I found a new snack which is only 37 calories a cup, Hooray I’m healthy! I found said snack in bulk, Hooray I’m thrifty!, I packed the snack in my car with water to help me on my longer than usual commute, Hooray I’m organized! I even pulled off not one, not two, but three major meetings in three different areas of the state! At the end of the day (wait, days don’t end when you’re a business owner), I mean at the end of the last meeting, I got on the road thinking “Yes, I am the uber chic, wickedly smart, working mom on the go that only healthy, thrifty, organized women are…and I pulled it off flawlessly!”
How to Blowdry Your Hair in the Car
So is popcorn, water bottles, and Google docs all it takes to accomplish this seriously inflated sense of self? Well, kind of. You see I did manage to complete 10 of the 828 things I needed to do before sundown today. And, if you must know the truth, my clothes were only clean due to a sturdy lint brush and bottle of febreeze, I was also 25 minutes late leaving the house – with wet hair which I had to blowdry by turning the car vents high and aiming them directly at my head, and I did have an entire phone conversation with a client thinking they were another client. Still, I pulled into my driveway feeling like I truly nailed my day! And that my friends is the exact attitude any skirt needs to own a successful business.
Confused yet? Let me break it down. It’s all about delusion. This classy uber chic smart lady lives in my head. I truly believe I’m her. I also truly believe that I’m building an empire for my girls and that every day when I wake up the bottom line and Q3 reports I was reading when I fell asleep (ok passed out) are where I want them to be, not where they are.
Still confused? Every business owner, Skirt, Suit or Hoodie* must operate daily with a healthy dose of delusion to be successful. I mean, who in their right mind would wake up every day excited to tackle everything from financial to HR issues all before they hit the frontlines of a 15-18 hour work day, capping it off by figuring out the next five years of a company which not only financially supports themselves, but a host of employees? I can tell you no rational person would! It’s the delusion of believing we are who want to be and not who we actually are. Some call it drive, passion or persistence, and those certainly fit the bill. Others call it dreaming big, and depending on how cynical you are, maybe even a coping mechanism. Either way you look at it, it is an essential part off any entrepreneur’s core personality traits – and it need not have a negative connotation!
So come on admit it, you imagined landing a new client in your chanel suit (even though it was really from Target), you walked into your board meeting completely prepared (even though you were saving your presentation as you walked down the hall), and despite the fact that more days than not are harder and longer than you could have ever imagined, it’s those moments, the day you complete roughly 2% of your intended “to do” list and become the delusional figure in your head that keep you going. Because it just so happens that one day you will actually be that person without even realizing it happened.
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The run down – The Skirt, that’s me, the only female working in a family business alongside my 30 something techie brother, The Hoodie, and my 60 something lawyer father, The Suit.
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