Most everything we do can be viewed as a service, whether it is removing a cancer, detailing a car, housekeeping, managing a project, implementing a service, driving a cab or going on location picking up after people’s pets. We can also view all of our personal relationships in the same vein.  Everything we do boils down to what it is we offer and the value being placed, currently, on what we deliver.  We are all put on this earth to learn how to love more fully, grow in grace, be less self-centric and help our fellow beings on this planet.  Therefore, service and being in the service of others, is one of the greatest ways we show love and compassion for others.   It is also the best way to grow spiritually.  We all have our best days and those not so.  To keep yourself on the right path and track, it is a good lesson to periodically ask yourself ‘How expendable am I?’ What perception do others have of me and my work?  When I am gone, what mark will I Ieave?

All of us, in fact, are both unique, inimitable, a true treasure and, sadly, expendable. When we are placed correctly, when we give what is at hand our full attention, it is amazing what can be accomplished.  We bring ourselves, our uniquely creative, super smart, funny, dedicated and determined ( or whatever brand you are known by) soul to the work at hand unlike any other.  What we each do is as unique as our fingerprint.  Life here is short, so the goal should be to live our very best life and share out our best efforts.  There is a great article called Brand You.  Google if you haven’t read it.  We brand ourselves by how we present our souls to the world each day.

Perhaps you are known as the go-to Subject Matter Expert, or the most helpful.  Nobody else can do it exactly the way you do it.  And so it is, with this understanding that we are, in the end, expendable.  Being expendable is what keeps us humble as well as on fire to do our best most days.  If you review yourself honestly and don’t like your brand, you can change it by making new, upgraded daily choices, choices that make you more approachable, nicer, easier to work with as well as choices that affect the product you sell, support or produce.

 Brands are everyplace. If you are a window cleaner, are you cordial and happy in your work or too lazy to scope the job prior to giving a price then arrive all grumpy and blame the customer when there’s an extra window to clean?  Do you show up at the office with the latest home drama all a wreck and out of sorts? Do you clean houses but forget about the high dusting, washing the bed linens or baseboards thinking that will somehow go unnoticed? Are you a doctor using old outdated surgical techniques?  Are you someone who likes to stir the pot, micro-manage every teammates’ move, or control every situation?

When someone thinks of you, what do they envision?  What is your personal brand?   When you think of your personal label, that label is also applied to every business.  What do we know Lexus as?  What begins to disintegrate when the company no longer stands for quality?  What happens when all the leather covered dashboards in their high-end cars peel up, look atrocious and the company nicely confirms with you that there is no recall on that item and it will cost 22k to replace that dashboard?  What happens when other mechanical failures take place?  What begins to change about the story of Lexus?  This is my personal story on Lexus, by the way.  Always garaged, it has been a ‘Lexus Lemon’ with prematurely failing parts; a failed leaky water pump, amplifier, suspension parts along with a really knarly dashboard I have to stare at daily.

What happens when you are known for excellent appliances (and charge accordingly) then become the kind of business that slides on quality, ‘offers’ a 3 year warranty and when there’s a problem, you tell your customer you never received their warranty card?

What happens when you are known for upholstery work but you don’t always pull off a quality job?  Instead, you break a clients chair, get the new fabric all dirty, then refuse to return the chair or clean the upholstery you sullied and instead, laugh at and blame the client?  Yes, another personal example.  Doing this chair correctly the first time would of course been the best outcome.  Tarping and otherwise keeping it safe and clean while in the shop to fix the broken bit would have been preferred option 2.  Spending less than $50.00 on cleaning the chair, some wood glue and appropriately sized screws and less than half a gallon of gas to return it, would have been best option number 3.  I would have gone away happy having resolved the situation to my likeing, having my chair back and fixed with the brand spanking new upholstery all fresh and clean like it was.  I did not begin the exchange irate but I sure ended things with the upholsterer that way and I share my story often.  I am no longer burning with anger.  My goal now is to help others NOT have their furnishings potentially suffer the same sorry fate by taking their business there.

Mediocrity is set at the price point we agree to pay.  Each of us votes with our wallet first and by what we stand for when work is done poorly.  When we lower our expectations, don’t demand quality, allow poor workmanship by not saying anything,  we are complicit in the agreement of accepting less than the best from that company or representative.

What have you done for me lately?  Why should I vote with my dollars on your business?  When our focus stops being trained on delivering quality workmanship and excellent customer care, and instead, becomes all about shirking responsibility and getting the money right now rather than having an eye on the bigger picture,  that is when we begin to fail, spiritually and physically.

Sadly, most of us have our own private, or not so private, arsenal of things done wrong to us out of greed, corruption or lack of education and spiritual balance.  Our actions always have intentions behind them.  Those intentions should always be noble.  When they are not, then restitution is in order.  Sometimes, it is an associate who causes the fault but karmically speaking, if there is wrongdoing and you are empowered to change that, then it is foolishness to think you can simply do nothing about it and everything will be just fine.  Spiritually we are our brother’s keeper so we are beholden to our brothers walking this path, like it or not, with each of us weighed and measured by our intentions and actions.  We are only human, so the goal is restitution where possible and assuring that, predominately, your intentions are coming from a pure place.

Fulfilling your service well means taking ownership for what you produce.  The customer is not always right.  But, it is the smart business that delves into the full scope of what took place, make an honest assessment of their employees, their business and what really happened and graciously make the attempt to go above and beyond to change any negative perception because those perceptions live on and spread like a virus.   When you anger a customer, you truly have no control over their actions, both immediate and future. Whether they throw a fit or leave quietly, neither means that this is over for them, or you.  Your customer most likely works someplace, has friends, family, a good internet connection.  They may be a judge, lawyer, work in advertising and be well connected in the community.

When you work for yourself, please understand that you don’t really.  When you are working at my house, that means you work for me and during that particular moment in time, I am your boss.  We all have a man.  None of us escapes working for the man.  It may be a spouse, contract or independent work, volunteer work, or with a big corporation but there are always people to please, folks with expectations from you that you are either meeting and exceeding or failing at.

When you are working with a client you represent the company to that individual.  Missteps happen and not everything, not every situation is going to be remedied.  But here is the outline to make most of them right, correct what went sideways, and then hopefully for the very angry customers who cannot be appeased, perhaps they will one day be in a place to acknowledge you did your best, you attempted a fair resolution.

Cordial – Always be polite and nice.  You don’t really know what kind of day someone you are working with has had, so extend grace.  When you get into a shouting match, you have both already lost and nobody will be able to tell who is the bigger fool.  Keep a level head and let the other person steam away.

Fair – Look for the win-win and be honest with your faults, you will get more respect for that.  If a mistake was made, it should be rectified and swiftly.

Honesty – Don’t quote one price and show up later with a new improved quote twice as expensive with excuses as to why.  Believe me, this will become what you are known for.  People will talk and tell others the story.  Also, don’t lie.  Don’t tell someone you will fix something then walk on that promise.  They may never ever call you to remind you about what you committed to but that absolutely does not mean they forgot about it or that you going back on your word doesn’t matter because it does and yes, they will tell the story. what I have found in my polling is that most folks go quiet in front of the business that burned them, preferring to move on with things.  They do, however, still talk about what happened and share that advertisement and sometimes for years or even decades.  Nobody wins really by being dishonest about the truth of things.

Stability – The best service and the best companies provide a product that is constant, bringing stability to what is delivered to each and every customer each and every time. Instability means your brand cannot be trusted.

Ownership – Take ownership of what you do, the product you deliver.  One bad day, one bungled project may be an ‘oops oh well’ to you but to your client and the business you represent, the end result is that you did not shine and that is the story that gets told.

YOU ONLY CONTROL YOU – You may be in temporary work, or feel that your job doesn’t really matter but trust me, to someone it sure does!   At the end of the day, you have great power to make things happen right, but you have zero control over who hears that story. When you take the high road and offer your level best every day, relationships can turn magical.  Inner peace grows.  Home life and clients improve.  Make your story count by doing your best.

Last week, I had an enjoyable existential discussion about one’s life scope and how each of us is here for our unique journey.  Of course, I know this, but my focus was on educating upon boundaries and encouraging a life centered upon balance and health and self care.

Each of us is here for different reasons and it is incumbent upon each of us to find that purpose and live it out.  Some of us will do exactly that, some right out of the womb, others later in life and still others will never ever get to it in their allotted time on this temporal plane.  My mother was one such individual.  She had a life plan, but she never allowed herself to blossom or go beyond personal selfishness and all the pains she endured from an abusive childhood.

I hear excuses all day long about why we cannot rise above it, why we cannot find the job we want, the love we want or the life we want.  Mostly it is all complete BS.  We are filled with stories, we play the victim, or we play the martyr, wearing a mask rather than opening up to the joy of just being who we are.

We fill up our heads with the dross of the day when what is needed is a moment of introspection, of meditation, of Zen.  With introspection, with some quiet, the internal voice inside can better guide us to our purpose and to the better daily choices along our travels.

No matter why you are here, whether it is to help folks leaving to the other side, entertain with song and dance or lighten the load by working on cars, or cleaning house, every single job is of a high value and should be undertaken with the utmost respect.  Each of us matter.  When we apply ourselves to the tasks at hand, we bring what only we can, to that work.  The job may be transient, no matter, do it well.  If you find you cannot do it well, it is karmically correct to leave it so that you are not filling a space inadequately where  someone else would be better suited.  If you are in such a line of work that you either don’t do well or flat don’t enjoy, don’t let fear halt your feet flying out the door.  The universe is expansive and you will land where you need to be.

When you maintain your health, and your personal life balance is in order, everything else takes care of itself.  Balance means different things to everyone of us, but basically, you want to divide your days/weeks/months in such a way that you have time for work, time for friends and family and the pursuit of personal pleasures, whether that be music, art, gardening, movies etc.  And yes, not matter what freaking spiritual path you happen to be on, each of us needs this!  You may not fear death.  Still, you are in a physical body and that body has needs; fill them.  This is one of the primary reasons I went vegan.  You can remove or start out just reducing meat with new recipes you can try out every week.  I really like the Thug Kitchen people and they have a book, Thug Kitchen 101 Fast As F*ck, has yummy quick recipes you can do during the work week.  Their books are hilarious if you are good with some colourful language and vegan based.

Care for the body that holds your spirit.  You are charged to do this, to honor and care for your temple.  The body is both a joy and a burden in this life.  Cherish it for what it is.  Without the body, you would have no touch, no feeling.  You would no longer enjoy or use oh so many things!  Imagine yourself right now, just spirit with no physical form.  You could fly through all materials as if they weren’t there, not feeling them.  Wheeeee!  You could fly through bodies, through water, through the clouds.  You wouldn’t need a house to protect you from the elements.  Materialism would hold no interest to you.  What would you need money or a tchotchke for?  Why would you want a Porsche?  Life as a spirit is very cheap and easy.  But we are not yet ready for all that.  No, our time here is to learn how to more fully love and that begins with ourselves and our body mind and spiritual care; our temple care.  Each of us is only here for as long as we need to be.  Once our purpose is fulfilled, we beam up.  For some of us, that is 100+ on this planet and for others a whole lot shorter.  Part of this is going to be in the karma of how you care for yourself.  I plan to age as gracefully as I can.  My vegan and organic lifestyle is a great part of that, as is my firm change from 12+ hour days to one of balance.

Each of us is only here for as long as we need to be.  Once our purpose is fulfilled, we beam up.  For some of us, that is 100+ on this planet and for others a whole lot shorter.  Part of this is going to be in the karma of how you care for yourself.  I plan to age as gracefully as I can.  My vegan and organic lifestyle is a great part of that, as is my firm change from 12+ hour days to one of balance.

Ageing – a neighbor just this morning was discussing ageing and how women, in particular, have such a struggle locating work after 50.  This is not the first time I heard this.  Having lost my PM job at age 55 in 2016, this was about all I was hearing.  But it is a lie we fill ourselves up with.  Again, the universe is infinite and so is possibility.   Folks, we do not have to go gentle into this good night of losing our earthly mojo.  Yes, we will all age, but we can do so with grace, with compassion and with mobility and strength.

I love writing about health and after decades of alternative health coaching with family and around the office, I took formal training last year, went vegan and began this blog.  I review products and post links to things I love that I believe will help others but the blog here, going into 2 years, has not earned me a living…yet.  With the layoffs at Sprint, I had a window of time to get the blog going and complete my schooling but once that was done and I sat here earning $575.00 a month from my pension with 2 mortgages and a good 5 years away from my planned retirement, I began to think about working again, like…for a corporation or some such.

One thing about being as old as I am, I know people.  It was folks I had worked with in the past that came to me with offers.   This is so humbling and amazing to me!  But, the point is I did not ever have to go searching for work.  Work came to me.  I had some offers with less pay than I was used to making and some that were a lot higher.  I landed in the role I wanted, one that was quite a bit different than what I did in the past and yet similar, with more money and working from my home office.  I’ll be 56 in November so don’t please, whatever your age, let age be something you worry about.  Provided you take care of yourself, you will enable yourself to live a higher quality life and one that can be free from heart disease, diabetes, chronic aches and pains, lack of mobility and keep a full set of teeth.  How do you currently take care of your car?  I believe this to be a great indicator of how one cares for the body.  It’s a great metaphor.  If you take a look at your vehicle and say uh oh, go clean it up, get the oil changed and make new plans that include better self-care.

I cannot recommend yoga enough for connecting the mind, the spirit and body.  This book, My Body Is A Temple by Christina Sell, is a brilliant companion to your practice! One of my long time favorites is Baron Baptiste 40 Days to Personal Revolution, which is a combination of poses as well as a structured spiritual path. I go through many books and typically pass them on to save space.  This is a book I keep always.   The breathwork you learn with yoga will both expand and heal the lungs as well as teach you how to breathe under duress. Yoga teaches us to both live in the moment and to accept that the moment will change.  If you are feeling discomfort, this will change, as will all of our joys.  Yoga is expansive and healing. I have seen it straighten crooked spines and reduce inflammation. It is a miracle.   All life and love is change but what we label as bad is not always so, it is simply a necessary transition.  When we accept our responsibility to honor our temple, honor our body, we take on the burden of learning the best ways of eating, of living, of lifestyle that enables the best quality of life.  Be open to change, change is good.

EMBRACING SPACE.
Part of what attracted me to Mid-Century Modern design (See my other blog mcmhomeanddecor.com/) is the simplicity and openness of the architecture, the wedding of outdoor and indoor spaces, thus creating a delightful blur between us and the rest of nature with window walls and sliding glass doors that invite us to explore beyond the four walls.  While you can still fill it all up, this type of architecture begs for simplicity and looks its’ very best sparse. Sparing in both landscape and furnishings works to showcase the design and create expansiveness. Most MCM homes were not large sprawls but under 2500 sq feet. Mine is 2105 and I had to significantly pare down and squeeze into it.  2 years in, I have given up a leather lounge set and other furnishings too substantial, too heavy and large to fit comfortably.  Our home looks fairly spacious and I am continuing to reduce things.

LET IT GO.
A few years ago, my husband and I agreed to let go of anything we either didn’t really love or didn’t use at least annually.  Being fully mindful of what is used and what continues to sit year after year is eye opening.  Sure, the thing may be nice or be a lovely gift but if you are not actively using it or it is not a delight to the eye, such as a piece of art, then let it go to a new home where it can live out the life intended for it and thereby create space for something you truly want or need in its place.

THINGS DON’T ALWAYS STORE WELL.
I have a neighbor who collects stuff.  He wants it all for free.  He will admit it weighs him down, he has boxes and boxes of stuff and has even built a new garage and rented a storage unit to contain it all.  Things don’t always store well.  Fabric, rubber,  materials get dry rot. Hoses, seals and belts dry out, wiring can get ruined as well.   I had an opportunity to buy someone’s 1 year used high-end washer dryer set but they had been in storage for a few years.  I just pictured the potential hot mess I was buying and said no.  Things are made to be used and few things remain pristine and perfect for long periods unused.  Buy and hold onto what you need and let the rest go.

LAND OF PLENTY.
We tend to think in terms of great deals and opportunities that come only once, sales and getting stocked up.  The truth is that the universe is infinite.  When we act with right action, with good intentions, the universe conspires to provide us what we need and want in our lives.  There is no need for jealousy or clawing at what we want, it will happen when it’s time, when we are ready, as we plan in faith.

MY STORY.
I will share just two.  Story 1) I spent 3 years searching for a Mid-Century Modern house, they are suddenly all the rage and I completely get why, however, it made finding mine a bit of a living hell.  I had notebooks filled with zip codes, prices, addresses and comments. It was a second job for me, finding out Middy.  I looked so long and hard that the same houses came back on the market.  You know you’ve been looking a while when that happens.  As it turns out, a home I lost the first time around, came back 1.5 years later when the couple that bought it realised they would never ever move back to Dallas and sold it to me.  I lucked into a pocket listing where this house had not yet gone officially back on the market, back on MLS, but the current owner called my realtor who said ‘I have your buyer’.  Planning, patience, preparedness and a little kismet!  Sometimes I wanted to give up, perhaps it was not meant to be.  A year into the search, some friends asked me how long I was going to pursue it but my realtor said looking this length of time was not unheard of and to stay the course.  So I did.

Story 2) I was laid off at work and had several deaths in the family.  Coming out of a time famine where I worked exceedingly long hours most of the time at no additional compensation, which had left me losing out on a lot of personal time with family, I created a wishlist of what I wanted next.  My focus was on what I wanted not what I did not want.  I believe you have to think in terms of positives, of affirmations and make it so.  My wishlist was 1) Not to work so hard to earn.  I wanted to apply myself, but not to the point of health affecting overwork. So my goal was hourly employment if possible or a contract that limited my exposure. 2) I wanted to work from home because I get a tax write off with my office and have been working from home for 20 years.  I wanted to maintain this environment if possible. 3) I wanted to better or at least maintain my current salary.
I meditated on my wishlist but was also open to the possibility that I would not get everything I wanted as I was re-inventing my work self.  In the end and amazingly, an ex-coworker set me up in an amazing opportunity that provided me exactly everything on my wishlist.  I was laid off a full year.  During this time, I did not actively pursue employment.  Instead, I focused on myself, my health and wholeness.  I spent the entire year studying with Hippocrates Health Institute, which has nothing to do with Project Management or Telecommunications, but everything to do with my life and creating balance and longevity, both key to both my happiness and my future employer.  I worked at being a leaf upon the wind, letting my inner voice guide me to the right decisions as I ended up with several offers.
CREATING ROOM.
When we stop, breath, listen to what brings us closer to peace or farther away from it, we get clear on what makes us happiest.  Life is not meant to be a drudge but overall, a joy.  Work should be, while at times we all get a bad day, something that brings you fulfilment.  Someone job searching posted on LinkedIn all her struggles to locate work.  She was making a full-time job of it and for months on end.  I could hear the stress in the spaces between her words.  My comment back was a suggestion she perhaps just stop.  Just stop.  Just relax.  What brings you peace?  Would you like to learn a new language or take a psychology course or go on a working trip abroad or any such something you normally would not do in a typical time famine between work and home requirements?  Go, do those things and let the answers and the opportunities come to you.  When we are not bruising our shins on too much dross in our lives, even grand, luxurious, nice dross, we find the space we need to co-create change in our lives.  Stuff weighs down our mind.  Everything we own is catalogued there, something to track and care for.  Too much stuff can be overstimulating to the eye and nervous system.  Less to dust is not a bad thing.  Find your own comfort level with stuff, with space and here’s to co-creating your best life!

A book to help you get there: It’s All Too Much by Peter Walsh

Brushing your pets teeth is important, but how many folks actually bother on a regular basis?  With some pets the job is easier and others completely impossible.  Firstly, just like us, we need to be mindful of the food we feed them, avoiding sugars that harm teeth.

Raw meaty bones help clean the teeth and give your pet something to occupy their time with too.  Raw because cooked bones are brittle.  Yes, you can feed your dog or kitty a raw organic meaty chicken bone, just never any cooked!  Just as you should for yourself, buying clean, fresh organic meat from a reputable place assures you don’t have to worry about bad pathogens.  And remember, your dog or cat is a carnivore, with a system built to eat meat.  We do not possess that system.  When we ingest meat, we are not eating as our maker intended.  Therefore, we are more susceptible to illness from partaking.

Avoid bad mojo ingredients – There are a plethora of products out there and it still amazes me how Propylene Glycol (antifreeze) is in so much stuff, from cosmetics to pet products. Proof we are insane.  Read your labels and shun anything with chemicals, sugars, by products.

Rhett turned 7 this April.  He has never had a formal tooth cleaning at the vet and one is not needed.  I attribute this primarily to Ark Naturals Breath-Less Chewable Brushless Toothpaste and Ark Naturals Plaque Zapper, which is a powder treatment you add to the drinking water.  Cats and dogs typically don’t mind, it is flavorless.  This is exceedingly important for picky kitties!  The product contains naturally available enzymes which are activated by mouth saliva. As your pets drink from their water bowl, Ark’s PlaqueZapper zaps harmful mouth bacteria and the enzymes stop plaque from sticking to teeth.  The vet said Rhett’s teeth and gums looked fabulous and was shocked when I told him we had never had them cleaned.

I highly recommend using both the chews twice a day, after breakfast and dinner, and in the morning, add your water treatment because the zapper powder lasts up to 8 hours once mixed with water.

Feel free to comment, I love reading what folks have to say and kindly share out my blog to help others.