Sandbox Consulting: Breaking the Rules

It was Wednesday night. My son was sick. While his fever had vanished and his appetite was returning, he was in no condition to return to school the next day...or to accompany his little sister to daycare.

And yet the next day, I was scheduled to deliver a mini workshop to my fellow mompreneurs. I had been looking forward to it for a month -- the chance to not only showcase my business but to also provide something of value to a fantastic group of working moms.

What should I do? Should I cancel? Should I call a sitter? Should I ask my husband to go to work late?

I couldn't possibly bring him...oh no, no, no, no.

Millions of thoughts ran through my mind:

• If I bring him, my focus will surely be split, and that isn't to be allowed.
• If I bring him, he'll most certainly be bored, and I'd hate to put him in that situation.
• What's more, if I bring him, the other women in the group would be distracted by him, and I couldn't create a situation like that for someone else.
• I need to be 100% effective tomorrow, so that people will know what I can do.
• A good mom would cancel and let her son stay home.
• A real professional would get a sitter, do her gig, and let her son stay home.

So many rules to follow. So many guidelines to heed. And yet, at the end of the night, having made zero calls to sitters, I finally decided to listen to that little voice in my head that kept saying, "Bring him. It'll work out. It'll be fun!"

And it did. And it was.

During the workshop, my son spent his time listening to an audio book, watching SuperWhy? on an iPhone, and also intently listening to our workshop. After the session, he had so many questions to ask about what I had been doing, and who all those other people were. Most importantly, he was excited about the special time he had spent with his mom while she was at work.

Had I followed those voices in my head, I would never have had this special time with my son. And while I wasn't the perfect presenter, and the group experienced occasional interruptions, the event was meaningful and valuable in so many other ways.

Those voices in our heads are often self-imposed, self-created beliefs and rules that we tend to follow blindly, thinking that they are absolute.

That day, I broke my own rules and found out that there's a lot of beauty in living a life outside of them.

What kinds of rules have you created for yourself?

What would really happen if you were to break one? Or two? Or all of them?

What's your afternoon tea?

A few years ago, my husband and I rented a 27-ft sailboat and took it out on the bay off of Victoria Island in Canada.

It was a beautiful, sunny day. Clear blue skies. A nice stiff breeze. Even the man who rented us the boat commented on the perfect weather.

About an hour later, things suddenly changed. The sky darkened, the waves started getting rough, and it started to rain. We decided to turn the boat around and headed back towards shore, yet the wind made it difficult for us to maneuver in any consistent direction. As the waves began to drench us over and over, and the sail flipped from side to side, we somehow managed to pull the sail down and turn on the motor. So there we were, putt-putt-putting back towards shore, wondering if we would ever make it back.

As I sat there, amidst the waves, the rain and the wind, I found myself not seeing my life flash before my eyes, but saying to myself, "We have to get back in time for afternoon tea." Over and over again, like a mantra of sorts.

You see, the beautiful B&B where we were staying also boasted the best afternoon tea around, complete with homemade cookies, delicious teas and even sherry if you like. That day, the thought of making it back for afternoon tea kept me calm, kept me focused, and kept me hopeful. And before long, we docked the boat safely and straggled back to the inn, wet, weary, and very happy to be alive. And yes, we made it back in time for tea, cookies, sherry, a hot bath and a nap by the fireplace.

In times of turbulence and instability, it's critical to have a guiding vision that helps you maintain your heading, i.e., to stay on course. That day, for me, it was afternoon tea.

What's your afternoon tea?

It's like riding a bike...

My son learned to ride his bike the other day. Yeah, the bike that's been sitting on our porch for a year. The bike that has been used as everything other than a bike -- a water wheel, a fortress, a stepstool, a weapon. The bike that's been locked to our porch with heavy duty kryptonite lock. Yeah, that bike.

I had worried whether my son would ever be interested in or able to ride his bike. Would he be physically coordinated? Or clumsy? Light on his feet? Or cloddy? Would he know when to stop? and how? (Oh, a mother's fearful thoughts). Every time I had introduced him to the bike, he would try it a little and stop immediately, interested in doing something else.

But the other day, he looked up and said, "Mommy, I want to ride my bike."

So I unlocked it, brought it down, gave him a few basic pointers, and watched him as he practiced for 45 minutes straight. And at the end of that 45 minutes, he was riding his bike as if he had been riding it for days.

What he showed me in that moment was power of commitment. In his simple statement, my son committed to riding his bike. And that is precisely what he did, until he had figured it out. Himself.

What that also told me is that people will know when they are ready to commit to something new. That even though the world may have an external timeline for us, deep down we know when we are ready to take that leap. My son knew. You can, too.

So my next question is, what are you ready to commit to?

What's in your inbox?

Reprinted from the Fall Issue of ACTION ITEM

Today, I’m asking a deceptively simple question, and that question is the following:

What’s in your inbox?

I’m not just asking about your email inbox. I’m asking about your other inbox, the BIG one, the one that has a list of all your lifelong to-do items.

Oh! Did I hear you groan? Good! That means that you know what I’m talking about!

So often in life, we put aside our bigger goals and dreams to take care of the smaller, easier-to-accomplish tasks on our to-do list. Tasks like organizing the things on top of your desk, researching obscure facts on the Internet, or answering the easy emails in your inbox, to name a few.

These are activities you might be doing to maintain a sense of order and control in your work life. And you’re doing a great job, because all around me I see pretty neat desks and files, page upon page of interesting information from the web, and lots of emails going back and forth…and back and forth…yeah, you get the picture.

At the same time, in prioritizing tasks like these, people are de-prioritizing other items that may be incredibly critical to their growth, fulfillment and long-term success. The result is a lot of time and effort put into activities that won’t bring you the results that you want or need, or create the life and career that you crave and deserve.

It’s time to make it happen for yourself, both at work and in your life. Here’s one way to get started:

• Take a moment now to jot down the top 3 things you’d like most to accomplish from your “inbox.”
• Sit back and take a look at these items. Ask yourself how important these items are to you. How would you feel if you accomplished even one of them? No need to write anything down – just sit back and soak in your answers for a moment or more.
• Now, pick the one you’d like to tackle most and think about what would be possible for you if it were to happen.
• Next, write down the one thing you could do to really get things started. It doesn’t have to be big. In fact, the simpler the better.
• Okay, now do it!

What’s that you say? You’d love to do this, BUT…..

There it is, the infamous BUT. It gets in the way of progress, and in this case, it gets in the way of you really doing something meaningful for yourself. If le BUT has entered the building, ask yourself this question:

What could I gain by actually taking this first step?

If that wasn’t enough to free you from the power of le BUT, do give me a call, and we’ll tackle it together. In the meantime, keep your top 3 inbox items in front of you, and let me know how it goes when you make things happen.

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Carolyn Ou is a Coach and Consultant in Chicago, Illinois who loves to work with clients on having those A-HA! moments that help them take meaningful action in getting from point A to point B.

To schedule a workshop or complimentary coaching session, please contact her at Carolyn.ou@gmail.com or 773-383-0421.