A Kiwi In Kona

Kia ora (hello) , 

Last week I wrote about some of my hacks for those days when everything seems in the too hard basket, or you want to have more freedom to dash out on the deck on the rare days Seattle is sunny in winter. 

This week, here's a few of my business hacks if you're just starting out as a solopreneur, or if you'd like to. If you have been in business for a while, I'd love to hear you solutions, let me know and I'll add them to an upcoming resources page. 

Templates (also good for …

Some days I can conquer the world. Other days sending an email seems in the too hard basket.

I mentioned this to a group of women friends and guess what? Their energy is fluid too - but life still needed us to show up. We could hold a summit on why women are held to different standards, but for now, here's some of my hacks for when I can only be a part time human. They all come under delete, delegate and defer. 

Some of these require buying your time back, which isn't possible for everyone. Ho…

I was just told I’m a minor celebrity in a community in Moscow.

Bet you didn’t know that!

So, here’s what happened.

I belong to a peer-facilitated recovery program (you’re welcome to message me confidentially and ask me more).

There are many to choose from, but one I have been closely involved with for the last few years has to do with the repercussions of not having a healthy relationship with money. It completely changed my life and led to me living in Seattle, but that’s another story.

A…

My birthday was last week. I had an absolutely wonderful day filled with love and yellow flowers to combat Seattle grey and me being stuck in bed after having feet (yes, both of them) surgery.

I also got a lot of weird marketing pitches. Does that happen to you? 

OK, I can deal with my orthodontist and optician sending me birthday texts. They obviously have a system and think this counts as customer engagement (i.e. maintaining our...not sure what to call it. Mutual dependency?) And if you're …

Right now I'm wearing stripper pants. 

Well, that's what I call them. They're Nike, and have domes up both sides so I can take them on and off easily without having to pull them over my feet. 

Why? 

I had feet surgery - yes, both feet. I won't bore you, but thanks to my friend Micha Goebig, a great coach, I now know about stripper pants. She had a broken leg a while back and passed on the fashion hack. Given that I'll be in a moonboot for at least ten weeks, I'm about to order another pair. 

There's not much bathing suit season left, but I swim all year round at a local pool, so I have a plethora of swimsuits. Plethora - great word, right?
However, that means attention to...body hair.

Sigh.

It's a huge subject, but for the sake of your valuable time, I'll skip the discussion about the @%#@!! decades of pressure to defoliate.

Although some of my suits have boy trunk bottoms or skirts or frills etc., I do have a few suits where a bikini wax or a close encounter with a razor is goin…

I have a different definition of luxury clothing than stylists.

Mind you, I'm a coach who teaches you how to dress, I don't style you from top to toe, so that might be why.

Here are some of my luxury items.

Fluorescent pink and purple Life Jacket (Costco $44.95) which enables me the luxury of floating in the lake, early in the morning before other people turn up. I bob up and down like a brightly colored buoy. Big fun! It also allows me to stare at the mountain across from me and remember how…

I’m at the lake again. Sheer & utter bliss. My dog and I both need water to play in, sunshine, and strangers to admire us (I’m wearing the most amazing caftan by Prima Dona Studios). 

At Idylwood Park, there’s a sign that says:

“Don’t feed the ducks because it causes overcrowding for nutrition and pollution.”

Are you feeding the ducks in your wardrobe? 

Here’s what I mean by that: Are you overcrowding certain categories? 

Do a quick life circle, segmented into the activities, and then do a …

So you know how they say “physician, heal thyself?”

I was walking Joule (Frenchie) at the dog park, looked down at what I was wearing and thought, if a client sees me right now, I'm running in the other direction. 

Ah...oops.

I had forgotten my mantra. Dress for Your Vision, no matter the circumstances? What the heck had I been thinking? 

After all, it was a client of mine who told me:

"My husband just asked where I was going, because I looked like a badass."

"What did you tell him?"

"Now…

I'm a weather which.

This means I have finally worked out after half a century that I am affected by the weather. Duh. 

Most people are - in my case, too many grey days make me a little weepy, emotional, depressed and as gloomy as the sky outside (I live in Seattle).

However, if the sun breaks through, it hits me like a shot of tequila.

And I've worked out that sunshine + ocean = a huge burst of creativity.

I also think four seasons is three too many.

Knowing which “which” you are is really, really im…