I could quit there and let you find your own meaning. I think you’d find inspiration in that one liner today.  However, that’s not likely why you stop by this blog, huh?

I spoke at three events last week (NAWBO, eWomen’s Network Head-to-Toe Expo Luncheon, and Six Figure Moms Club).  Almost every time I address a group, I get more in return than I give because there’s always at least one person who says something fantastic that inspires me more than they can even imagine.  Let me take this opportunity to say “Thank You” to all of you that are so wonderful.

Out of all three talks, my favorite point was this one.  Thinking Small Serves No One.  Imagine Yourself in your personal best.  What do you see?

See the impact you can make on the world if you see yourself in the biggest, grandest you taking advantage of your highest potential. How many and in what manner can you best serve yourself and everyone around you?  It doesn’t help anyone for you to mold yourself to be something smaller than your highest potential so why would you ever settle for anything less than the best you can be?

• I see people every day settling for mediocrity. Why is that?
• I see people every day spending time checking off their to do lists and calling that accomplishments when they really aren’t making progress on any big picture life goals. Why is that?
• I see people every day settling for moderately happy but not doing anything about it? Why is that?

Thinking Small Serves No One.

Especially not You.  Especially not your children because you are the role model.

Today, I challenge you to THINK BIG about YOU.

If you have some great examples of how you are thinking big about your life, please leave a comment and share your story?  Happy Monday!

On April 8, I’ll be live on the air with two internet radio shows on www.wsradio.com. The first show is about entrepreneurism and the second show is….you guessed it, Twitter Talk Radio!

It’s my great honor to co-host a show about small business owners with Rieva Lesonsky.  Rieva is truly amazing.  She is a small business expert and she writes, speaks and helps small businesses all over the country.  We’ll be interviewing successful entrepreneurs and experts and talking about three major themes:

1. How despite all the negative economic news, now is one of the best times in history to start a business due to the opportunities available right now.
2. How to transition from Corporate American to an entrepreneurial lifestyle (sound familiar?  ie, my book, QUITTING IS EVERYTHING?)
3. Using Social Media to launch and support your entrepreneurial business.

Twitter Talk Radio will focus on Twitter of course but will slant largely to using Twitter for business.  You likely remember that my twitter affair started right here on Six Figure Moms Club last fall and progressed into a blog, Twitter Attraction.  Twitter Attraction and Twitter Talk Radio will work in tandem together.

But let’s get to the important stuff.  What’s in this post for you, Working Mothers?  I mentioned my best childhood friend Shelley Swisher above.  Shelley and I met in six grade and there would be weeks where you would never see one of us without the other.  She knew me better than anybody else. When my family moved to another town in the middle of ninth grade, we often got into trouble for having long distance phone bills for outrageous amounts.  If she knew me best and she thought I was going to be a broadcast journalist, then there was probably something important to that.  Why?  Because every career book out there will tell you that there are messages from your teenage years about what you are supposed to be doing with your life.  I know not all of you are searching for something new but a lot of you who talk to me are.

I loved journalism, writing, speaking, editing and all of the things I’m doing now back then.  I also didn’t like to do most of the same things I don’t like to do now too. What did you love back then and how can you turn those things into a business?

One last really fun thing about my talk show with Rieva, we’re doing a fun contest with listeners to name the show.  Look for a press release and an email blast on Monday

Even if you aren’t a fan of RAP music, you’ve gotta hand it to M.I.A.’s pregnant Grammy performance last night on the Grammy’s with T.I., Jay-Z, Lil’ Wayne, and Kanye West.  She rocked the house in a signature couture pregnancy outfit…on, yes listen closely ladies….her due date!  Her outfit was made with polka dots and mesh fabric putting it all out there.  I just had to write about it because to me that takes real confidence and self esteem and I couldn’t have been prouder while I was watching.

There was a woman standing on stage with four men, doing what she loved, thinking outside of the box about career options for working mothers, paving new paths for future generations, keeping it real and doing it her way and shining with Self Esteem.  Just what Six Figure Moms Club is all about.  My kinda woman.  You can see more about M.I.A. in Huffington Posts’ article here.

Next time you’re feeling insecure about anything, think about Ms. M.I.A. rocking it on the stage with her 9 month pregnant belly covered in Mesh.  You just gotta love it!

People always ask me this question when I go to Social Media events.  I don’t think I’m a Mommy Blogger but maybe I’m wrong.  I’m not sure what the definition really is.  In actuality it doesn’t really matter.  I’m not a person who likes to put people into boxes or to be classified myself (unless that it, is you want to call me things like Successful, Six Figure Mom, Millionaire, Independent, Entrepreneur, Working Mother

I’ve even had people say to me that I SHOULD be sure to classify myself as a Mommy Blogger because there is so much sponsorship money to be made in the mommy space.  That bugs me.  It’s contrary to my philosophy that you must first be who you really are.  Follow your passion.  Then align the money to your passion.  I know many people don’t believe in this line of reasoning but I hear top personal branding people talk about this all the time.  Most recently I heard Jay Berkowitz.  Jay was an amazing speaker at Affiliate Summit.  You can get a taste of his presentation by reviewing the twitter notes here.

I guess the main thing I really don’t like about being classified as a Mommy Blogger is that people automatically stop talking to me about anything that’s unrelated to Mommy stuff.  Yep, I’m a mom for sure.  But I was many other things before I had my daughter and I still am many other things.  I love my daughter and being a mother is a big part of who I am but other than managing work-life balance, it’s not really a very big part of my career.

Why would someone automatically assume that I want to talk to them about their baby-related clients?  I spent my 22 months with diapers.  That was truly enough time for me.

Now, let me recant a moment. One of the main mantras for Six Figure Moms Club is Nonjudgment of others.  I’m totally good with the choices that everyone else makes.  So, if you want to spend your life working in the baby industry, that’s cool!  What I’m taking exception to is stereotypes.

Six Figure Moms, what do you guys think?

What about you MommyBlogger? Thoughts?

I always like to do something special in January every year.  I feel it’s so important that we take a pause and really devote some focused attention to our personal goals and intentions for the coming year.  It’s critical to keep our eye on where we want to go, especially for working mothers.  If you want any chance at work life balance, you have to put yourself in the driver’s seat and do some serious planning.

For our January events, I like the environment to be really nice so that you hard working mothers can relax and feel comfortable to enjoy yourselves and let your creative minds flow.  I want great food, great wine (a given, right? besides-what would Gary Vaynerchuk say if we had no wine and no sniffy-sniff?), great ambiance, great company (you provide that part and inspiring reading for a little advance prep to get you into the right mindset.

So, I started looking for the advance reading and I googled vision boards.  The first thing that came up was Joyce Schwarz’s The Vision Board Book.  I clicked through and remembered that Joyce and I had met last year at Blog World Expo.  I read her website, was amazed to see  that just like Matt Lauer and I, she also went to Ohio University, and then I called her.  Next thing I knew, an hour had gone by and Joyce and I had just finished a fabulous conversation about vision boards.

Look for another post about Joyce later this month.  She’s given us access to 20 free pages of her book and donated a free copy of the book that I’ll give away on January 22.

If you’re in the San Diego area, I hope you’ll join us for a fun evening devoted to YOU and your 2009 intentions.  You can sign up under the events tab.

If you don’t live in San Diego, I encourage you to have your own vision board party.  I’ve been creating vision boards with my grad school girlfriends for over seven years.  It always makes for a great day together as we catch up and plan our futures.  Or, if you don’t have time for a party, make it an event for yourself alone or with your husband or partner.  It really is a fun way to get focused on where you want to go.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with some homework: Christine Kanes’ great article on How to Make a Vision Board.  Enjoy!

I went to a holiday party this weekend at a private home in Rancho Sante Fe, Ca.  The gracious host was directing everyone to her laundry room to store their coats.  I just had to snap a picture to share with all of you (with her permission of course and a little help from my friend, Vana White Monica Lucas, Owner of SpaMode who was dressed in white and looking like a snow princess ). 

Maybe some of your laundry rooms look just like this one but mine doesn’t.  Six Figure Moms, can you just imagine how much quicker you could finish up your laundry to do list if you had a combination washer/dryer for each color load?  Well, this lucky household had just that plus a beautufil travertine top folding counter!  I think I could make a lot of progress on my work-life balance with a laundry room like this since you have to be able to finish up in a fraction of the time!

So print this out and add this to your vision board/treasure maps for 2009.  This seems like a must have for every working mother!  Heck, I didn’t even know they made machines that both washed and dried.  Super awesome!  Speaking of vision boards, Six Figure Moms Club-San Diego will be meeting on January 22 for a super goal setting event.  Stay tuned for detail but pencil it in your calenders. Until then, happy laundry!

I don’t watch much TV but yesterday I wanted to record Gary Vaynerchuk making his debut appearance on the Today show.  I love Gary.  I’ve been hooked since I first heard him speak last September.  I didn’t know who he was but once I heard him speak, I was addicted.  After his talk ended, I asked for his advice about a Six Figure Moms Club membership site.  I wanted the site to be free versus paid and he agreed.  I had been coached by many that it had to be a paid membership site.  That just didn’t feel right to me.  I wanted the site to be availabe to everyone and I thought charging a fee would inhibit people from joining.  Gary agreed.  (The membership site launches in early January.  I’m so excited and I hope you’ll check it out and join!)

Gary is amazingly motivating when you hear him speak.  He’s CRAZY when he talks but so real that I can’t help but feel connected to him.  He does live Ustream shows from his office which are great too.  They are often impromptu.  He’ll announce them and within 5 minutes, 600 people have shown up to watch.  Gary has made a name for himself for being authentic, truthful and doing what he loves.  His family owns a wine company but Gary himself produces an internet wine show at www.winelibrary.tv.  He also speaks, offers corporate coaching and is known as a social media and personal branding expert.

Additionally, Gary talks about something near to my heart, people who want to change their careers and follow their passions. Gary preaches that if you are unhappy in your current job, there’s nobody to blame but yourself.  I’ve heard him talk about how a person can still work their day job, spend a few hours with their family and then spend the hours of 9pm to 2am working on a plan to reengineer their lives and careers.  He says you have nobody to blame but yourself if you are unhappy.  It’s a hardnosed approach but he’s right.  Some of you may know that I’ve written a book, QUITTING IS EVERYTHING!  It’s sitting nicely here on my shelf waiting for its publishing partner.  It’s a series of interviews with six figure earners who left their corporate jobs for more fulfilling passionate work and a how to guide about career transition and working in a job you love.  I hope to publish my book someday.  In the meantime, try to catch Gary talking about career change but be warned, you will be motivated to change.

Also, I’m sure Gary will have his Today show segment up on his site in a few days if you’re interested in seeing his spot.  He recommends some fabulous champagnes and proseccos for under $20.  In Gary’s signature language, make sure to give them all a good “sniffy-sniff”.  “American’s just don’t smell their alcohols enough” and that makes Gary very sad ;-(.

So, what do I have in common with Matt? Well, likey a couple of things related to travel in Italy but the main thing is….Today Show Co-Host, Matt Lauer, attended Ohio University, my alma mater.  He just has to be a good guy   Afterall, it is known as being ranked consistently in the top 20 of all party school lists!  (And they do have a top ranked journalism school too!)

Have a great day everyone and CONGRATULATIONS @GARYVEE!

You see, I’ve been operating at a crazy fast pace.  I bet you have too because that’s what we do at this holiday time of year, isn’t it?  Sometimes when we’re turned up and we’re buzzing around accomplishing massive amounts of tasks, we’re firing on all cylinders, accomplishing everything in site, we miss some of the details.  Or at least I do.  I don’t mean to say that I miss them in the sense that I don’t participate because indeed I am certainly there and I do go through the motions.  But, what’s really happening is I’m missing the details because I’m not enjoying the moment to it’s fullest potential.  My mom said to me, “Where is my daughter who always loves Christmas so much?”.  She’s right.  That person has only partially showed up this year.  And that person loves the details about Christmas, from buying pre-Christmas gifts and sending them ahead of time to baking cookies for everyone to having girlfriend parties to adopting less fortunate families.

So, now it’s Christmas eve and by my count that leaves about eight days left of the holiday season before 2009 kicks off in full swing.  How can I enjoy the holidays to their fullest in the time that’s left?  By really paying attention to the details.  Yes, I think for sure it’s all in the details.  Sure, I’ve had parties, baked cookies, looked at Christmas lights and had fun with my toddler so far.  But what I’ll focus on in the next eight days is SLOWING DOWN, SHUTTING OFF and just enjoying every moment.

For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t send out holiday cards to anyone but family.  I was determined but now I’ve flipped the switch and my holiday cards will just have to wait.  The surprising thing is, I’m perfectly okay with this now.  That’s huge for me as I’m quite the perfectionist.

So, in summary, my wish for you this holiday season is that you, too, can focus on the important things and live in the details.  Take a look at your to do lists and priortize them.  Lookat each thing on your list and really think about whether it’s important that you complete them or if your time is better spent with a loved one or just with yourself.  Be centered so that you can enjoy your moments and those around you.  You’ll be surprised at how a little shift in your own attitude can make a big difference for everyone around you.  Afterall, if the queen isn’t happy, nobody’s happy, right?

On a personal note, I wish you all the best of details this holiday week.  I thank you for your continued support of everything I do and mostly for participating in Six Figure Moms Club by reading my writing, commenting, attending events, being brave enough to step up and be controversial and showing up however you do to make the lives of others more fabulous.  Remember, you are terrific and YOU make a difference in helping other women create their best lives everyday.  HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 

Warmly, Angie

PS.  Can you believe I got through that post without mentioning Twitter?  I have some exciting news!  I’ll be launching a new blog in 2009 devoted specially to (drum roll please….you guessed it….TWITTER!  Stay tuned for details.)

If you’ve been following along, you know that my love affair with Twitter has been going on for a few months now. This past weekend, I had the great pleasure of meeting the author of The Twitter Revolution, Warren Whitlock…again. Not only did I meet Warren but I also had the honor of joining him at TwitCastRadio when he interviewed Adaptive Blue about Glue, a cool new tool that enhances your web browsing experience.  Can you imagine what I asked when it came to my turn for an interview question?  Of course, you’re right!  I asked how the new tool could interface with twitter!  You’ll also hear Mari Smith stepping in for a few seconds too.  (You can hear our interview by clicking on the links above.)

I so enjoyed spending time with Warren this weekend and I could write this whole post about him.  However, that’s not what’s important for you.  Here is what I want you working mothers to hear about my experience and to put to use for reengineering your own lives if it’s helpful for you:

There are successful (and sometimes famous) people around waiting to help you with whatever you need and they are within your grasp.  All you need to do is reach out to them.

Coaches, editors and publishers have been advising me that famous people are much more within our grasp than we think and that they are much more willing to help you than you would imagine.  It’s not a natural thing for us to pick up the phone and call someone like Oprah, but hey, who knows? I just might someday soon and you should too.

When I left for this conference, I jokingly said to my husband, “Warren Whitlock is broadcasting his radio show live from the hotel and I’m going to join him”.  My husband laughed and said, “OK, Angie” with a skeptic tone.  I did know that Warren was broadcasting his show because I had invited him to dinner and I knew he had a time conflict.  I didn’t, however, expect to be interviewing his guest along side him.  Like just about everyone else that I’ve met in the social media space.  I found Warren delightful, open and so willing to reach out a helping hand (Oh, and very funny too).  Thank you Warren!

And by the way, thanks to @sugarjones for taking this great picture below of Warren and I and uploading it to Twitpics just before the interview started.  Don’t we look like a great broadcast journalist team?

Tracy Green just launched a new website, www.smartworkingmom.com.  Her site is worth a look if you have a minute.  This week, she emailed me and also left a comment on my blog.  I’d like to share them both with you because I think you’ll relate to what she’s saying.

 Email:  “I applaude you!  It was so refreshing to see a website that makes it okay for moms to work, and want to work and celebrates those who do!  I’m emailing to ask your permission to list www.sixfiguremomsclub.com as a  HOT LINK on my evolving website:  www.smartworkingmom.com.  I’m a full-time, plus working mom of two boys and enjoy having a career. My issue became that I was in complete control and successful at the office, but at home — forget it! I was out of my element.  (Snipped)

 Blog Comment: ”First, this is such a dynamic site! Finally, a site that doesn’t try to help moms get over whatever “guilt” they have for working. In terms of the one thing that I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving, OPPORTUNITY — the opportunity to have it all, career, family, health, success, etc. Best, Tracy”

Tracy points out three major issues for Six Figure Working Moms:  Judgment, Guilt and the ability to successfully juggle everything.  In her email, Tracy says it’s refreshing that my website makes it okay for mom’s to work.  Absolutely!  In my mind, it’s okay for a mom to do whatever she wants as long as she’s making choices that are healthy for herself and her family.  It’s so hard for us to remember not to judge each other isn’t it?  We women are our worst enemies.  I catch myself judging other women’s choices all the time and having to remind myself that it’s really none of my business.  Try it for one week.   Be on ultra alert for when you are judging others and ask yourself why.

The second issue Tracy points out is Guilt.  Why DO we feel guilty about working and wanting things for ourselves?  It doesn’t really matter why because it’s a phenomenon that’s been around for as long as women have been working and it’s not likely going away.  I say this because acknowledging guilt as a normal part of being a working mother sometimes makes it a bit more palatable.  Sure, there are some days when it bothers us more than others.  For me, those are the days when I need to readjust my calendar, reroute my priorities and spend more time with my daughter.  My guilt is a pretty good barometer if I use it and understand it correctly. 

Lastly, Tracy discusses that she had everything perfectly oiled at work but things were falling apart at home.  Sound familiar?  There really are only so many hours in the day and you’ve got to remember that balance is required when you’re living your life in the fast lane of career and home life.  You have to allow room for error when your operating at this fast pace.  If someone gets sick or something unexpected happens, your plan will get off kilter so plan for that as a normal part of your routine.  It will undoubtedly happen.  If you expect it, it won’t be such a surprise and will be a little easier to deal with.