Connecting the Dots

Thanks to all who commented on my July 5th blog about finding my sweet spot (that whole career/family/self balance point) and how I could deliver the message of a scaled back picture of success in a speech to Detroit women business owners in a few months. What insightful readers and writers this blog has! Please go back and read the comments, it will be very worth your time.

One of my concerns about this speech is that these business owners are up against a monster of a bad economy. My Little Mary Sunshine message of "Hey, maybe where you are RIGHT NOW is just fine" felt a bit uncomfortable for me. 

Bill Marsh Jr, of Bill Marsh Auto Group read my blog and was good enough to send me a  speech given by executive coach and speaker Connie Podesta of Texas. I took away many ideas from Connie's remarks. One that I thought most worth sharing is this: We rarely question our happiness when all is going well: customers are beating a path to our door, employees are happy and productive, vendors are meeting your demands, etc... Rather, it is when sales have dumped, you can't meet payroll, and vendors have turned into creditors that unless you really love what you are doing and have a clear priority to succeed at it, work just sucks.

When I started doing the Mary in the Morning Show, the general manager of the station told me that the first day I found myself not wanting to get out of bed at 4AM would be the day to hand in my resignation. It messes up your family life and plain old hurts too much to wake up that early if you aren't excited to get to work. After 3 years, I completely understand what he was telling me. There is no way that I would sacrifice normal life for this job if it was anything less than the most fun job imaginable.

So, the message here is: If in this rotten economy you have lost the love for your business, career or job, you probably never really loved it all that much. Time to reevaluate what makes you happy, good times or bad, and get moving in that direction.