Lame, right? So much for date night. Some questions I answered recently for the first annual Washington Working Women’s Forum September 10th event in DC got me thinking about what really matters to me, and how I prioritize. Beyond that, I remembered my original inspiration for the Hot Mommas Project, and why I’m doing what I’m doing (The hard work, logistics, and the rest of the insanity that comes along with being an entrepreneur). I recommend every working parent and every entrepreneur with a heart and a brain answer these questions:
1. Describe your typical weekday.
2. What are your life priorities? How do you ensure you remain true to these priorities?
3. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
4. What is one thing most people do not know about you?
5. If you have children, how many and what are their ages? How would they describe you?
6. As a working woman/parent with commitment to your personal life and your community, how do you protect against burnout?
7. What are you really good at?
8. Who did you look to as a role model and in what specific ways did this person influence you?
9. What advice do you have for high-achieving working women and men desperately seeking balance?
Here are my answers..oh, and here is the panel on which I’m speaking September 10. (Continued on Hot Mommas Project Insider’s Blog).
1. Describe your typical weekday.
During the school year, I wake up at 5:30 a.m. and chant/meditate for 15 minutes to get myself centered. Then I check my Twitter account and greet the Twitterverse (and check in on everything I missed after I signed out the night before). I wake my daughter at 6 a.m. and we’re both officially off and running. We try to eat something that we both have an appetite for (protein shake, bacon/egg sandwich, oatmeal) before running out the door at 7 a.m. to get
to the bus stop. Once my daughter is on the bus at I begin the next leg of the my commute from the suburbs of Northern Virginia to my final destination of Washington, D.C. I’m a nonprofit consultant, so my day is filled with meetings, development work and phone calls. At 5 p.m., the outbound commute begins back to Virginia begins. I pick up my daughter from the bus stop and we’re usually home by 6:30 p.m. I start dinner while she does homework. We stop everything to sit at the table and eat together. This is the no telephone, no television zone. It’s where we breathe and catch up. After dinner, I watch television, she goes back to homework (and her friends online – Google chat is their preferred social media tool) and I go to my online community (Twitter). Usually, by 10 p.m., we’re both tired and it’s lights out because we have to do it all again the next day.
2. What are your life priorities? How do you ensure you remain true to these priorities?
My life priorities are: my family, my health, spending time with friends, and making the world better for children. To ensure that I remain true to these priorities, I ask myself if the things that I am doing help or hurt my ability to honor my priorities and then I make adjustments. It’s like a scale for me with my priorities on one side and my actions on the other, they can be a little uneven, but they have to be pretty balanced. If they are not, this causes ‘dis-harmony’ for me and things don’t go well for me.
3. What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my daughter – cooking, exploring new places and doing new things. On my own I love to write, learn, read and listen to music.
4. What is one thing most people do not know about you?
The one thing that most people do not know about me is that I am really an INTROVERT, because I appear to be an extrovert!
5. If you have children, how many and what are their ages? How would they describe you?
I have a 13 year old daughter. I honestly don’t know how she would describe me. We can only really say how we wish they would describe us really, can’t we? I wish someone would ask her to describe me and then tell me what she said – then I’d know how close I am to doing it right and where I could (and should) course-correct. It’s what all we parents really want.
6. As a working woman/parent with commitment to your personal life and your community, how do you protect against burnout?
I’ve placed an absolute BAN on scheduling any commitments on SUNDAY – period, and not for any religious reason (we are Buddhist) but because I need there to be one day a week that there are no commitments on mine or my daughter’s time.
7. What are you really good at?
HEARING what people are saying. Adapting to change. Pushing through to the solution. Writing.
8. Who did you look to as a role model and in what specific ways did this person influence you?
My mother is my role model. She is the most amazing portrait of selflessness and devotion to family that I’ve ever known. I didn’t fully appreciate it when I was growing up, but understand her incredible capacity to give and love in a positive, reinforcing way. Because of my mother I love fiercely, I am not afraid to stand up for what I believe in. I grew up believing that I was smart and that I could do anything. These are powerful things to believe when you are young and without even knowing it, I said the same things to my daughter because my mother said them to me. She taught me to love in a positive way.
9. What advice do you have for high-achieving working women and men desperately seeking balance?
You achieve balance when your actions are in harmony with your priorities. In order to achieve balance, you have to be really clear about what your priorities are. Define your priorities and keep them close to you at all times, know them like you know your social security number – they are THAT important.
Felicia, I will cover your ticket to the Washington Working Women’s Forum on September 10th. You are an inspiration and we need to hear from you. Email me at alicia@attacheservices.com to take me up on the offer.
And Kathy, you are not the only one caught glued to a device when you could be bonding with your hubby. It’s so easy to get distracted – which is why I can’t wait to hear from women like you and Toni Townes-Whitely, President of Women in Technology, talk about how technology can support balance and not hinder it.
And, one last thing, since I’m such a technogeek, we will have audience response devices at the event so that the attendees as well as the speakers and panelists can be heard. Come experience an interactive panel discussion where true conversation happens in a group forum, real time!
Sincerely,
Co-conspirator of the event where Working Women in Washington can get answers to their work-life balance dilemas.
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