Some things never change...

I recently reconnected with one of my college room mates that I had lost touch with through www.linkedin.com. How cool is that? It has been such a time warp to go back nearly 20 years and exchange photos, emails and life stories. We also got other roommates involved in the emails.

What I found is some things never change... regardless of the journey you have taken in your life and how much you think you may have changed from your experiences... your core temperament, personality and dynamic stays exactly the same!

Planning Queen

Although I am the ultimate planner at work and at home, I really work toward living in the moment. Before every vacation, I promise my family that I will not plan every moment. For me, I really try to balance not missing out on anything and not coming back completely exhausted. I'm lucky that a large part of my job is planning. I plan ahead for my clients and work on marketing plans, PR plans and media plans. At home, I like to be prepared so I completely bore my husband with all the "what if's" and scenarios so I can envision any possible outcome in a given situation. Its no wonder my family and friends get me involved in group gift plans, family reunion plans, party plans, etc. - I just can't help myself. I plan. Its what I do...

I'm sure you have heard the same planning quotes as I have - "The best things in life happen when you least expect them" and "Plan for tomorrow, but live for today"... yeah, yeah, yeah. But today I got an email with a new one... "The more precisely you plan, the harder destiny will hit you." I love it, I've lived it and it is oh so true... even to a planning queen.

Deja vu all over again

I taught my daughter's Sunday School class yesterday and during the group lesson the leader's message started to sound very familiar. She had all the children work in groups - they were given a tube of toothpaste, a bowl and a spoon. They each took turns squeezing the toothpaste into the bowl and then they each needed to try and put the toothpaste back into tube with the spoon. (It was a little too ooey, gooey and messy for me... ) The analogy was the toothpaste coming out so easy represented how easy we say or do mean things without thinking and how hard it was to put the toothpaste back in the tube represented how difficult it is to take things back and make things how they were before. It was the perfect visual that my last blog post needed. It was deja vu all over again... (one of my husbands favorite quotes...)

The Power of the Spoken Word...

With my extroverted personality, I sometimes say things that I think are funny, but horrify my 10-year-old introverted daughter. She gets offended very easily, so I have to make a conscious effort to watch more carefully the words that I use, the way that I talk to her, and think about how she might feel if I say something. With her temperament, she is much more sensitive than I am.

My 7-year-old is at the next level of saying exactly what she thinks and feels and doesn't really understand how things come across when she is trying to be funny. On one hand, her confidence and self-expression make me proud. On the other hand, when we are sitting at my in-laws for Easter dinner it makes me I cringe to hear her tell it like it is in front of everyone. We are working on this. To teach a child about the importance of the spoken word is a life lesson.

At home and at work, someone's spirit can be so easily crushed by another person not carefully choosing the words that they use. Words that one person says so carelessly and without thought can so easily offend another... I'm all for honesty, but one needs to think about what they say and how they say it. Words can not be taken back as easily as they were said. The damage is hard to repair.

When it happened to me and not by me, I became as sensitive as my 10-year-old daughter. People underestimate the power of the spoken word.

Everything I Know About Life I Learned From Oprah

I had lunch with a friend recently who was feeling frustrated by negativity. I got on my Oprah soapbox (I love it and watch it on DVR it everyday!).... Negative energy attracts negative energy. We talked about how important it is to surround yourself with positive people who energize you. Each person only has so much time and energy in a day - with work, family, and other obligations - that you can't waste your precious energy on toxic, energy-sucking people and things that aren't working in your life. Life is too short. Making a conscious effort to be positive and believing that positive energy attracts positive energy has made such difference in my life. Life is much fuller when surrounded with others who make you feel good about yourself and give you energy to take on your next big struggle.... One hour. Great therapy for both of us...

Just Do It

How fitting for an advertising professional to use the most popular marketing slogan in the world as the title for her first blog... Ironically, the post has nothing to do with advertising... it is more about my personality flaws of perfectionism, obsession and procrastination - they kind of meld together in my world. Perfectionism comes in handy in my crazy life at home and work, but when added with obsession and procrastination it can often times be paralyzing.

At the ad agency where I work, we decided several weeks ago to delve into the online world by experimenting with blogs. What better way to learn than to do. So, as my colleagues have been creating their blogs and being oh so witty... it has made me crazier and crazier. And, a little intimidated I must admit. As a result, I have spent way too much time planning (obsessing)... first I obsessed over the perfect title - then I created a list of possible topic ideas that would be good enough to post online and thought about how much I really want to say online - then, I kept thinking of the best blog ideas (between 2 and 4 AM of course) - then, I looked at the all the templates options, but didn't think any of them suited me... Enough... I put the blog thing aside to make a bunch connections on LinkedIn
( http://www.linkedin.com/in/trishhelgeson) and added all kinds of applications to my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=575703887) instead. I felt like I was experiencing online, but was actually procrastinating and putting off the whole blog thing.

Today is the day - I am done thinking about it and my husband does not want to hear about all my blog ideas anymore! Sometimes in life you just have to stop planning and start living... or in this case stop obsessing and start blogging. There you have it. My first post. Nike would be proud. I just did it...