The second issue of the SNS Personal Geography newsletter went live today!
Use this post to discuss your feelings and ideas around using only two broad categories to explain the idea of personal geography versus using multiple specific categories to flesh out the concept.
I look forward to sharing our ideas.
If you aren’t receiving the Personal Geography newsletter yet, and would like to join in the creative process you can sign up below, or you can read more about the Personal Geography newsletter here.
Just a quick post today to let you know that Sunday Night Success may disappear for a bit this week.
I am switching the registration of the domain name and switching my hosting services. I have mixed stories: some telling me this is an easy switch with nothing to worry about, other people telling horrible tales of broken links and general chaos. I am hoping the SNS switch will follow the plot line of the former and not the latter stories.
Sticking to what I do well.
Generally when toying around with technology I inevitably make a mistake and mess things up. I actually, for the most part, enjoy learning new tech-tricks and figuring things out for myself. However, more often than not, I miss one little step, or click on one wrong option, and it all goes wrong. Then I spend countless hours trying to troubleshoot my mistake and getting stressed out. I always fix the problem, eventually.
No eventually this time
The plan is to skip the stressed out problem solving step this time and have someone else do it for me. I am going to investigate the world of virtual assistants and see what it will cost me to have an expert help me with the switch. My business is now making money, not a lot, but it is making money, and I think my time can be used better with other business building tasks.
I am intrigued by using a virtual assistant as one of my support environments and this seems like a perfect opportunity to test the waters.
Wish me luck!
Have you ever used a virtual assistant before? Do you have any recommendations for an awesome Wordpress virtual assistant?
When my wife and I moved to Rossland three years ago we left behind a lot of really incredible friends in Calgary. We have made new friends in Rossland, which has been great, but that isn’t a replacement for the long term friends we have in Calgary.
Two of my best friends, Mat and Jon, we have known each other since grade seven, recently brought their families out for ski vacations and a visit. It is amazing how much energy seeing my friends provided. Spending time with friends who love you unconditionally and are willing to support you in whatever you are doing is priceless. Friends who have seen you at your best and your worst. Friends you know you can still count on to be there, to catch you when you stumble or fall.
I don’t think I would be able to be doing the things I am doing right now if I didn’t have these types of friends in my life. My courage to experiment and try new things is powered by having these people in my life. Mat and Jon’s recent visit recharged my reserves and helped prepare me for all of my upcoming challenges and successes.
The friendships you have and the friendships you are developing have a huge impact on your personal geography. If you are currently experiencing success or facing challenges scan the relationship space of your personal geography and ask yourself:
What good friends do you have filling up the relationship space of your personal geography? How can these important friendships help support you in what you are doing? How can you help support them in what they are doing? What new friendships can you develop to help pull yourself forward?
While working through my own personal geography I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my home, one of the most important spaces in my life. As I have studied the environment of my home I have begun to realize the huge impact it has on all of the different spaces in my life. My home space affects my work, my business, my family, my health, my ideas, and my overall mood.
This work around my home space drew my attention to this TED video on architecture. As I experience my own perspective shift on the importance of my home, this TED video provides an exciting perspective shift on how we build.
The scifi geek side of me finds this whole idea very cool.
All right this picture isn’t exactly of my backyard, but it is only a thirty minute drive to get to this location on the side of the Columbia river, so I consider it my backyard. The Columbia, the mountains, the hiking paths, the ski runs, the lakes; I consider all of these to be a part of my “location environment”: the broad area where I live that has a direct affect on how I live.
I need to be IN nature to be truly happy. I didn’t fully realize this until Ashlea and I packed up and moved out of the big city to Rossland, BC. Living in Calgary, nature was always close to us, but we still lived IN the city. It turns out close doesn’t work for me, I need to live in nature, not near it.
Rossland and the surrounding area are the biggest space in my personal geography, but this space defines so much of who I am, how I live, and really provides the overall context for all of the other spaces that make up my personal geography. Shifting my life from the city to the mountains is one of the most important changes I have made and this decision continues to affect all aspects of my personal geography.
When scanning the different spaces in your personal geography you are looking for the supportive environments that you already have in place, supportive environments that you are missing, non-supportive environments that you can change, and non-supportive environments that you need to eliminate.
A dishwasher falls into number two for my family: a supportive environment that is missing.
Many will argue that you don’t need a dishwasher, and for many that may be true. However, when my wife and I review the amount of time, and the amount of energy that we spend (all right mostly my wife at this point, I am working and running my business) on cleaning dishes it is huge.
The amount of energy and time we spend on cleaning dishes is huge.
A dishwasher will be a supportive environment that gives us this time and energy back, energy that we can use on far more important things in our life.
Now we just need to pick a brand and find someone to install it.
What is a missing environment in your personal geography? How much time and energy would you get back in your life if you filled this empty environment? Do you have a recommendation for a good dishwasher?
This week’s TED video had a big impact on my own creative thinking as I work through my idea of personal geography. Check out the intriguing art of Tom Shannon then continue reading below.
In the video Tom Shannon discusses the unseen fields interacting in the universe and how these invisible forces help him to craft his art. This is how I see the concept of personal geography: all of the different seen and unseen spaces and forces that are helping you to craft your life.
You can simply allow these forces to guide your life or, and for me this is a more empowering view, you can take control of designing the spaces and forces in your life so that your personal geography is not simply a response to circumstances, but is intelligently crafted.
Tom Shannon’s art provides an excellent image of this concept. He uses the natural forces of the universe to create his art, but he also adds his own control over the designs through the creation of his pendulum. He is using the natural spaces and forces to his advantage by designing how they interact with his art.
How can you design the spaces and forces of your personal geography to positively interact with your life?
I am still in the process of figuring out how I want to create the conversation around the personal geography newsletter. So, for issue number one, and maybe more after that if this seems to work, I have created this post to share your ideas about what you read in the newsletter.
Please, share your thoughts on the first newsletter below so we can get the conversation started.
If you have no idea what this post is talking about, but would like to know more sign up for the Sunday Night Success Personal Geography newsletter here:
I have picked up work with two different coaching organizations providing coaching and writing services.
I have maintained a small number of clients in my private coaching practice.
I am now supplying the majority of my family’s income through my new adventure as a coach.
I have grown and continue to grow the reader base of Sunday Night Success.
Everything has been going better than “according to plan”.
Funny how that is such a precarious place to be.
Positive results and silly thoughts
With all of these positive results I made a decision a couple of weeks ago that I would put building my private practice on hold and focus on my contract work. At the time it made perfect sense: the contract work is paying my bills and a little bit more, it is most important, full steam ahead.
Which was followed by an even sillier thought: I can start building my private practice again if the contract work slows down or comes to an end.
All the cogs in the machine
Most of you have already seen the complete gap in my thinking process, funny how it took me a few weeks, and some prodding from my SNS group and my own coach, to catch on.
Why stop helping people just because things are going well?
Why wait for something to go wrong before building up another income stream for my business and my family?
The contract work is great, but it is only a piece of the overall vision for success. I am having a lot of fun with the work and learning a lot. The opportunities just keep opening up and it is fabulous. However, that does not mean I don’t need the other piece of the vision, my private practice, spinning inside the machine.
If I am having great success with one aspect of the plan, why not work on having even more success by continuing to work on all the parts?
Gratitude for my support network
The thanks for this realization goes to those relationships that provide me with the support that has helped me with my recent success. Without their questions and gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) prodding I would be moving forward but leaving some important pieces behind.
Now it is time to refocus and get back on track.
What is one area of your own life that you may be feeling too comfortable with? How would things look different if you shook things up and put some energy back into this area?
This week I wanted to move the focus away from my physical space and give an example of a supportive environment in my relationship space. As much as I believe people forget to pay attention to the effect their different physical spaces have on their success, I think people spend even less time thinking of how the people in their lives are helping or hindering how effectively they move forward.
Fionn (the “o” is silent)
My son is by far one of my most supportive environments even though, at times, he tends to completely exhaust me on a physical level, he does nothing but provide me with energy to work on all of my projects and move towards my dreams. The birth of my son completely changed my perspective on all of my different spaces. My previous goals, ambitions, and dreams all took a 180 or at least 90 degree turn when Fionn came into my life.
How does my son act like a supportive environment?
- Whenever I forget why I am doing something, a few minutes with him reminds me of my purpose.
- Whenever I spend too much time on work, time with him reminds me of what is important.
- When I am having a bad day, stopping what I am doing and hanging out with my son is a sure-fire cure for the blues.
Fionn is a perfect example of how just spending time with the right people in your life can provide endless energy to keep you working towards your dreams.
Think of somebody in your own life who is a positive energy source. What could you do to spend more time with this person receiving that positive energy?
Want to learn more about environments? Read about my new newsletter then sign up for the newsletter in the top right corner of my homepage.
