🧠 Weekly Mind Sweep #103| What’s On My Mind | Reflection
December 2023
Week 100: Curated Conversation; Reflection
Week 101: Mind Your Business; Reflection
Week 102: Manage Your Mind; Reflection
*Week 103: What’s On My Mind; Reflection
New to the Weekly MindSweep? Past issues live here.
Let’s sweep the brain…
It feels like a lot of pressure to write the last Weekly MindSweep of 2023.
You know the moment when your number is called at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, and it’s your turn to step up to the window? The bead of sweat dripping slowly from your temple, and you take a deep breath.
You are praying to the “State Of All Who Is In Charge of the Road” gods that all of your paperwork is in order because this is the most stressful situation you’ve been in last 4 years?
This is the moment you’ve been waiting for.
The perceived pressure of sharing “What’s On My Mind” around Reflection feels a bit like that.
But the truth is, I feel the pressure each time I sit to write, yet I still show up every week. It may seem simple or easy from the outside. I assure you it hasn’t gotten any easier yet. #entrepreneur
I make up this story in my brain that I need to be mindful, inspirational, and educational by crafting a story or analogy and bringing light to your inbox each week. The reality is that you, dear reader, really want me to show up exactly who I am.
I know this is true because it’s precisely what I want from you.
So, as my dear friend and colleague Terri Hamilton would recommend, I take deep breaths in and out. Because focusing on my breath brings me back to the center so I can reflect. Join me on an adventure as I reflect on 2023 and what I’ve learned.
I’ve been on a journey to find home.
When I began Chickbook Creative in 2020, a tornado called COVID-19 swung through the Northeast. I was knocked off my feet, hit my head on the way down, and woke to find myself shaken to the core. What was, would no longer be.
It was time to find my way back home to where I belonged.
I’ve been an entrepreneur before and knew the journey would not be linear and carefree.
Like the Wizard of Oz’s storyline, I woke in a new world with a village of like-hearted humans encouraging me toward where I wanted to be. This village has given me a newfound sense of spirituality, relationships, and community.
Along my journey, I’ve met people with courage, brains, and heart, as well as experience, love, and support. I’m walking alongside people in a quest for self-development and business growth. [1]
There have been peeks behind curtains in my quest for the truth to find reality, and it wasn’t always pretty. But these lessons led me to new opportunities, new ideas, and our community.
Like Dorothy, I didn’t know what to expect once I reached my destination.
What I’ve learned is that there isn’t a destination.
It’s a lifetime journey of entrepreneurship.
There isn’t a particular destination where I will feel like everything is complete and that I’ve checked all the boxes of what society deems “successful.”
If anyone is selling you that, take a look behind that curtain.
In entrepreneurship, there are trials and tribulations as well as allies and adversaries.
YOU are the owner of your business. An entrepreneur is “a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks to do so.”
We’ll face inner and outer challenges along the way. It’s what you choose to do with them.
We are people operating businesses, and we definitely take on greater financial responsibility to do so. This is why we lean into our natural human need for community.
Our songs beat to a different drum, we design our shapes, and we color outside the lines.
We belong supporting each other. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
I had been searching for a sense of home all these years, and I’ve found it here, with you.
Together, in our community.
The answers you need for your business are already within you.
If you’d like support in pulling them out to build a business you are proud of, I’m here to help.
The Entrepreneur's Brain Trust
Supporting entrepreneurs in pursuing profitable ideas.
We begin in THREE WEEKS!
Have you saved your seat?
The Chickbook Creative Entrepreneurs Brain Trust is a membership-based community that creates a safe and inclusive space for entrepreneurs to cultivate new relationships, inspire personal and professional growth, and explore possibilities.
What members are saying…
Click image to learn more about Innate Marketing Genius & take her QUIZ!!
A place for my digressions.
[1] Pinch me. I love who I serve and I love what I do!
Was this blog forwarded to you? Sign up!
Make it stand out
MONDAY: 8 am - Curated Conversation - Zoom
Changing the world, one Monday Morning at a time. Learn more + Sign Up for a Monday morning reminder!
What I’m reading
Hidden Potential by Adam Grant
“We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door.
Hidden Potential offers a new framework for raising aspirations and exceeding expectations. Adam Grant weaves together groundbreaking evidence, surprising insights, and vivid storytelling that takes us from the classroom to the boardroom, the playground to the Olympics, and underground to outer space. He shows that progress depends less on how hard you work than how well you learn. Growth is not about the genius you possess—it’s about the character you develop. Grant explores how to build the character skills and motivational structures to realize our own potential, and how to design systems that create opportunities for those who have been underrated and overlooked.”
What I’m listening to:
Huberman Lab
Robert Greene: A Process for Finding & Achieving Your Unique Purpose
“In this episode, my guest is Robert Greene, multiple New York Times bestselling author and expert on human psychology and behavior both at the individual and group levels and in the context of relationships, careers, and society.
We discuss how to find, pursue and achieve one’s unique life purpose, and how to best learn from good and hard experiences along that journey. We discuss power dynamics in relationships, the different types of human communication and the interplay between seduction and vulnerability.
We discuss how to find the right romantic partner, improve healthy self-awareness, the link between anxiety and creativity, and pick ideal mentors and role models. Robert also discusses his recent stroke and what he has learned from his near-death experience about motivation, urgency and appreciation for life.
Listeners of all ages will benefit from Robert’s insights on navigating the process of building a deeply purposeful life and enhancing one’s relationship with the self, others and society.”
Collaborations!
MetroWest Chamber
Limited to 12 Spots
Friday, January 5, 2024
9am-11am
For 2024, we'd like to make a focused effort to support you and your business. In January, we'll discuss a strategic plan.
Why do you need one?
What does one look like?
Create your own!
Join Shannon Giordano of Serendipity Social Media and me for this two-hour interactive business community experience.
We’ll discuss ways to cultivate business through Sales, Marketing, and Communication methods that support relationship building, showing up authentically, and connecting deeper with colleagues and the people you serve.
9-10 am - Gain a new perspective or tool to support you and your business
10-10:45 am - Open discussion, community support, brainstorming ideas
10:45 -11 am - Clear and actionable takeaways to start your month in forward momentum
Join us to meet business owners in our community. Leave with new tools in your toolbox to help you make connections and build your business!
Free to Attend; Register
Mindful Connections
Connecting like-hearted entrepreneurs to build relationships, offering support, understanding their passions, and sharing their names in rooms of opportunity.
January 2024
Thursdays 12-1 pm
12:00 - Take 5—a guided meditation with Terri Hamilton of Apparent Connection to ground your week with peace and focus.
12:05-1 pm Round-table Share
Who you are
The gifts you bring to the world
Who you serve
The answer to a Curated question to spark conversation.
If you found this on the web, sign up to join us!
Make it stand out
IN-PERSON: Mindful Connections!
Please join us for an IN-PERSON Mindful Connections!
Pressed Cafe
330 Billerica Road,
Chelmsford, MA 01824
02/09/2024
11 am - 1 pm
Co-hosted by Terri Hamilton of Apparent Connections & Jamie Chapman of Chickbook Creative. This unique networking experience allows the space for like-hearted entrepreneurs to learn more about each other, share their gifts with the world, and learn more about each other to share names in rooms of opportunity.
Do you know someone who would like to join us? Forward the email or share the link!
Join us!
Free to Attend; Registration is Required - https://bit.ly/MindfulInPerson02092024
In other news…
Feeling #FOMO about Curated Conversations? Join us!
