Real connection wins the day

This has been a week of extremes – with amazing highs and disappointing lows.  As I sit to write my blog, a day late, which is an indication in itself of my week, I decide to focus on the highs, because focusing on the negatives, just pulls you further down and gets you nowhere.

The Rhyze Academy is a project of Innovation Guelph, through which 40 women who either have a business or want to start one, are taken through a nine-month course led by volunteer facilitators.    My month was January.

Initially I was asked if I could talk on work-life-balance.  Go ahead laugh. I did. There was no way I could present on that topic.  For those who don’t know me, I am the energizer bunny.  No. So instead I facilitated the group through the Personality Dimensions process so they could better understand themselves and those around them. 

While we are all a rainbow, our personalities are shaped by whether we are a blue, orange, gold and green.   We had fun.  This week I threw in an exercise where the women had to pitch to the other colours and it was fascinating at how creative they got as they tried to sell a new diet product.

One woman stood out.  She was marketing this beer that helped you lose weight with such aplomb that I had to ask her what business she was in.  A naturopath.  As I joked with her, she had a career in sales waiting for her if she ever wanted to go there.

As the women connected and enjoyed the exercises, I felt warm inside.  This is what it is all about.  Bringing people together.  Having fun and building community. It is what I have always loved about Company of Women.

Later in the week Laurie Hunt and I brought the women who are in the Company of Women mentoring program together to meet face to face for the first time.  In their pairs, they set goals and determined how they were going to work together.   On a much smaller scale, I could see the same thing happening.  The women were connecting on a deeper, authentic level.

So my big take away from this week is that when you are authentic, when you genuinely take an interest in another person, you can make a difference.

It’s not about money. It’s not about competition.

It’s about connection and collaboration.  It’s about being real and doing what you are meant to be doing. And for me, that means Company of Women.

Maybe we need the tough stuff so we can come to realize what is important to us and to be grateful for the opportunity we have to do what we love. 

So thank you ladies for filling my cup.   You made my week special. 

Leadership - sometimes it's about letting go of control

Recently I wrote a blog about there being strength in numbers and at the time I was thinking more about women linking up and supporting one another.

This week, I am looking at the big picture and how organizations, rather than individuals,  can work together and partner up to make it a win-win for both.

I am on this path because Company of Women has just joined up with the Holistic Chamber of Commerce in Vancouver.  Now that may seem a long way off from our Ontario-based organization, but for several months I have been debating whether to expand our health practitioners network to Vancouver.

When I was out there a couple of years ago, I met with some of the movers and shakers about actually starting a chapter of Company of Women in Vancouver.  Their advice?  That there were more than enough women’s groups, and another one wasn’t needed.  And I suspect what they didn’t say was and not one from out east, from Toronto.

So I let that idea go, but one leader did suggest I look at replicating our Health Practitioners Network and so I have been been working with someone in Vancouver who was equally keen and we were gingerly building our plans.

However, last week I was introduced to the new Vancouver chapter of the Holistic Chamber of Commerce, and as I talked with their energetic president, it became clear to me that there was little point in reinventing the wheel and far better to get behind their efforts to recruit health practitioners and offer programming to support them.

So that is exactly what we are doing.  When you share similar goals and similar audiences, it makes sense.  Yes, I was hoping to recruit more members in BC, but if I dig deeper on my ‘why,’ the underlying drive was, as it always is, to support women in their businesses.   So we’re not the lead, but really does that matter?  When you let go of your ego, and your need to be front and centre, so much more is achieved.  It is the end result that counts.

I have confidence that this fledgling partnership will blossom and in the end, it will be a win-win for both groups. 

So ask yourself, is there someone I could partner with?  Think about it, because when it works, it is a thing of beauty. 

And when it doesn’t – well check out my other blogs on the topicJ

Related blogs

Collaboration gone wrong: How to get it back on track

  http://www.prowess.org.uk/collaboration-gone-wrong

Partnership?  Date first.

http://www.prowess.org.uk/partnership-date-first

Choose three words to live your life by

For the last two years, I have chosen to come up with three words to live my life by, instead of making New Year resolutions that I likely won’t keep.

For 2013 my three words were creativity, energy and connectivity and I did well by these choices.  The prior year, for example I had focused on my health, as I hadn’t been that well, so choosing energy was speaking to the fact that not only did I feel much better, but my energy level was up and I was able to accomplish more.

Creativity should probably be an ongoing word for me, because when I am not able to be creative, I feel stifled and boxed in.  Being able to tap into my creativity is therefore essential and boosts my energy level no end. 

Our 2013 conference, Journey 2 Success, was by far the most successful – partly because of the rich content and the introduction of our making the pitch contest which challenged my members’ creativity but also because of the sponsors we had on board – connectivity at its best.  

We also branched out into further domains, with a new chapter in Winnipeg, connections made in Vancouver and a highly successful Five Days to Feeling Fabulous webinar series that brought thirty health care professionals together and was viewed by over 560 people from around the world.

So all told, I felt I lived up to my three words, which makes choosing them for next year more challenging, but I have.

First is courage.  I want to push myself beyond my comfort zone and start doing more online webinars and programs myself, not just contracting others to do so.  This will mean a huge learning curve, but I know I am a hands-on learner, and the best way for me to learn is to just do it.

My second word is curiosity.  Together with Amy Hunter, I am starting to write another book, but one that is not based on my story, but stories of hundreds of women who fall prey to self-doubt, feeling not good enough or who suffer from the imposter syndrome.  My sense is that thousands of women feel this way at one time or another in their lives, and our goal is to ask questions, dig deep and find some solutions to support women in their quest to being successful on their own terms.

Last but by no means least, the third word is collaboration.  I can’t achieve the above two without collaborating with others, and having learned the hard way, I am being more selective about who I partner up with or with whom I form alliances.  I just know it is the way to go, and I also know myself in that I much prefer to work with people rather than toil away on my own.  You gain such strength, energy and creativity when you work with others who lend their talents to a project.

So, there you have it – the three ‘C’s for my life in 2014 – Courage. Curiosity. Collaboration.

What words would you choose?  I really recommend this approach, it is so much more effective than writing down that you are going to lose weight, be healthy and go to the gym more often.  How long does that last?  They say around six weeks, and then it is back to business as usual.

Change your approach.  Choose your words carefully and create the year you want for yourself. 

Collaboration vs. Competition

When I worked as a community developer, much of my job was to bring agencies and organizations together to look at combined efforts to resolve community issues.

Much of the time it worked, because while there were sometimes funding or territorial issues, most non-profit organizations shared the same values and tended to look at what was best for the client, rather than getting into who “owned” the client.  Our focus was to take a holistic approach to the family and their problems.

It isn’t quite that simple in the private sector as business owners are always looking at the bottom line and there is an element of WIFM (what is in it for me).  Certainly it needs to be a win-win situation for all the parties involved, but when you take an abundance approach and try to work together, the end result is far-reaching.

I’ve always believed in the value of collaboration because when you pool efforts and talents, you can both be successful, and more to the point, the client benefits.

But it is not always that easy, and sometimes I have leapt into partnerships that have backfired down the road because we hadn’t clarified our end goals or how we would achieve them.  Much of the time, in hindsight, we also didn’t share the same values which is crucial to any business relationship.

That’s why I am so excited about Company of Women’s new partnership with Women in Biz Network.  Not only do Leigh Mitchell, Founder of Women in Biz Network and I share the same values, but we are both driven to helping our members succeed.  And while Leigh and I could get a tad carried away in our altruistic efforts, her partner Fay Chappele keeps us grounded and focused on the bottom line. 

By combining our efforts, we will provide even more services and benefits to our now 400+ members but there is also an opportunity for young entrepreneurs to network and meet up with more seasoned business owners.  We can all learn from each other.   

We also bring different skill sets to the partnership, meaning that between the three of us, we can reach further and potentially achieve success much faster, than if we slogged away on our own.  The key is we respect each other and recognize the expertise that each brings to the table.

Now admittedly we are in the “honeymoon” stage but I have a good vibe about this one and with all the lessons I have learned (the hard way) in the past, I am confident it is going to work, and if it works for us, it most definitely will benefit and work for you.

And talking of you, who could you partner up with?  Is there someone in your sector with whom you could cross-promote? Is there the potential of working together?  Perhaps there is a joint project you could work on as you build trust and become comfortable with each other. When you are both targeting the same client group, it can be more fruitful to combine your efforts.

As Helen Keller said “Alone we can do so little, but together we can do so much.”

COMPETITION OR COLLABORATION? YOUR CHOICE

We live in a competitive world. I don’t know about your line of business, but in mine, there are some groups that are supportive of each other and the end goal of helping women grow their businesses, and others that are not. For them, they have to be king pin.

It’s too bad really, because it’s not about us – it should be about what’s best for our members. So it was really refreshing this week to connect with Kathryn Bechtold, the publisher of Mompreneur - check www.themompreneur.com

Kathryn and I have not met but our paths have crossed and at the end of the month she is moderating a panel for me. The purpose of our call was to brainstorm ideas for the questions to be asked of the panel members – all editors or former editors of prominent Canadian magazines.

But it actually took us a while to get there in our conversation as we were both sharing the ups and downs of launching and publishing a new magazine, and enjoying the connection with a kindred spirit. Now, we could have viewed each other as competition, but we didn’t. Instead, we were sharing war stories and looking at ways we can work together to create a win-win situation.

Now that is what it is all about…