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New Online Class! The Win/Win Approach – Communicating for Success

November 26, 2013

I have exciting news! My class on The Win/Win Approach to Communicating is NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE!

That’s right, you can now take the class from the comfort of your own home (or work), wherever that may be!

Register using this link, and enter the discount code EARLY to receive 25% off the class! (code available for the first 25 people who register!)

http://skl.sh/185EUlK

All of the content will be made available starting Friday, November 29th… so what are you waiting for? Learn something on this long holiday weekend!

self love, shades of perspective, try try again | steph | No Comments
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Turning 30

July 18, 2013

Turning 30.

I know, everyone experiences it. It’s normal. It’s fine. Thirty is better than twenty. It’s just a number. It doesn’t mean anything.

But come on. It’s more than that. Thirty is like officially becoming a full fledged adult. Thirty is what you thought of when you thought, “when I’m older.” It’s just a number, but it carries so much weight.

Why?

Why is it that one little number can stir up so many emotions and feelings of unrest and unsettlement?

Maybe it’s because of our achievement based culture. Because we measure ourselves, our successes, our mistakes, our process against everyone else. WHY DO WE DO THAT?

Why do we focus on what we have not? What is it about thirty that makes us look at everything we haven’t done? What we wish we did? What we wish we had, or could have? Why is thirty that magic number that makes measuring your progress and becoming aware of your mortality so overruling?

All of these questions make thirty overwhelming. And I know everyone will tell me that it’s nothing to worry about. That the best is yet to come. That it’s better than twenties. But no one is telling me that it’s ok to be overwhelmed.

YOUR TWENTIES ARE OVERWHELMING. Everything happens in your twenties. So much growth and sadness and happiness and confusion and learning and beginning and ending and moving. Moving. Why does it feel like I can’t keep moving after thirty? That whatever I do won’t matter because I didn’t get it in before thirty. Because I didn’t make a thirty under thirty list. That I didn’t get it all in at a young age. That I’m not special enough to have made it. That I’m not allowed to make it after thirty.

It’s overwhelming. Being happy about what you’ve done and where you’re been, while simultaneously feeling like you are lacking. That you didn’t do enough. There’s a huge disconnect in those two feelings that I can’t seem to reconcile. I have made a strong practice in my life to let go of measure my success and my path against others. But all of a sudden I feel like I’m trying to breathe under water and can do nothing else BUT assess my situation and measure it against what others have done. It feels strange and completely out of my control.

Where did my twenties go? The decade that feels like you have forever. The decade that holds so much promise. The decade that decides your fate.

Maybe if I wasn’t in transition now. Maybe if I had let go of the idea that I had to have a full time job to afford me the opportunity to follow my passions I wouldn’t be here. Feeling like I wasted time. Feeling like I just want it back. I don’t regret my path, or anything I’ve done to get here. So why do I still feel so much “lacking?”

Why am I having so much trouble defining myself for who I am and what I am becoming, opposed to what I’ve physically done or not done?

WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT TURNING THIRTY!?

In two months, my feelings won’t matter. I will be thirty. I understand that. I understand that once it happens, I’ll probably be fine with it. I have to be. I’ll probably even be excited. But right now, I’m just overwhelmed. I’m sad about the loss of my twenties. For everything they were, and everything they weren’t. For what I did, and didn’t do. What I loved, and hated. For who I became, and who I still strive to become. For the most changing and influential ten years of my life.

There you have it. All of my feelings and unanswered questions about turning thirty. I’m putting them out into the world to get them out of my head, and let the universe take over.

I’m ready to continue this journey, mourn the loss of my twenties, and embrace the adventures of my thirties. I mean, I have to be.

navigating the unknown, self love, shades of perspective, try try again, veterns of the game | steph | No Comments
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SF Was That Place

July 10, 2013

I originally posted this on Medium.com, July 10, 2013.

Midwestern girl, born and raised, and proud of it… I knew there was someplace else for me.

In the spring of 2008 I confirmed my suspicions. SF was that place.

I moved to San Francisco at the ripe age of 24. Just out of grad school, and ready for a new adventure and challenge. I moved to SF knowing one person, kind of (a friend of a friend I was connected with only after deciding to move). You see I came to follow my passion – helping people communicate better in relationships. I’d been in Chicago for 7 years and though it felt very much like home, I knew there was someplace better for me. Some place that would allow me to have a passion to follow, but not know exactly how; some place where people would understand that I didn’t want to (or need) to be a therapist to help people; somewhere I could build out my dream job. What better place than California, the land of free love and new agey goodness?

I had hoped for all of these things, but was afforded no guarantees, as I moved out without a job, a place to live, or a network of friends. I moved here with a passion in my gut and a friendly attitude.

SF welcomed me with open arms. Within a week I had 5 new, amazing friends and within a month 150. Everyone asking what I did, what my passion was, what I was trying to do and HOW COULD THEY HELP. Can you believe it? I was swept up in this whirlwind of people who believed in me, in my passion, and my ability to just make it happen.

I shared some of my writing with a friend (in tech) who looked me dead in the eye and said, “you’ve got it. You have to write publicly, start a blog. How do you NOT have a blog?! Here let me help you.” And there it was, my dream becoming a reality. We spent hours upon hours of brainstorming how I could take advantage of all the amazing new social tools to promote a business. My business (I guess I was starting one, though I couldn’t really pinpoint what it was yet, besides writing). New friends read what I wrote. Commented on it. Engaged in dialogue. Spread the word. It was unlike anything I had experienced before. I knew I was on the right track. It was like the universe opened up for me in San Francisco.

My friends, this lucky group of a dozen or so people who accepted me as one of them and threw me immediately into their group of 100+ other friends, were doers. They were listeners, and creators and dreamers and they made stuff. And I was so excited that they saw the same in me. Most of them worked in tech, at start-ups or building their own product. Most didn’t care that I wasn’t in tech. They wanted to hear what my goals and passions were. They wanted to engage, and help me create. Create, create, create.

It was a magical time, 2008.

I guess I look back with a sense of nostalgia, as a lot has changed in 5 years. Within me, within the city, within my friends. But the feelings surrounding that change are different. Instead of embracing that change, evolution and innovation, and jumping in to be part of it, to make it what we want, we are sitting back and watching it, jaws agape. Pointing fingers at it. Calling it names.

We’ve become spectators and commenters of the change that is happening in SF, not enablers and innovators. And it’s weird. Don’t get me wrong, I find myself engaged in conversations of how young tech engineers are driving up rent, taking culture from the city without giving back, how the Mission is basically the new Marina, natives being cranky about transplants and so forth. But I don’t like it. And that’s a red flag to me.

What’s happened to us SF? What is making us all so defensive that we feel we have no other option than to point fingers and place blame?

Maybe this is what being in a bubble means. Instead of calmly confident and excited about our ideas and what we could create, we begin operating as if there is not enough to go around. Not enough money, not enough success. We need to be first! Be the best!

We have gone from being a city that fosters a culture of innovation, support, and creativity to one that is insecure and defensive.

And it’s understandable. SF is small and special and we all want a piece of it for our own. We’re scared that we won’t get our part of it. That someone more successful, more influential will overthrow us, that the city will become something that we don’t have a say in. So we stick to our labels and identifiers and make our claim on why WE deserve it more than YOU.

When what we are really feeling is, “I want to be part of this magical place in a meaningful way, and I’m worried that if you are part of it, and successful, that means I can’t be.”

We’ve created a lose-win dialogue with each other that is hurting us. The truth is, this defensive scared behavior is doing exactly the opposite of what we hope. We are all giving away our power to be part of what is happening in this beautiful city. If it’s ‘their’ fault, it means we aren’t responsible, and also means we aren’t in control of what happens to us. For someone to win, another has to lose.

I just want to remind everyone- that’s not how it has to be. There is enough of it to go around if we all chip in, if we step back from being focused on winning, or having it our way. I’m not sure how to do this, and I’m not saying I have the answers. But there’s got to be some win-win conversation going on, or we are all going to hurt in the end.

Maybe we can start with one question… “What can I do to change the dialogue?”

connection, friendship, healing allowance, navigating the unknown, shades of perspective | steph | No Comments
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