Every Day Is A New Day...

Yeah yeah. I know that's something that you hear all the time. Every day (in fact, every second) is a "new" one -- a "fresh" one to get your will power back, get joyful, get where you want. Life is not a bunch of Ka-BOOM! moments, where life-changing things happen in an instant. (Now, mind you, there ARE some of those, but not that many. Good thing, too!)

Had some surgery yesterday -- nothing "major," had to have a fatty tumor thing removed from my jawline (OH PRETTY) -- plus had to have some "melia" (ducts that get blocked) removed from next to my eyes from the surgery last year to fix the muscles that hold up my eyelids. (Don't EVER "get old" (laugh!)) So anyway, as I figured I would be bruised and somewhat swollen today, I left my calendar totally open.

Today is the office meeting at Coldwell Banker, where I'm a realtor. (Yes, realtor, lawyer, life coach, Bond grrl...what next? (smile).) The real estate "thing" is SO FRUSTRATING -- you can work as hard as you want at it, but if someone isn't "ready to buy a house," then, there you go. Also, there are about 3 real estate agents for every resident in my county...so it's just a WEE bit competitive out there.

I became an agent because my James said that he knew we would really need to find another house to be "our" house -- this was before he had the Bright Idea of us doing it in about 2-3 years (and with him doing some remodelling in the meantime). So I'm not really sure what I'm doing, doing this. I would rather be working on my book -- on expanding my Bond grrl "practice" as it were. But I have added another "job" to my day. Silly, really.

I'm currently potentially planning a seminar for folks who are 55 and older -- an "Options" seminar about what they can do to get out of a house that's too big for them, without getting whacked by huge taxes and such. I had a meeting yesterday that I was supposed to lead...and I had it in my calendar wrong, so showed up 1/2 hour late (to my OWN meeting). Yikes -- and my broker, and lots of people I'm supposed to "impress," were there. Not good. I could tell my broker was pissed, which is REALLY not good. All these folks could potentially get business off this -- one's a title company, one's a mortgage broker, one's a real estate attorney who also does trusts, etc. But guess who has to pay for the seminar? ME. It's "my seminar" I was informed, and tho the title company/mortgage company will help with food and my broker will pay for 1/2 the bulk rate of any mailings I do, the advertising, calendaring, renting the room at the venue, etc. are all -- on me.

So now I have to figure out whether this is something I really want to do. Should I treat it as a way to hone my speaking skills -- and go for it? It's going to cost me definitely a few $100s to do it -- the rental of the hall alone is $250. I will admit that I would rather get a bit "removed" from my law biz (where most of my $ comes from), and do "something else" -- so is this the stepping stone to the "something else"? What I want to be is an inspirational speaker -- and I want it to be on the Bond grrl stuff. I want to get the book out -- I want to really make my "mark" in this way, and I feel confident that I can DO it.

When I do the Passion Parties business (did you see that Montel had a PP rep on, last week? I missed it but I wish I'd seen it!), I love educating the gals, I love doing it all. I don't love the packing up, inventorying product, ordering, etc. -- but I love the actual "doing the show" part of it. So maybe I need to do the real estate seminar -- to work on my presenting and "inspiring" skills.

Anyway -- it's a puzzler. But I'm so so glad to have the day off -- I have stuff piling up that needs to get into my computer (finance stuff -- yes, I practice what I preach, and EVERY bit of $ I spend goes into my computer and my budget!), and it feels like a little "holiday."

I was talking with one of my best grrls the other day about the whole "plan your life and live your plan" idea. She said something that's really been working for her is that she plans EVERYTHING to do each day -- including going to the gym, meals, prayer, the works. Then, she makes sure that every day, somewhere in the middle, she also plans a "free hour." Yes, it's hard to figure out how to do that at first, but if you plan it in every day, sooner or later you will get things "fixed up" so you have that. The hour can be different on each day, each week, etc. The idea is just to put it in.

So, this "free hour" can be used up for anything that comes up in a 24 hour period before the free hour. Example -- you "book" 3:30-4:30 on Wednesday for your "free hour" -- and Tuesday night at 7:00 your sister calls up and says that she really has to talk about something, or your boss says on Tuesday at 5:00 that he needs some new work done that you can't really do that day, etc. You are able to tell that person "how about 3:30 tomorrow?" -- and you KNOW you have that built-in breathing space, just for stuff like that. If it DOESN'T get used up, well, you have an hour to go for a walk, or shut your door and do some deep breathing, etc. But the reasoning here is to CONSCIOUSLY plan "breaks" like that in each and every day.

Then (and this one sounds a little scarier to me! (laugh), my friend said that she has one day in the week where she doesn't plan anything. Now she, like me, is an independent contractor, so it's not like she has to go to work 9-5. But she said that she winds up doing work on the weekends, etc. (which is what I'm doing now too, on the realtor front -- I have to sit Open Houses every Sunday afternoon). So she does her morning stuff for herself (gym, meditation), and then she has "nothing planned" for that day from the week before. The idea of THIS is that if something crazy comes up that she "has to do that week," she has a whole day every week to 'fill up' with these emergency-type things. If she doesn't get any emergency-type things, she goes for a hike, reads a book, or has a little downtime.

I thought a lot about this one. Her business is similar to mine -- again, an independent contractor business where a lot of it involves running around to meet potential new clients, planning "coffee meetings," things like that. But I think that what she's talking about is basically a day like I "planned" to have today -- "nothing is planned" (though I will be working on stuff that comes in via email, and catching up my financial stuff, etc.)

I like this idea, because in looking at my calendar, I don't have to "rush off" to do anything today -- whereas nearly every day, I do. I have some coffee meeting, or someone I am meeting for something or another. Even "rushing to" a Pilates class for example. This morning, because I "could" because of the surgery yesterday (though I feel totally fine, just a little sore and it's a spot on my jaw for goodness sake), I stayed in bed -- and my James stayed in bed too. Bad boy -- we normally go for a hike through the forest and cemetery next to the house (it's a really nice spot), hiking through to the next town to get coffee and walking back. But this morning was just "rest day." And that was really nice, too. It felt kinda "bad" -- like eating a really luscious dessert that's not on your diet. How funny, huh? Just "not doing" something (which we do enjoy!) and staying in bed an hour later, and we feel all "secret, 1/2-smile-y" about it.

So, I share this with you, because it's something I hadn't thought that much about before. I think that it's something I really want to try -- to not "have to run" to anything, one day a week, and one hour a day. For me, of course, that literally means planning that day...which is sort of funny, planning to not plan??? And it's not "playing" during that time -- it's just to give a "buffer zone" to do the stuff that winds up crowding and stressing out the day.

We'll see how that goes.

OH -- and I recently wrote a note to a broadcaster from Chicago -- she does a podcast called "Diary of a Shameless Self Promoter," her name is Heidi Miller (www.heidimillerpresents.com I think is her website). I was listening to her podcast (which is a web broadcast you can download and listen to on your MP3 player/iPod) and one of her guests said something that wasn't really correct about intellectual property. I am not usually one to 'write in' to shows, but I thought I would do so, just because I find that people so often don't really know what they're talking about in this area -- and they wind up "looking stupid." I give a lot of talks on this subject in my "legal life" (www.goodsolutions.com). Anyway -- the broadcaster emailed me -- she wants not only to read my letter on the show, but she wants to interview me a few times, and potentially have me as a regular "guest" to answer questions. I like this idea. :-)

OK -- time to get to doin' what I gotta do!

S