Farewell Design Your Lifestyle & Welcome Design a Business You Love

Hey there Lifestyle Designers,

Guess what? This is the last episode of the Design Your Lifestyle podcast.

But don’t worry, I’m not disappearing into the sunset. I’m rebranding and relaunching with a brand new podcast called, Design a business you love, work anywhere. Strategies for artists, authors, and entrepreneurs. Why the change? Well, as much as I love talking about lifestyle design, I’ve realized it’s just too broad of a topic to cover in one podcast.

So I’m going to zoom in on lifestyle businesses that you can run from practically anywhere, specifically for artists, authors, and entrepreneurs like you. We’re gonna dive deep and really shine a spotlight on you and the business of art authorship and entrepreneurship. We we’re gonna talk about digital nomads and how to run your business from a beach in Florida, or a cafe in Paris.

And of course, we’re gonna tackle the roadblocks and the mindset issues that come up along the way. So keep an eye out for the new artwork popping up on your favorite podcast player. And if you’re already subscribed, there’s no need to do anything except sit back, relax, and get ready for more fun and insightful episodes to come.

Hope over to Design a Business You Love to learn more.

How Do You Create Your Personal Strategic Plan?

How Do You Create Your

Personal Strategic Plan?

When you are ready to transform the way you do things to live a more strategic life, it can be difficult to know where to start. That is why we are here to help. Below you will find the best things to do when it is time to start creating a strategic life plan.

It Starts with Your Dreams that Shapes Your Vision

First and foremost, you need to have an overall vision that you will use a strategy to create. Once you know what this vision is, you must spend time writing it down. The act of writing will make it seem more real and achievable to you, but it will also help your mind consider the things you must accomplish to achieve the vision.

Write Down Specifics to Create Your Personal Strategic Plan

Now that you have your vision written down, it’s time to make a list of the things that will be part of the strategy to achieve that vision. For example, if you wrote a vision of going on vacations more often, the things you might list in your strategic plan would be earning more money, saving money specifically for vacations, or saving your vacation time at work. These ideas will help to guide you into decision-making while you are working on living your strategic plan.

Check-In With Yourself and Learn From Mistakes

You aren’t expected to achieve your vision all at once and don’t be surprised if you make mistakes along the way. Just make sure that you are learning from your mistakes as you go. The best way to do this is by having regularly scheduled check-ins with yourself. What are you doing that’s working? What are you doing that’s not working? When you have these answers, it’s time to revisit your strategic plan and make adjustments.
And if the vision itself changes, or becomes more specific, don’t be afraid to write down these changes as well! A strategic life plan needs to grow as you grow and develop your strategy to be more precise.

Overall, to create your personal a strategic life plan may seem like a daunting task, but it’s just putting what you want to achieve on paper. And once you have your vision written down, you can break it down to specifics and build your plan. Don’t be afraid to go back and edit and change your strategic plan as you grow and learn, as this is all part of the process of having a good strategic life plan that works for you!

Lifestyle Design Apple Style

Let’s talk about how you can Design your Lifestyle, Apple Style. Lifestyle design is a very broad topic and it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the ideas and options for how to design your lifestyle. This podcast looks at what we can learn from Apple when it comes to lifestyle design. 

Lifestyle Design – Apple Style

You probably have at least one Apple product in your home. Or if you don’t have one, you know someone who does. Apple has become shorthand for sustainable success and instant recognizability. So much so that song lyrics include phrases about iPods and iPhones.  There’s a song that my kids loved and we’d play it in the car from their iPod. I thought the song said, “It’s like my eyeballs stuck on a plate.” so I would sing this phrase out loud.  My kids loved correcting me no Mom, it says, “It’s like my iPod stuck on replay.”  

Apple has a small but mighty line of products that do exceptionally well. They are focused and strategic in their product development and marketing. And their big not-so-secret weapon? They invent something and then keep refining it. 

This approach to innovation and incremental change is something you can easily adapt to your own life. 

1. Hit it with the Simple Stick

Ken Segall author of Insanely Simple the Obsession that Drives Apple’s Success shares in his book how people who worked at Apple would come out of meetings with Steve Jobs shaking their heads discouraged. When asked what happened, they said, “Steve hit us with the simple stick.” This meant that Steve had rejected their work and sent them back to the drawing board.
As someone who has worked as a creative professional most of my life, I understand this completely. 

So many times, I have thought or overthought a problem and delivered a solution to a client only to have them say, “Nah, I don’t like it.”
On one occasion, I recall a client had said, “Just do whatever you think is right for us.” This was a new home in upscale development with a Southern Plantation feel about it. Our interior design team put together a beautiful Southern Plantation style presentation for this client and we bombed… The client said, “No no no, we thought you knew we wanted a more Tuscan Mediterranean feel like you did for so-and so”

Wow! We were we off track… We could have given them a rubber stamp of what we did for another client.  

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple. He made a strategic decision to keep Apple’s focus tight. He simplified their product lines down to four computers.

How can you simplify your life right now by eliminating the elements that waste your time and resources? 

Start by cutting down or cutting out TV and video games, which are both low-return uses of your time.Then think of how you can downsize your resources. Right now we are switching to a smaller car or 1 car, moving to a smaller house, de-cluttering, to not buying more stuff you don’t need. 

How can you free up time by shopping online, buying in bulk, and batch cooking? 

2. Ideate & Iterate

To Ideate means brainstorm and to iterate means incremental changes.

Any psychologist will tell you that small, incremental lifestyle changes are much more successful than the big sort that tries to change everything at once. Think of how successful most New Year’s resolutions are. 

Make a commitment to a significant life change, like early retirement, semi retirement or taking mini vacations.

You can make a series of small changes, like switching from going out for coffee to brewing coffee at home. Add in complementary changes, like cutting down on takeout, downgrading your subscriptions and buying a smaller car. Small iterations compound over time and can make a massive impact on your life. 

3 . Be Curious

One of Apple’s big successes is its research and development capacity. They are committed to not missing  an opportunity to learn and grow and improve over time.
Stay ahead of the pack by being curious, by always being open to learning and change, looking for new opportunities, tweaking your goals, and always staying committed to improvement.

4. Pinch & Zoom

The coolest feature on an iPad or iPhone is the Pinch & Zoom feature. Being able to zoom in and look at something closer is so amazing. 

In my past life, I worked for an architecture firm where my boss left me a note on my desk to print out a floorplan at 1” = 1’ scale and put it on the conference table. I thought it was a mistake because we usually printed hotels at 1/8” = 1’ so I knew this would take lots of paper. I did what was asked and unrolled this on the conference room table. My boss came in and started looking over these drawings. He would lean down and put his eyes right next to the paper and then back up. I watched him a minute and asked if there was anything else he needed. He said, “you probably think this is little crazy don’t you”. I said, “Maybe a little but you’re the boss.” He said, “My eyes are getting so bad that this is how big I need to look at the drawings to catch mistakes.” He was zooming into the drawing.

5. Being Okay with Imperfection

One of Apple’s mottos is ‘just ship’ meaning that they don’t wait to get a product absolutely perfect before they launch it into the world.
Being okay with imperfection doesn’t mean you just leave it there and turn out low-quality work. It means you keep hustling. You give it your best shot, get it out, and then make improvements. You keep moving, keep thinking, keep improving. 

How to Turn Trauma into Something Lovely with LauraLee

Turn Trauma into Something Lovely

In today’s podcast, we talk to Laura Lee, a blogger and trauma survivor who shares how to turn trauma into something lovely.

Laura Lee discusses how art specifically, adult coloring helped her overcome trauma and now she helps others throw her membership site.

https://colorjoy.co/mygift  coupon code – Kimberly

**Note that anyone who downloads the PDF will have access to a 50% off coupon valid for either of her memberships**

The Coloring Membership

https://colorjoy.co 

Special Program that Laura Lee is Offering

Wellness Through Expressive Arts

A new special program Laura Lee is offering for a limited time

https://colorjoy.co/ea

It’s Me Laura Lee Blog

https://itsmelauralee.com

Please contact Laura Lee for help or questions through either website.

Books that Laura Lee recommends: 

Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller

Contagious by Jonah Berger

 

It’s Never Too Late to Dream Big

I had a very cool experience for Valentine’s Day. My sweetheart took me to see Jodi Benson. You know who Jodi Benson is, don’t you?  She is the voice of Ariel, The Little Mermaid. Let me share a few things that Jodi Benson said that I found meaningful.

What I Learned from Jodi Benson

Jodi Benson Never Too LateWhen asked what she learned from playing Ariel in the Little Mermaid  She said, “Ariel teaches her all the time…To be brave,..To go for your dreams… To speak your mind…To be honest… To keep your childlike innocence.”

Someone asked her if it’s too late to chase your dreams. And Jodi answered, “It’s never too late, God has a purpose for everyone.”

I was very impressed by Mrs. Benson. She is a true Disney Princess. I loved the way she answered everyone’s questions, especially the little girls in the audience. This got me thinking about the idea of it never being too late to start a new dream and some of my favorite entrepreneurs who have decided they are not buying into the idea that it is too late.

It’s Never Too Late to Dream Big

Martha Stewart is Always Reinventing Herself

Martha Stewart comes to mind first. Martha was a model in her youth. She was a stockbroker after college. She has reinvented herself over and over as an author, a tv host, a caterer, a decorator, and a chef.

At 63, Martha was convicted in a case about Insider Trading and she went to jail. She accepted her punishment and even helped another inmate get started in the fashion business.

Martha is now almost 80 and she is still going strong. She is creating shows with Snoop Dog  “Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party” where she is meeting a whole a new generation.

Kate White from Magazine Boss Lady to Best Selling Author

Another one of my favorite encore entrepreneurs is Kate White, she is the former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine, Working Women, Child, and Redbook. She is now a New York Times best selling author and speaker. She has several fiction books with titles like: A Body to Die For and Such a Perfect Wife. I love her non-fiction titles:

Ernesto Shepard World’s Oldest Performing Female BodyBuilder

Next let’s talk about  Ernesto Shepard. This lady is impressive she is the World’s Oldest Performing Female BodyBuilder (by Guinness World Records)

At 79 Years Young, she started this at 56 when she thought she needed to get in shape to look good in a swim suit. She is a personal trainer and she participates in body building competitions. She definitely adheres the the idea that it is never too late to dream big.

Another Fabulous Encore Entrepreneur is Tamara Monosoff

Tamara Monosoff, worked in the white house, worked in Washington D.C. in the Clinton Administration where she served as Chief of Staff for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education at the U.S. Department of Education, Education Director for the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, and Senior Communications Associate for the President’s Initiative on Race at the White House.

She is an Inventor and the Founder of Mom Invented & the Mom Invented® Brand of products

She is a best selling author of several books including “The Mom Inventors Handbook: How to Turn Your Great Idea into the Next Big Thing”

It is never too late to dream big and start something new. I encourage you to get started on a new dream today.

If you would like some help with coming up with Ideas, I encourage you to take the Dream & Decide Workshop.

Dream & Decide Workshop

Design Your Lifestyle