a little more about my business coach Nona Jordan

a photo because oh my goodness look at all those shades of blue . lake superior

Since we started working together almost a year ago, I have mentioned my business coach Nona Jordan a few times here on the blog. Simply put, working with her has pushed me to own that I really am making it happen over here when it comes to running my business and growing it beyond what I imagined while working from home and taking care of Ellie.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that Nona has pushed me to own that I am a warrior when it comes to all the roles I play in my life.

One big piece of this has been talking about money. (Oh how I did not want to talk about money.) Through our conversations, I moved from saying, “Well, I have this little creative business…” to sitting at my computer after adding up all the money that came into my business in 2011 (which was the first year my income came solely from my own business and not in addition to my “before Ellie arrived” full-time editing job or any freelance editing) and saying, “Every cent that came into my bank account was from someone who believed that what I am sharing with the world was worthy of being part of their story.”

Wow.

And here is where it gets even crazier.

I was excited to pay taxes.

Nona has taught me to see taxes as evidence that my business is growing. And owning that felt freeing because paying taxes didn’t come from a place of fear but instead from a place of believing in myself and what I have to share with the world through my work. So I was actually smiling when I wrote the check. I was also smiling because it was a bit less than my guesstimating math had thought it would be. Still, seeing taxes as evidence of my business' growth was an entirely new way of thinking for me. (It feels like I am rewriting my money story over here.)

And she has taught me that a piece of all of this is having clear conversations with people in my life when it comes to money and boundaries about money or the role I will play in collaborations etc. Two pieces of this have been:

1)  Noticing the areas of my life where I have “fuzzy boundaries” and calling me out on it.

AND

2) Asking me my favorite question “Liz, whose yoga mat are you standing on?” when I start saying the reasons why I don’t want to make an idea a reality or not charge as much as I think something is worth and so on. This question is her gentle but firm way of reminding me to let go of the “Who do you think you are?” gremlins that plague me sometimes and let other people take care of their feelings and assumptions.

Big stuff. Good stuff.

In a couple of weeks, Nona will be guiding a small group of women through her incredible program “Get Right with Money.” It is all about knowing you are worthy, investigating your mindset around money, and one of my favorite tools she has taught me, “to know what you truly want financially and learn how to get there.” She is also incorporating some tools around having bare conversations in this curriculum, and shares her first-hand experience with one of her own conversations in this incredibly honest blog post.

She is a good egg, this one. And she is someone I think you should have on your radar if you are thinking about or already running your own business. Learn more about Nona’s Get Right with Money program and her one-on-one coaching services over on her site.

an invitation to trust...

poetry and smash books

I am having so much fun over here in the land of poem it out and smash books and cheese and my mother's cooking that I wanted to check in with you in a video today.

Notes from the video:

I talk about how I am using yet another Smash journal (this time the "mod black" smash folio) to catch all of my ideas and inspiration about poeming. (And I share a peek at the new HUGE Smash book you can find here.) Best prices on the new large ones might be at Michael's with your big coupon of the week (oh and I want to share that I get the weekly coupons by email and just learned that you can just open the link to the coupon on your phone and they can literally scan your phone!).

I read a poem by William Stafford (and a short excerpt from an interview with him) from the book The Answers Are Inside the Mountains: Meditations on the Writing Life by William Stafford. 

*****

And after several emails asking me to share book and journaling recommendations, especially poets/books to begin with when one wants to really become friends with poetry, I decided to do two things:

1) Begin a new series of posts about some of my favorite poetry collections and poets and books about writing and poetry. Look for the first in this series next week.

2) Create an Amazon store to have a place where you can easily go and check out the poets (and a few other god things) that I recommend. There is a section called "Poetry: Start Here" that lists the books I think might help you fall in love with poetry. There is another ever-growing section of the books of poetry I turn to again and again. (And as a writer, I feel really moved to say: Consider buying your books from your local independent bookstore or checking them out of the library.) And just to be totally clear: If you do buy through my Amazon store, note that it is part of the Amazon affiliate program, which means I get a small commission of your purchase. Next week, I will share a bit about the dream I had in my 20s of opening up a bookstore called "Curled Up (With a Good Book)" and how adding things to this simple Amazon store feels a teeny bit like choosing books to fill that fictional bookstore.

May your day be full of lightness and moments to just rest. Thank you for visiting my corner over here...

Liz

PS speaking of poetry, have you seen what Maya Stein is up to? oh my goodness how that woman inspires me.

PPS if you are new to my corner of the blog world and want to find out more about my wholeness practice and how the Smash journals are helping me with it, check out this series of posts on journaling.

creating space for joy

i opened my eyes (my heart) and took this photo . lake superior, april 2012

My daughter is discovering ways to move sand with rocks and sticks as she plays with her grandparents along the shore of Lake Superior. I stand at the water a few feet away, eyes closed, stomach and heart holding a few heavy pieces of this life. I listen to their laughter, the lapping water, and then for just a moment I hear only my breathing. 

I take a few deep breaths right here, feeling my feet beneath me, the sun warming my body, and the wind gently holding me. I focus on the space I create with each breath. Space inside me. Space around my heart. And with an exhale, I let pieces of what I do not need to carry slip out of me and sink into the earth.

Seeking a tactile reminder of this moment, I open my eyes and take a photo of a woman standing in the quiet joy that is creating space to move out of her head and back into her heart.

*****

Slowing down and noticing my breathing is one of my access points to joy. When I quiet the chatter in my head by sinking into the moment, I am gently pushed to see the beauty of simply being here. I notice the world around me, and my senses so often guide me to joy. And when I open up to joy, I feel myself mending and shedding the pieces inside me that no longer serve.

But it is a practice, this seeking joy stuff. It is something I have to cultivate and create space for. Coming to the page and writing about the moments where I find it (and documenting those moments through photos) help to remind me to listen to what I know and to keep on practicing.

*****

This week, Jennifer Louden, Marianne Elliott, and Susannah Conway have invited a few people to share some thoughts on creative joy. (Thank you ladies for asking me to play along as I love this topic!) The three of them are hosting a retreat on this juicy theme in June with workshops in writing, yoga, and photography. (Retreats about joy are a very very good thing!) Find out more about it here. And if you tweet, check out the #creativejoy hashtag this week.

she had a really (really) good day

here

glimpses of a toddler dinner

Last night, I dreamed an owl stood guard atop the wardrobe in the room I am sleeping in in this house across the country from my home. I keep thinking about her standing there (surrounded by a few small hopping swallows that had snuck in with her), and I see her orange beak and regal, certain presence.

Tonight, as I sit with these new rhythms and textures that surround me, I will close my eyes and ask her to come again in the hopes that she will guide me as I find my way.

(Ellie and I are tucked inside my mom's gorgeous new home that she and her partner Steve built in Northern Wisconsin. We are staying for a bit so Ellie can sink into some good time with her grandparents and I can work and maybe even rest. Looking forward to sharing more from here.)

five (really) good things

the buddha in the messy garden (playing in Swan Dive)

It's been a while since I've made a list of good things, and as things feel a bit busy as Ellie and I get ready to travel to my mom's for a while this week, I thought it might be fun to write in a list today. Might do it every day this week in fact.

1) Picnik closing this month has me pouting a bit over here. But through Viv's Swan Dive class, I discovered PicMonkey and am having a wee bit of fun. (And spending time with Viv and her kind, inspiring teaching style makes me so so happy.)

2) I attended Rachel Cole's Well-Fed Woman Retreatshop in Seattle this Saturday. Rachel is so genuine and real and open-hearted in person, and I really enjoyed her workshop and her approach. And I can't stop thinking about this question: What are you truly hungry for? It was a new lens for me to use to look inward and unpack things a bit in there. Good stuff. She has three more cities left on her tour (Chicago, Minneapolis, and LA), and if you live near those cities, you should get thee to her workshop!

3) Ali's 52 Creative Lifts newsletter is full of juicy goodness every week. Last week, she wrote about the idea of thinking about your creative army. LOVE THIS! You can read it here (and then be sure to sign up for her newsletter here so you don't miss any of these inspiring must reads).

4) The students in Poem It Out are inspiring me so much with the poems and poem notes they are writing in this course. And I am having so much fun sharing my love of poetry with them. (As in I am basically dancing over here as I share this content with them. I.love.poetry.)

5) And if you would have told me three years ago that watching a 22-month-old little girl find 12 plastic eggs each filled with two M&Ms would be just about the most fun a grown-up girl could have on a Sunday morning up much earlier than she had hoped to be...well...maybe I would have believed you but I don't think I would have ever known that it would make my heart feel so big. 

*****

Every now and then I make a list of five (really) good things. Sometimes I make this list just because I want to make a list (like today) and share some good things. But often times I do this practice because even on the days when there seems to be more crappy stuff than beauty, the beauty, well, it is still there. And finding it is how I keep my heart just a bit more open these days...

here

now: neighborhood children giggle and yell and run under the peeking through grey sunshine as i sit cross-legged in the middle of my bed wrapping wire around beads and stringing them together to soon be sent across the sea to become a talisman of words another wants to hold close to her heart.

yesterday: a cafe full of chattering, eating, meeting people, i weave between the tables trying to find a place to call my own where i can sip this mug of chai and write and remind myself that i do know what step to take next even though the uncertainty sometimes slips around me like a cloak i don't remember buying in a dusty flea market another lifetime ago.

the day before: when she refuses to get in the car, we walk along the sidewalk passing storefronts and cars with "you have to hold my hand" said aloud on repeat, and then we turn and do it again because she has no need to understand the stacked up inside my head to do list that includes "picking up the taxes" on the line right after the doctor's appointment we just completed.