There are few things I greatly pride myself on in life. But today I can say I have another thing to add to my list of accomplishments. I was the editor for International Best Seller, Mark Villareal's, new book.
The title, Leadership Lessons From Mom, says a lot. He takes great pride in quoting lessons he learned over his life time from his mother. And while doing so, he ties everything together to show applications towards business. I loved the correlations and portrayals of how these lessons came to be told and how they related to situations he encountered later in life. His mother truly had a wonderful mind for business, but great care for her children as well. I enjoyed reading and editing Mark's book. I would suggest this as a must read for Moms, for business women, and those who enjoyed Mark's first book, Shortcuts Get You Lost!
But don't take my opinion. Check it out for yourself. You can read a sample chapter on Amazon. It is available for purchase on Amazon as well as Barnes & Noble.
Today's society has gone down a very crooked and crazy path. Morals are thrown out the window while caution and care are things of the past. We rush through life. We blame others for the shortcomings we face. In the business world, its all about money. Push until they collapse, is the business motto I think my own employer should embrace. Better yet, maybe companies should compile personnel requirements outside of work. Here's what I mean.... I work for a sales company. 8-5, Monday - Friday. Sales is all about money. The more, the merrier. For the owners at least. Doesn't matter how much I bring in to the company as I'm only an administrative assistant to one of their Million Dollar Producers. That life doesn't compliment the personal side of my life. I have 4 kids. Oldest one is 8 years old. His school expects me to read to him every night, do several pages of homework every night, have him read to me, while also getting him to bed by 7:30 PM so he won't be too tired for school the next day. Normally, I get home a little before or right at 6 PM. I have an hour and a half to do the following: Reading (most nights my fiancé has their homework done before I get home) Serve dinner (same as above, my fiancé tries to have dinner made by the time I get home) Cleanup the dinner mess Brush teeth and get everyone bathed Make their lunches/snacks for school the next day (they have to tell me what they want) And a final bedtime story. This is not how it should be. And then I still get notes from the school that my oldest is failing first grade. That I'm not helping him enough. I need to read more and work harder with him at his homework. I'm sorry that the teacher isn't getting these done enough with him while she has him for 8 hours a day, but I also don't have enough time to cram more into him. Besides, by time I get home, he's dead tired and ready to eat and sleep. That's why its a fight to finish his homework. I know I'm not the only parent out there with these issues. More studies are being done that show how this is a failing system. Kids aren't getting time with their parents. If they are like my kids, they probably watch their parents run errands or clean house on the weekends since they had no time during the week to. Studies also show that business people these days are burnt out from 8 hour days at work by the time they reach Wednesday. They also quit at an alarming rate because of the demands from their workplace. Taking time off is considered a hardship on the company and is frowned upon. My employer doesn't allow you to call in on the first, 15th, or last Friday of the month. My supervisor even told me that I needed to avoid taking off Mondays and Fridays. Understandable for business reasons, but it adds stress of trying to fit outside life into those guidelines. Job burn out causes people to stress more, have higher likeliness of illness, depression, and ultimately throwing in the towel. Some companies are seeing that lessening the workweek, say a 4 day workweek, has increased their productivity and overall happiness of their employees. Less vacation and sick days are taken. People have that day to take care of doctors appointments, take longer weekend trips, and spend time with loved ones. Amazon is one of those companies. I loved working my 10 hour days 4 days a week. If it weren't for my back problems, I'd still be there. The environment was great. They pushed everyone to care for themselves and well-being in order to, not care for the company, but to care for those they provide a paycheck for. Amazon leaders told their employees to watch themselves and do all they could to stay healthy. Not so that they would not miss work so much and cause hardship on the company. They did so while reminding everyone that if we missed time, we lose pay. We lose pay, we lose out on providing for our families. That is what companies are failing to do these days. Forget about telling your employees that they are a burden if they miss a day. Your employees don't care about that. Especially when you rake in millions-billions every year regardless. Remind me that my family is depending on me. Tell me that my paycheck is important to keep us afloat. That's what I need to hear to push myself. Give me one more day during the week to take care of those needs I otherwise have to avoid... and you have yourself a happier woman who is willing to drive herself to exhaustion to make it work.
So here is what I suggest. Companies should reevaluate the demands and amount of time they make people work each week. OR only hire single individuals, with no children, no outside life, and a love of money. Because people like me just don't fall into the guidelines of success they write otherwise.
To pirates, that meant something good or bad was about to
happen, depending on the feeling in your gut. According to the Merriam-Webster
dictionary, it means:
“Forces that have the power to change things – used generally
to mean change is going to happen.”
For me, the winds are bringing good change. It is time to
admit that my current job has run its course. I gained what I needed from it to build
up my knowledge and skills. I've also made connections. And now I’m ready to take them with me and make the
next company I work for all the better for it. In addition, I’m going to use
what I know in building my own business ideas. I have two in the works that I
would love far more than anything I could do otherwise.
When you go home so depressed that you can’t even find the
desire to have a normal conversation with the ones you love, when you find that
you feel completely drained once you reach the weekend instead of feeling
relaxed, and most importantly, when you feel that you have no drive to try for
anything anymore… its time to realize that you need a change. The past few weeks
have been just that. I felt hopeless. I was ready to quit. Ready to cry. Ready to
scream. In my head, “I’m done” was all I could think about. Done with
everything. That’s how bad my work weeks were.
They did great things, and yes, I might feel like they were
amazing once, but that “once upon time” has ended. What I once loved doing, I now dread arriving for. I feel so burnt out. So lost in the tasks that are thrown my way by all corners of the office. I have read so many articles lately on how the younger generation in sales and growing businesses are losing energy. They are dropping off the grid of competitive goals. Why? They just can't keep up with demands. Demands that are unrealistic. France actually had to pass a law that employeesCAN ignore work emails when they are off the clock. Seriously? My lead, not a manager, has clients calling, texting, emailing her, calling her through Skype - at all hours of the day/night. She works all day, goes home and works some more and then some on the weekends. But all she gets compensated for is the 8-5 work day. I can't live like that. I want a life outside the office. I have a family with multiple small children. I want to have that perfect life with lots of money saved up for future goals, but not at the expense of missing what I consider important now. My kids. My soon-to-be husband. They mean the world to me. I'd rather be poor with them, than alone at work and swimming in money.
So I'm now preparing for the changes to come. I'm looking to better the world around me. And if that means moving forward, then so be it.
This past weekend was my little man, Allen's, 7th birthday.
Time flies! He has grown taller than his older brother. He is also sharp-witted and mathematically inclined. So, I'm one proud mama. We took him to Main Event. For the past couple weeks (weekends), we have been trapped at home. Everyone had some kind of ailment. My oldest son had severe allergies, Allen had pneumonia, my older girl had a perforated ear drum and allergies, and the baby was showing signs of congestion for unknown reasons. I had something that ended up in allergies. And my fiancé also had his allergies flare up. We were miserable. I missed work. All the kids missed some school. It was quite the time. So this past weekend, my fiancé and I decided that we had had enough of being trapped indoors. It was time to venture outside while we were feeling a bit more on the mend. We had some friends join in and got a small cake to share. Everyone ate and played and had a great time. He had all kinds of Lego and Minecraft gifts to love. It was wonderful. And it made me so happy. They are growing up so quickly. I want to treasure the moments while I can. Before I know it, they will be grown and gone.
When we got home, we had these little gemstone kits I got on clearance at Target a while back.
You chip away until you find your "gem".
Some of them are supposed to be real and valuable. Like one that I opened had what is supposed to be an actual diamond.
It was so much fun for all of us. And the smiles we all shared will be memories I keep in my heart. Happy Birthday, little man. Mommy loves you!
My wedding day approaches quickly. I have just about four more months left to finish the preparations. I do have the cake toppers and he put on a custom engagement ring to show this lady is his. He knows me so well. A diamond would've disappointed this nerdy girl. He created a ring with the Star Wars rebel symbols holding the ruby.
The cake toppers will look great on the cake we plan to have. He has Captain Picard and I have Queen Amidala.
The invitations went out too. My future mother-in-law and her brother created the perfect blend for us.
And for my birthday, my Mom sent us our cake cutting set. A little polish and it will be beautiful!
According to Dictionary.com, success is defined as follows: 1. The favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; the accomplishment of one's goals.
2. The attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
Lately, I would have to say that I don't feel very successful. I've had many goals, but very little have been carried into completion. I seem to create goals that end up discarded along the way. Dreams get placed on the shelf. I know I've talked about this before. It seems to be a life-long thing at this point.
I'm by no means wealthy. Not even in the 'comfortable life' sense. I live paycheck to paycheck with a little thrown into savings for those inevitable vehicle repairs that I seem to have more often than I would like. My position in life is the same now that it has been all my life - middle class to poor. Though I suppose I have finally moved into a white collar job. I have no distinguishing honors. I know a little about a lot of things, but nothing to specialize in.
My life goals:
Finish college (Quit when I got married and pregnant)
Become an ASL Interpreter (Have to finish college to get this)
Buy a house (Would have this year, if my ex-husband didn't pull me down with his tax evasion)
Become a writer on the side (Finally accepted that I'm not as good a writer as I thought)
Create my own business (Takes money to make money and I don't have it)
So how do I know if I am successful? If I compare myself by the definitions, I'm not. I haven't obtained any of my goals, wealth, honors, position, etc.. I barely keep my family afloat, and that's just surviving - not living. If I compare myself to other women, I'm nowhere near as successful as I should be. I'm not on the same level as some of the "white trash" types I've met over the past few years, but I'm also not doing well in keeping my kids on the right track in some areas. My kids aren't honor students. Okay maybe my 4 year old daughter will be, but her brothers aren't. I no longer own my vehicles, but make payments. I live in the crappiest apartment I have ever been stuck in. Even the first one I was in, next door to drug dealers and hookers, was better health-wise than this one. I spend more time at work every day, than I do at home. My kids see me maybe 3 hours during the week, everyday. During the weekend, I'm busy running errands, cleaning the house, or trying to catch up on projects (sometimes this includes side work). All for what? The mediocre life of getting by?
No where do I see the shining story of rising above and making a difference. More recently, I have felt like a failure at the job. I've worked hard to assist my supervisor and it seems our efforts are for nothing. And it has shown me how little I know. I now get annoyed by being called a unicorn when before I felt honored. For those of you who don't know the meaning, see the video below. Maybe its because I've been out of school for so long and that's where my success seemed better. Maybe its because I just had a baby and I still feel like a fat cow. But throw everything together and I don't see where "successful" is in the description of me.
So I pose a question to Mom's out there. How is success measured for us?
Texas is too far south for heavy snows and ice. At least in the San Antonio area. We barely get a freeze that lasts more than 2 nights. Instead we enjoy highs of 60 degrees and count ourselves lucky when it doesn’t get higher than 75.
With that said, when it does freeze or ice over it can cause quite a difficult time. We don’t typically keep tools on hand to battle winter. Summer is our enemy. Winter is a friend who bites on occasion. This winter, I wasn’t prepared for ice on my windshields. Okay, let me rephrase…. I wasn’t planning on ice, but I was fortunate enough to have just received a Scrape-A-Round to write a review for. Thanks to my partnership with US Family Guide. Let me explain how that morning was for me and my kiddos.
I get up late (long night with the baby), I’m throwing on clothes and trying to get my older kids to tumble out of bed and get dressed for school. I’m grabbing bags and finding shoes. Finally, it is time to trudge into the biting wind to my van. It might have only been about twelve feet from my door, but those steps couldn’t have felt more difficult to take. I get the kids situated in the back and climb into the drivers’ seat. And that’s when I saw it. Frost. Ice on the windshield. A nice solid layer that doesn’t go away when I try to swish them off with the windshield wipers. Now I’m annoyed. Frustration levels are soaring past the roof and into the clouds. I have to drop off my girls with the sitter. I have to take my boys to school. And then make to 30-60 minute drive to work (depending on the traffic). I grabbed a half empty bottle of water the kids had left in the van and poured it out, hoping that I would be able to wipe the ice off. No luck still. It wasn’t until I sat back, ready to scream, that I remembered I had just received the Scrape-A-Rounds. I run inside and grab one. Within 60 seconds, I had a clear windshield and took off like a horse at the start of the race.
It did not take effort or upper body strength (which I lack) to get it truly cleared off. I just swirled the Scrape-A-Round over the windshield in a circular motion. You don’t have to, I just do as a habit. Everything is circular with me. The Scrape-A-Round fits solidly in my hand.
It has attachments that help with thicker, more stubborn ice.
I also appreciate the fact that it can double as a funnel for adding windshield wiper fluid. It is a decent size that stores well in compartments in my van too.
I may not have need of it often, but I’m grateful to have it when I do come up against ice. When I’m in a hurry, the last thing I need is the weather causing me to be late.
If you need more information, see their ad below.
The Scrape-a-round is a brilliant feat of ice scraping engineering. The simple explanations why Scrape-A-Round is the best ice scraper are as follows, Scrape-A-Round is the:
Best ice scraper because of the softer plastic, allows the scraper to conform to the window curvature! Find out more information: http://www.scrapearound.com/
18" of ice scraping surface.
The comfortable grasp provides relief for the arthritic or carpal syndrome sufferer.
Direct pressure to the window, no pressure lost through the ice scraper!
The circular rotational motion of ice scraper.
Double ice scraper action, leading edge and trailing edge.
Multi functional, remove the cap and it doubles as a funnel.
This scrapes windows frost and ice free in half the time!
Makes the perfect gift for the Holidays!
