We recently lost an ancient old tree from our back yard. One particular breezy Saturday afternoon, I heard a loud cracking sound, followed by a heavy thump. One of the limbs from this tree broke off, just grazing the roof of our home. Thankfully, there was minimal damage, but the rest of the tree had to come down.

We knew this tree was in danger of falling - it was mostly leafless with large holes throughout its trunk. But it was home to alot of nature - a family of racoons resided in the largest section. They were a rowdy bunch and very amusing to watch (and slightly scary to my “city boy” sweetheart).

I was resistant to cut the old tree down because I felt sorry for the racoons - it was their home before we moved in to this house. Where would they go? I couldn’t be responsible for homeless racoons!

I also felt horrible about removing a tree that was over 100 years old with a huge span of branches. I thought removing it would leave a terrible hole in our backyard treescape … what a bad thing for the environment!

But after the tree came down, I was surprised how smoothly nature recovers. I didn’t notice any homeless racoons… they simply moved in somewhere else. I still hear them making racket in the evening and early morning, so they haven’t moved far. And the surrounding trees seem to enjoy the extra sunlight they receive. The Arborist told me that I have several young saplings that will quickly fill the space, growing vigorously in the open air.

I am amazed at the simple lessons we can learn by looking out our window. Life moves on- the environment changes, and so must we in our work world.

Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” A good lesson for us all!

As we all adjust to the new economy and business environment, how adaptive are we? Are we evolving, or clinging to the past? As the old ways of doing business falls away, are we taking advantage of the new opportunities to grow?

Today is a blustery Wisconsin winter day- the temperature in the single digits with a wind chill factor of something like –20º.  Just ridiculous!  Because I dislike the cold, I use the winter months to work diligently and so my primary focus at this time of year is work, work, work.  Because who wants to be outside in this frigid environment?

I recently took a moment from my “to do” list to catch a breathtaking view out of my office window.  You see, my office is situated overlooking the Fox River.  Despite being five minutes from downtown, we have a secret pocket of beautiful river frontage with a surprising amount of wildlife.  The most awesome residents, I think, are the bald eagles and other large “birds of prey.”  They nest in the ancient tall oaks, maples, and other trees that line this part of the river and hunt for fish and other small animals (keep watch over your lap dogs and outdoor cats).

This morning, as I glanced out my window, I noticed an adolescent bald eagle playing in the blustery subzero wind.  If you have never taken the time to watch birds play, you are missing a treat.  They look like kites!  Birds will often congregate in a particular windy area, flipping and surfing the breezes.

It struck me today that, even in the extreme weather, birds understand the importance of spontaneity and enjoying life.  I would have thought that they would be desperately trying to keep warm and searching for food.  Instead this eagle took a moment to catch the wind, to enjoy “what is.”  Because tomorrow- the weather will change and this moment to “catch the breeze” will be gone.

What a lesson for all of us!  Time challenged, desperate to cling to our earthly importance and sustenance; how often do we miss the precious moments to just enjoy “what is?”

I just returned from dinner with one of my best friends (AKA my sister) and we had a great conversation way past the end of the meal, despite a winter storm brewing outside. We both had so much to discuss that we couldn’t break away. As we were finally preparing to leave, my friend commented how much she enjoys her friendships, more than ever.

I have watched this woman change in the past several months. It has been a wonderful transformation as every time we have a moment together, she shares new ideas and realizations … she has called this her “epiphany year.” It is incredibly interesting to me.

And it has me wondering a few things myself. I have noticed a shift in our “collective conscious” toward a new way of thinking. I don’t know if it’s been the election, or the downward spiral of the economy, or ongoing terrorist threats, the shrinking of the global market; but change is upon us. People seem to be shedding preconceptions (maybe their bleak financial situations are forcing it) and becoming more “real.”

Some of us worry that “nothing is sacred” anymore- young celebrities are overexposed (and frankly, not very interesting after all), religious figure’s scandalous behavior is uncovered, iconic American products and brands are facing failure … the list goes on. Maybe this is all part of us pealing the layers away.

I sense this attitudinal shift even more dramatically in our younger generation. I don’t know how many friends and colleagues that have adult children living at home; having never left the nest or returning as “boomerang” kids. They seem apathetic about getting out into the “real” world; achievement not as attractive as to their parents. Perhaps as children of busy baby boomers, they have paid the price for overwhelmed, over-achieving parents and they just aren’t motivated in the same way. Whatever the reason, we know that their buying patterns are yet to be fully understood or predictable.

Whatever is a-shift, we need to be cognizant of the changes. Maybe not to fully understand just yet, but at least to sense an evolving attitude. Because as retailers and manufacturers, our livelihood depends on it.

I recently heard a radio talkshow host say “It’s time to be ingenious.” I love that! It is time for us to get ready to pivot. Where and when? How much or how little? Who knows, really?

It’s time to open our eyes to the new world, to make 2009 our “epiphany year.” Not with the arrogance that we know what’s to come - that somehow we will be able to make sense of the chaos. Not with fear of what might happen, or with the dread of how we might have to change. Just with a willingness to learn and grow … to evolve.

Having five kids means that there is rarely a dull moment! My office is attached to our home, which is very convenient for a multi-tasking working mom! It is really the best of both worlds, which helps me keep balance in all of my responsibilities.

My sweetie and I also share the office space. It is a spacious room with a fireplace and a killer view of the Fox River.

However, the combination of kids/home office/sharing space often equates to lots o’ noise! There are people coming and going, teleconferences, faxes, meetings, deliveries, etc.

Today is a rare occurrence that I am alone and the office machines are quiet, and I am happily designing for one of my favorite clients. It is peacefully quiet… no background noise to distract me, no one around.

For me, silence is golden! I can hear myself think. My creativity soars! I can spend all day without any noise, music or even another human being. I gain more strength and power being alone. Noise distracts and drains me. That, by definition, makes me an introvert.

My companion, by contrast, is an extrovert. He doesn’t like silence; it makes him uneasy. When he is working on a creative problem, he will have the TV on. He says it helps him think. As a sales trainer and motivational leader, he loves interacting with people, even total strangers.

Despite our disparate working styles, we co-exist rather well. (It also helps that he travels a lot, leaving the office to me.) Its about tolerance and respect for our differences. And I also think we embrace the other’s office “feng shui” – during the day our office hums with activity; but Brian loves his early morning time alone and I enjoy working into the wee hours when everyone else is gone or asleep. We also have laptops, allowing mobility should we choose to work elsewhere to suit our desired feng shui.

But my question for you, dear reader- do you know which working style works for you?

Do you like working alone? Do noises and people drain your energy? That makes you an introvert.

Do you gain more energy being around others? Do you like working in teams? That makes you an extrovert.

Knowing your personality style helps create the right environment for you. When interviewing for a new job, make sure you check out the working environment. Will it bring out your best?

If you manage others, make sure you know your staff’s personality styles in order to bring out their best. Simply asking them the questions above will determine this. And if you have a mix of styles, provide quiet spaces and more public ones. Teaching tolerance and mutual respect also helps everyone understand their differences and how they can help their office mates. If you have a communal office, provide quiet niches and social areas. Watch who uses the spaces more frequently and how their productivity soars when they are allowed to function in their preferred feng shui.

As you might recall if you are a regular reader of my blog, my soulmate and I have a blended family of five children. They range in age from 18 down to 9, with four in the teenage years. We have our hands full!

Things usually go pretty smooth as long as we can keep our hearts overflowing with love and muster plenty of “this too shall pass” patience. But once in a while, one of the kids will mess up. And then, as parents it’s our responsibility to pull them back into line. An unpleasant task, but vital to the kid’s maturation process.

When confronted with a child’s misbehavior, one cannot help but remember their own teenage foibles. My parents raised seven children and they had parental control down to an art form. At least, that’s what I thought when I was young. The worst punishment was to endure an hourlong lecture about attitude, choices, and behavior. It was a brutal but formative process, as it has helped me shape a more thoughtful approach to life. (I hate to admit - it did help.)

The interesting thing to me these days, however, is speaking with my parents about it. As I share my struggles with parenting, they reveal that they struggled too. It’s a difficult, thankless job sometimes! But I never knew because they were so unified, so unswerving in their morals and direction. I admire their tenacity and capacity for the immense strength and unlimited love that’s required to parent effectively.

My father was way ahead of his time in many ways. One thing that he inspired in me is a love for self-enrichment books, such as Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence Others. He would share his favorite books with his children; some would read them, others wouldn’t. But to encourage us, he would hide a ten dollar bill in the back of the book. In the early ‘80’s, that was some good cash!

Now, of course, we could have simply shaken the money out without reading the book, but for some reason, I don’t think that happened much. It was a simple, subtle, and unspoken compact of trust. He didn’t demand a book report or any other kind of proof. He simply planted the seed and hoped that it would take root.

I recently shared one of my favorite books with our teenage son. I am hoping that Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements will shed some light. It takes a while for maturity and enlightenment to take effect, so our son might not fully appreciate the wisdom for years to come. I have to be OK with that.

I have great role models in the gentle gardening of inspiration. I hope that I can tend to the task as well as they.

This past week has brought about a new president for the USA who ran on the “Change You Can Believe In” platform.  America has spoken, and the majority feel that we are in need of change.  So here we go!

Change can be good.  I like change.  Or at least, I used to believe that about myself.  Now that I have been through several life-changing phases, I have a bit more apprehension about the topic.  What I have learned is that change is inexorably linked to challenge.

The two go hand in hand.  Most likely, without challenging circumstances, most of us wouldn’t be compelled to change our present situation.  And even when change is “for the good” we experience stress as we re-learn the “new normal.”  It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the challenges of change.

I used to jump into change gleefully, with all the shiny hope of a bright new day.  But all too soon, challenges would unexpectedly spring up, halting my progress.  Frustration and disappointment would result and my great new idea would quickly lose it glimmer.  My less experienced mind would doubt my plan, making the assumption that the new challenges that I am facing are an indication that the change I wished to implement weren’t right.

I now know that in order to embrace change, we must be prepared for the challenges that it will bring.  This realization has caused me to more carefully consider the proposed changes.  It is equally important to not let the fear of change impede progress.

Change and its accompanying challenges can be managed.  Coping skills are necessary while adjusting to your new reality.  One that I particularly like is what I call the 10,000 foot rule.  It’s in reference to the concept of removing oneself from a situation to the imaginary distance of 10,000 feet off the ground.  Imagine yourself rising over your present situation to that height removing yourself from the intensity of the moment.  Also, from that vantage point you will see new solutions because you can see the whole landscape unimpeded by manmade obstructions.  And everything will look so small in comparison to the infinity of space, which will help you keep perspective.

I firmly believe that in personal as well as business- we can prosper during even the most challenging of times.  It’s done by managing change- by keeping our perspective, by watching for indicators of change and then taking action.

Or as Charles Darwin said, “it’s not the strongest of species that survive, nor is it the most intelligent.  It’s those most responsive to change.”

“Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!” A pop band called The Pussy Cat Dolls has recently turned those words of wisdom into a clever, snappy little tune.  I find myself humming the melody as I begin my business planning for 2009.

How many of you actually take time every year to review and plan for the next?  It’s not an easy thing to carve into a busy schedule but it is vital for several reasons.  Of course, it’s good to understand your business profit and loss, consumer preferences, ROI on your marketing and advertising, and other accounting reporting.  But what do you do with it to plan for the next year?  I offer to you, a unique point of view:

Wayne Dyer is one of my favorite authors.  In his book, 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, he talks about the past as it pertains to our future.  I love his analogy: He explains that your past is like the wake that trails a speeding boat in the water.  You can look at the wake to see where the boat was, much like you can look at the past year to see where your business was.  But the wake does not drive the boat- it cannot make the future as it only trails behind.  The boat’s direction is not determined by the wake.  Much like your future needn’t be determined by your past.

Think upon that for a moment.  It’s a big idea (and much more eloquently described by Dr. Dyer).  2008 may have been a great year for you, or not so much.  But it does not have to determine what 2009 will be!  You, and you alone, have the key to your future.

I don’t believe in coincidence, I am much more apt to believe that we pick and choose our realities.  We plan our failure or success by the power of our thoughts.  We can be trapped by our past mistakes or outdated notions of who we are, or we can re-create ourselves.  The power is ours, which is a good thing but also very tricky.

What you spend your days thinking about will likely become your reality.  What you plan for will most likely happen.  Even if you do not intentionally plan, you are still creating your plan with your habitual thoughts, which turn into behaviors that lead to success or failure.  It’s heady stuff.

So, as you plan your business, examine your intentions carefully! Don’t worry about the past, don’t agonize over the future; but dig deep into your inner thoughts to find what you really want.  If you align your inner most feelings, express those intentions to the universe through a carefully crafted business plan, you will most certainly achieve exactly what you desire because you will be acting out what you really want.

How do you know when you are in alignment? When things seem to fall into place, when things just flow, when you “get lucky.”  It’s the happy coincidences telling you that you are going in the right direction.

With this unique point of view, I am not suggesting that you create a business plan by pure intention alone.  I think you need to do your due diligence, research and study carefully all of the business data available.  However, I know that most successful businesses are run by people who are in touch with their powers of intention and have a clear vision for the future, unfettered by the past.

It gives your business planning a whole new spin!  Perhaps a deeper challenge at the onset, but it will be the most effective.  Life changing, even.

If you are a reader of personal growth books or listener of tapes such as “The Secret” you may have heard this phrase before.  It’s an incredibly powerful concept, I believe not only for personal empowerment, but also in terms of building your career with personal branding.

Before I begin, let me explain that I use “personal brand” to describe building one’s professional image through concepts and strategies traditionally used to build a product brand.  The same principles can be applied to building your company brand, as much as building your professional image.  Which also intertwines with your personal image.

Yes, this gets a little complicated- but I am convinced that one cannot separate personal from professional – it’s two faces of one coin.  Your business is a reflection of your personal life just as much as your personal relationships are a reflection of your professional relationships.

For example, take a look at either end of your life; if you have a few, but very close personal friendships- you probably enjoy a select few but tight professional relationships.  Our personality permeates everything.

I recently wrote about my 18 year old step-son’s experience with the power of authenticity when pursuing a job.   The more authentic he could describe his talents, the more persuasive his interview.   What an incredible advantage he will have in life, if he can master this concept throughout his professional career.

So the value of doing some personal soul searching can benefit everything in your life.  How you view yourself will be reflected in how you pursue your career, how you relate to others.

Be careful with your internal language!  It may take a while to really understand how you describe yourself, how you think of yourself, the words you use to describe yourself and then how it affects your personal and professional experiences.  Be ever-mindful and vigilant in this!

The good news is that we are in complete control of how we relate to our self.  We can choose the words to describe our talents, personality, abilities.  If we want, we can rewrite our own description.

Start today, by writing out a new personal profile.  Begin like you are writing a biography on another person – use 3rd person if you like.  Write it how you fantasize the rest of your life being like.  Don’t stop yourself at “safe” make it glorious!  Add layers and layers of details, describe every wonderful detail.  Include your personal and professional life.  Write about how they relate, how you balance them, how you manage them.

You have just written your new life script.  Now, with details in hand- begin to live it.

My soulmate, Brian, and I have five kids. Our oldest, Cory recently graduated from high school and has started transitioning into adulthood. He has been in pursuit of a full time job, while he waits for his college course work to begin. There was one particular company on which he set his sights; he tried a couple times to get hired without success. Finally, we were able to get him to agree to complete and bring a resumè to the next round of interviews.

Brian helped him write it, and asked me to review. Although it accurately described our son’s experiences and talents, I recognized that it lacked something. It’s what I have coached 100’s of professionals about, and it can make or break your ability to sell yourself or your business. It is called authenticity!

Cory’s resume used phrases like, “excellent communication skills,” to describe his strengths. Yet the word “excellent” has been so overused (remember Keanu Reeve’s Most Excellent Adventure?) it has lost value as a meaningful word. What is excellent anymore? On a scale of 1 being horrid, and 10 being the most supreme incredible great- where does excellent fall?

So I encouraged us to drill down further into Cory’s personality. Now, this young man has an easy, friendly confidence around just about anyone. Young, old; anybody. In the position he was seeking, this would be a highly valued trait. So, we adjusted the phrase from “excellent communication skills” to “friendly, warm and confident.”

Not only did it improve his resumé, but it also had a ripple effect. He became more poised, and through some role-playing, more prepared for his interview - which he aced this time, by the way! He was hired on the spot.

I have noticed this time and again. When we go through the thought process and effort to improve something like a resumè, it becomes a catalyst for change. When we can define ourselves, drill down to the REAL, authentic self, we begin a precious journey of self-realization. The result is more confidence, the kind that others immediately sense. When we are authentic, there is undeniable, irresistible strength about us.

It also makes us aware that we can take ownership of our self. When we clearly define our skills and talents, we give them life through words. By naming it we can own it. Which also means that we can begin the process of writing our life script. We write it by carefully choosing the words we use to describe our self. And the same concept can be applied to business, as every business has a unique personality, or image.

So the question today is; how carefully do you choose the words to describe yourself and your business? When was the last time that you really thought about it? And of the words you use, are they authentic?

How do you test it? Ask others, ask your customers. Listen to the words they use to describe you, the meaning behind the words, and ask yourself, “do they resonate with me?”

If the answer is yes, way to go! If the answer is no, then NOW is the time to do some soul searching to discover how you can bring authenticity into your world.

I have a saying- not that I credit myself for originating it – but it seems to come in handy these days. It helps me keep things in perspective, to aid in my lifelong pursuit of “peace of mind.” I was born in April, which makes me an Aries if you are into astrology. Aries are not the most patient of signs. We want things now, not later. It’s a drive that helps us “make things happen.” But sometimes, no matter how much effort, drive or willfulness- we cannot achieve what we set out for. Sometimes the forces against our will are outside of our immediate power.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” I remind myself during those moments in time when things don’t happen as fast as I want it. And I write about it today to remind all of us that our careers span a lifetime. Hopefully, dear readers, you are in the process of your life’s work, that you have found an occupation that fulfills you, makes you get out of bed in the morning; that fascinates you even when you are not “on the clock.” But I don’t know anybody who isn’t concerned about the current economic circumstances.

As I write this, the USA is in the midst of perhaps the most turmoil since the great depression. With bad economic news coming out of every industry, and especially for those of us in retail, we are bracing ourselves for some real tough times. There’s fear, and for some of us, it’s real, legitimate and necessary.

America has found herself in a real pickle. We want more, and we want it now. Just like a true Aries, we mostly have used this trait to our benefit. But we have allowed our desire for things to usurp our ability to pay. And now all of us will be paying the price.

It’s time to face the reality of our circumstances. Some retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers are in dire straits, and many others are simply discouraged. But now is the time we need to re-commit to our life’s work. We are running a lifelong marathon, not a quick sprint. We need to make decisions short term based on a clear, prudent and thrifty read of our business, but keep our mind’s eye on our future goals. Tomorrow will be OK if we take care of today.

Specifically, what does that mean to those of us in retail? It can mean keeping inventory low and sticking with the proven winners; but we must not let fear keep us from differentiating our store from the competition. We still need to give the new and unique a chance. In fact, some of the best trends have emerged during tough times. There’s pressure on us all to perform better, to sharpen our competitive edge; but let’s not forget that we need each other, more than ever.

America has a history of pulling together during critical times. I still have 100% confidence in our country, our industry, and in our consumers. We will have to adjust our strategies, but we can come out of this stronger, faster, better.