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I need your help.
Remember that project I’ve mentioned a few times but haven’t talked about because I actually wanted to get it done?
Well, it’s ready for testing. So just what is it?
Over the past two years I’ve worked hard at getting rid of the word someday from my life and now I want to share what I’ve learned with you.
There are three varieties of Someday Syndrome:
- Someday My Ship Will Come In - waiting for the world to provide you with your dreams instead of realizing them yourself.
- I’ll Get Around To It Someday - procrastinating and thinking you’ll have time to realize your dreams later.
- But I Might Need It Someday - cluttering your life with unnecessary objects making realizing your dreams more difficult.
The workshop I’ve put together is a nine-week email course based on the first variety - Someday My Ship Will Come In. Through this course you will learn how to choose the dream to pursue, how that dream interacts with your current reality, how to decide what in your current needs to change, and how to get started actively pursuing the dream.
For the first five people who email me at alex DOT fayle AT gmail DOT com, I’ll send the whole workshop at once (instead of over nine weeks) - a $39 value. In return, all I ask for is feedback on the workshop so that I can make it even better.
Someday Lessons:
- Contrary to what we might think, no one knows everything - ask for help.
- Listen to feedback with an open mind and without ego.
More About Alex
Every once in a while I get an email from someone with a list of questions with a request to answer them, then send the list out to everyone you know and copy the sender.
Most of the time I ignore them, but this last one (from my fourth-cousin once-removed) I’m posting here so that everyone can get to know me a little better.
Enjoy!
Someday Lessons:
- No one ever knows everything about someone.
- If you want to be truly happy, share your life and thoughts with others.
Blatant Self-Promotion Day
Since the beginning of February, I’ve been working on a writing project for fellow organizers Elaine Shannon and Kim Eagles. They are in the process of building a social networking website designed around organizing. It’s for those who don’t have time or the resources to hire a Professional Organizer but want to get more out of life.
The site will include videos, worksheets, teleclasses, product and book recommendations, and discussion forums. Elaine and Kim hired me to co-write the scripts for the videos as well as develop the worksheets and website content.
This is the first time in my life that I’m getting paid to write and I couldn’t be happier. Every day when I wake up, I’m eager to get writing. This eagerness spills over into my fiction writing and I’ve become a total writing machine.
The site, called The Organizing Connection, goes live April 2nd, but in the meantime, take a look at the teaser video, and tell me – is this you?
Someday Lessons:
- If you aren’t your biggest fan, how can you expect others to be?
- When you do what you love, life becomes incredibly sweet.
A Lesson Floats Up From the Past
When I started my business in 2003, I took a part time job at a local rock climbing gym. The owners had created a successful business, but (in my opinion) they lacked any concept of standard operating procedures.
As a former Records Manager and (at the time) new Professional Organizer, I decided I would help them. I offered suggestions for improvements, ways to make life easier for everyone. They rejected every suggestion. They even got offended that I would make suggestions.
The way they ignored my help spurred me on. They would soon see that, like them, I wanted the best for their business. They would realize that I could make life simpler.
This cold war of forced assistance continued until it turned into a face to face confrontation. One of the owners finally came straight out and told me to mind my own business because I had no idea what I was talking about. I responded with hurtful words, because she had deeply hurt and offended me. How could she say that when she hadn’t ever even let me completely present any of my ideas?
I expected to be fired. I wasn’t. This offended me even more. My lack of respect needed to be punished? I lost all respect for the owners and quit.
Flash forward four years to today. My mind wandered half in/half out of a doze. I suddenly experienced a polite elephant sneeze.* Through various strange memory associations, the fight floated to the top and I looked at it again. I was completely in the wrong from beginning to end. I let my ego and my pride push me into a place where I wasn’t welcome. Then I got offended when my presence was ignored.
That damn ego, always getting me in trouble!
Someday Lessons:
- It’s rude to force help on someone who doesn’t want it.
- Just because you can see a way to improve someone’s life, it doesn’t give you the right to impose the improvement.
* To me the word epiphany sounds like an elephant politely sneezing.
Monthly Newsletter Available
The latest monthly newsletter (formerly called Solutions, now Someday Thoughts) is up on my other site.
You can subscribe to the newsletter by clicking the "Subscribe Here" link on the left side of any page of the House Therapy website.
Enjoy!