And most importantly, I seem to be getting more work done now in the company than I have in the past despite the fact that my schedule is suddenly twice as full. It's just a strange turn around of events.

In a way, I have begun to understand the basics of the "Law of Attraction". I know, I know, SO CLICHE! But in all honesty - its the truth. I focused good energy into my business, and took it seriously, and all these people around me seemed to align with my intentions and want to help me out. And they have. Immensely. I am now very excited about the prospect of where my business could go.

The lesson that I should learn here is simple I suppose. Keep the smile plastered on my face. Keep working my butt off. Keep on with the positive energy and work flow, and life will continue to work with instead of against me :-)

Starting from Scratch 9 months into a company

I started a company about 9 months ago. I was young (I still am), naive, uneducated in business, and hopelessly lost. But I was determined to start my own company. I had read "The 4 Hour Work Week", what else could I need right? It turns out, I needed a whole lot more. To start with I needed to redefine my work attitude. I have been lucky (if you want to call it that) my whole life, in that I have not had to work hard to be good at anything, or get good results. I took the same attitude at the start of this venture. I assumed that with 4 hours a week of work, and fart-assing around, my company would flourish, and the money would come reeling in with just a couple hundred bucks a month of google ads. Man, was I in for a shock. I learnt a hard lesson. I was close to losing everything. My fiance was fed up with my nonchalant attitude, my finances were a wreck (who needs to pay bills, and talk to creditors anyhow?), and I ended up losing a good chunk of my self esteem.

Then I fell pregnant. And something in me changed over the course of the last few months. I realized that life was not going to be all about me anymore, and that I had someone coming into this world who was going to look up to me as their role model. And at this point in my life. I was no role model by any standards. I could hardly cook a good dinner for gods sake, let alone pay my bills on time. And so my life overhaul began.

It started in the kitchen, and it turns out that I am fairly decent at cooking - Score one for the self esteem! And then in paying the bills and I haven't paid one bill late for the last 3 months - Score two for the self esteem! And at present I am focussing on my company. So what am I doing to make this work? I'm learning. A lot. I am going to attend my first business class in a couple of weeks. I have joined 3 networking groups. I have started to push the sales on my products. I have come up with a new idea for the next product I will be undertaking. I have no doubt that I have thousands of mistakes to still make. But, Im working hard right now. A new experience. Im excited about my future. Im excited that my little girl will get to have a mom and a dad who both started their own companies. Im excited about being a good role model. Im just plain excited. Its a good place to be.

So I hope you enjoy my posts here about my life as an entrepreneur, a mother, and a fiance.