Who Are You Trying To Impress?

The last week at our house has been focused on celebrating our baby girl's 8th birthday. After the party, special snacks at school, and her restaurant-of-choice for dinner (including dessert!), I think I have been absolved for the birthday injustice I heaped upon her last year.

Last year on Corban's birthday, we were out of town at her sister's cheer competition. We tried to make it special, but it's kinda hard to make sitting in an arena for 8 hours seem like something fantastic. After that, I kept promising we would have a party for her. And we did...

in April. (if you're keeping count, that's five whole months after her birthday)

Last year, I was stressed.

Last year, we were too busy.

Last year, the thought of having to do one more thing, much less plan and execute one more thing, made me want to eat cookies and sleep for days on end.

But this year, as I thought about celebrating Corban's birthday, I felt God whisper a significant question to me.

Who are you trying to impress?

Who are you trying to impress with the fancy themed birthday party? With the over-the-top goodie bags? With the super crafty decorations? Who are you trying to impress by implementing all the amazing party ideas you find on Pinterest? (and they are really amazing) With the adorable bakery-bought cake?

I avoided the question for a while, but after some deep digging, I finally came to terms with the fact that all this time I've been trying to impress myself. I've wanted my kids' birthday parties to reflect how wonderful and crafty and creative I am as a mom. I've wanted all the guests to be jealous. I've wanted all the moms to "ooh" and "aah" over the cuteness of the party they have just beheld. I've wanted my kids to think I'm the greatest mom in the whole world. Because of a birthday party? Really?!

It sounds ridiculous when you put it like that. So now, I'm doing things differently.

As I planned this year's party, I kept that question in mind. Once I got over myself, I realized the only one I should be trying to impress is Corban. It's her birthday and what she thinks about it is all that matters. I want her to feel loved and celebrated. I want her to enjoy the day.

So she got to make every decision about her party. She picked the place, the invitations, designed and helped decorate the cake, and even placed the candles wherever she wanted them. It turned out to be zero-stress for me, and she loved every minute of it.

My sweet birthday girl.

As it turns out, she's much easier to impress than I am. And I'm so glad.


What about you? Do you stress over making parties perfect?


P.S. I have a sneaking suspicion that I've been treating Christmas at our house the same way I've treated birthday parties, so this question will be staying with me through the holiday season.

My Very Princess-y Mother's Day

Another Mother's Day has come and gone, and I'm happy to report that I survived with my dignity and self-esteem intact...mostly. (Check out last year's Mother's Day post for more info on that).  I did receive the ever unpredictable Mother's Day card/poem from school, but it painted me in a fairly positive light this year (if fairly positive light = not a total flake). So that was good.

I also got a very special gift.

About a week ago, my 7 year-old started talking about the gift she was making for me at school, ramping up the excitement and anticipation (aka anxiety) each day.  Her comments started on Monday with a little grin and twinkling eyes saying, "I can't wait to give you your Mother's Day present." And by Friday, we had progressed to squeals and clapping and jumping from the furniture with declarations of, "You are going to LOVE your Mother's Day present! It's going to make you feel just like a princess!"

Oh. snap.

Cue heart palpitations and scaly fingers of dread constricting my throat. (Dramatic much?)

What in the world could she have made at school that would make me feel just like a princess? I had no idea.  I mentioned it on Facebook and Twitter and the general consensus among my friends was that...

1.) I should, in fact, be very nervous about this gift.

2.) There was a strong likelihood that at some point on Mother's Day, I would end up in an adult-sized tutu. A tiara was not completely out of the question, either.

The one ray of hope I clung to was that surely an adult-sized tutu couldn't fit in her little backpack. Right? It couldn't, could it?! Please, God, don't let it fit in her backpack.

Looking back, there were a couple of hints that should have clued me in on this princess-inducing gift, but my muddled mommy brain didn't put it all together until afterwards.  One was when she said, "Mom, have you ever had tea in a pouch?" 

"Uh, not that I recall.  Is that like a CapriSun or something?"

"Yeah, I guess. But I think you mix it with water first."

Hmmm. Tea in a pouch?* 

That sounds as though it would make me feel like the exact opposite of a princess, but ok.

Well, Sunday finally arrived and I woke up to Corban's sweet, freckled face beaming with pride as she delivered this to my bedside table...

Breakfast in a Bag! And tea in a pouch! *Turns out, I've completely failed Parenting 101 since my kid has never heard of a tea bag (my English friends are going to be so ashamed of me).

I have never felt closer to being royalty in all my life. I've also never been more relieved to receive a brown paper bag as a gift.

I love that little girl. She's just one of my three amazing reasons to celebrate being a mom.

If you're a mom, I hope you had a beautiful Mother's Day and were treated like a princess, too.


What's your favorite (or most shameful) Mother's Day gift story? 

The Foundational Success Factor

I ended yesterday's post with a cliff hanger (I'm surprised any of you were able to sleep last night from the suspense of it) and a question: What is the biggest factor of success?

I think there are a few key factors, but I believe there is one that is absolutely foundational. I'm convinced that we could have 47 other success factors nailed and still fail because we lack this one thing.

What is it?

Character.

It doesn't matter what job we're doing, if we display strength and depth of character, we will set ourselves apart from everyone else because good character is rare.  

Here are three ways to exhibit the kind of character that's necessary for success:

• Be Reliable -- We need to do what we say we'll do, be where we say we'll be, and be there on time.  I see the impact of this characteristic (or lack thereof) in my business when I talk to people who are looking for a new cleaning service. The most common reason they give for wanting to find someone new is that their previous service was unreliable. The cleaning lady was supposed to be there every other Tuesday at 9:00am, but they never knew if she'd really show up.  Customers won't put up with that kind of performance for long. Neither will employers. If we prove our reliability, we'll quickly find ourselves gaining favor with the people who matter in our business.

• Do Every Task With Excellence -- Excellence is accomplished in the details, so we can't cut corners or take short-cuts. No job is insignificant. Every little thing counts, so it's necessary to give our best to every task, no matter how small or unimportant it seems. A guy named John W. Gardner said, "Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." (I'll bet he had all kinds of excellent accomplishments). When we give the extra effort to do things well, we set a standard for excellence that shows in everything we do. 

• Be Faithful in the Little Things -- At Bloom, when we interview new people, we always tell them that we're looking for people who are faithful in the little things. We want people who are willing to work hard and prove themselves over time. People who are humble, have a willingness to learn, and can be trusted with really big things because they've shown themselves to be consistently trustworthy with really small things. (Jesus tells a pretty good story about this in Matthew 25).

These are just a few ways we can show ourselves to be people of strong character in the workplace, but I really believe living these things will set us apart and help us move forward.  

Do you agree that character is foundational to success? 

What's the Biggest Factor in Success?

Last weekend, I had the privilege of speaking to an amazing group of women at a conference hosted by the Bethel Foundation, which is an organization that provides lots of fantastic resources to single mothers in OKC.  I was asked to speak about career opportunities, a topic that sounded relatively easy to me at first, but proved to be more difficult the more I researched and prepared.

Naturally, I shared the vision of my own company (Bloom Home Cleaning) and our heart for providing a business opportunity for women and a community to help them succeed in every area of life (physical, emotional, spiritual). But the truth is, there aren't a lot of realistic opportunities for women who have little money for a start-up venture and/or lack a high level of education or specialized skills. I love that Bloom is a realistic opportunity--there's no start-up cost and anyone who's willing to work hard can do it--but it's not for everyone.

I did come up with a page full of career resources, but the more I thought and prayed about what to say to these women, the more my heart screamed, "Give them hope!" Being a single mom is more difficult than I can even imagine, so I wanted them to know that they can succeed and that someone believes in them.

So, instead of going over a list of potential careers and jobs (they got that as a hand-out), I spent the time talking about three things that I believe directly affect a person's level of success in their job, no matter if they work at McDonald's or they're a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or they're a starving artist.

I want to share those thoughts with you, too, and see what you think. But I'm going to break it up into a few separate posts so it's not so long. You're welcome.

Tomorrow, I'll give you the first thing on my list. In my experience, it's the single biggest factor when it comes to succeeding at any job. It's the Big Mama. It's why some people get promoted and others get fired. And in my business, it's how we keep customers.

Any guesses as to what it is? What's the first thing you would tell people if you were asked to speak about career opportunities? hmmm. maybe I should've asked that question before I gave my little talk. :-)

My Good Friday Song

This song is speaking to me, especially today on Good Friday. I've asked God this question plenty of times...

Where were you?

And He answered with the most mind-blowing, powerful display of love and mercy the world has ever seen. 

I feel unworthy. 

And so very thankful.

How about you? Have you ever felt this way? How is your heart being stirred during the Easter season?

Lessons Learned from Justin Bieber (For Real)

I recently took my tweenage daughter and a couple of her bff's to see the critically-acclaimed Justin Bieber movie Never Say Never. Now, I can stand a little Bieber music on the radio. I've even been known to sing along with the kids in the car, but I really wasn't looking forward to two solid hours of Beiberiffic concert footage. In 3D.

But, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't just concert footage, but the story of how he went from regular kid to mega teen heartthrob music spectacular guy (I think that's the title on his business card).  It was a really great story, and I walked away inspired by a kid who chased a dream and caught it.

Here are a few things that stood out to me...


It takes years of hard work to become an overnight success.  
From the outside, it's easy to assume that Justin Bieber posted a video on YouTube and BAM! a music bigwig saw it, signed him to their record label, and the rest is history. In reality, he became a music student at a very early age and continued to learn and improve his craft. Then he started entering local music competitions and performing at every possible opportunity. After he landed an agent, he played waterparks and traveled all over the country to play at radio stations until he finally convinced them he could sell records (the stations didn't want to play music by a "little kid" because they said he wouldn't have a big enough fan base).  Then, after all that hard work and persistence, he became what seemed to be an overnight sensation with gajillions of young girls screaming and fainting for him. If he hadn't put in all the hours of work, he would still be a regular kid.
(This makes me think of the "10,000 hour rule" in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. If you haven't read it, you should.)

Don't underestimate the power of social media.

Social media is a crazy phenomenon and it played a huge role in building Justin Bieber's fan base. He started by posting videos on YouTube. He began to gain a following and that's where his agent discovered him. Later, when he was playing all those waterparks and radio stations, he would tweet about where he was going to be and invite fans to come see him.  One day, ten little girls showed up outside one of the radio stations. Twenty little girls showed up at the next one. Then forty. And the crowd kept growing until he played in a mall somewhere and the fire marshal had to evacuate the place because there were too many people. And then the radio stations decided he might have a decent fan base after all and agreed to play his songs. 

So if you're trying to build a platform or a brand or a fan base, you should be maximizing your potential by using social media. BUT... Use it as a way to genuinely connect with people. Don't just use it to promote your latest product. People hate that. They want to connect with you and like you, then they'll buy your stuff because they've had positive interactions with you online.

Follow your passion.

When you take away all the fancy trappings of Justin Bieber's current lifestyle, you get a kid who simply loves music. I am firmly convinced that we should do what we love. We live in the age of opportunity, so no matter what your passion is, you can make a living doing it. You want to be a glass blower? Do it. Do you love Halo so much you want to marry it? There's a way for you to make money at it. Be an artist, a marathon runner, an entrepreneur. I don't care what your dream is or how crazy it seems. It's your dream for a reason and you should chase it with everything you've got.  It will take a lot of hard work, but won't it be worth it to get to the place where you can say, "I'm living my dream!" Go for it!

(Check out this post by Jon Acuff and this post by Phil Cooke about dream chasing.)     


Never. Say. Never. 
Justin Bieber had a dream to play at Madison Square Garden for a sell-out crowd and he constantly told his agent, "I can do this." Dream big and believe in yourself. If you say it will never happen... it won't.



I guess this post is evidence that I've officially caught the Bieber Fever. Help.

Grocery Store Melt-Down

This song is rocking my world right now. I bought the album a few days ago and started listening to it on the way to the grocery store, which turned out to be a mistake because I ended up a weeping, snotty mess in the parking lot of the Neighborhood Market. I'm not really a crier, so my first reaction when the tears start flowing is, "What's wrong with me?" which is not a question easily answered. 

I finally composed myself enough to go in the store, but the "what's wrong with me?" wouldn't go away. I pushed my cart through the aisles wondering why this song had affected me so much until finally, right there in front of the shampoo and conditioner, it hit me. Death. My heart was breaking over all the death and brokenness in the world and in my own life and the lives of people I love. 

Physical death. Emotional death. The death of hopes and dreams and relationships. Everything is broken and dying.

BUT (here's my favorite part of the song) Jesus trampled over death and calls us to... 

come awake, come awake

come and rise up from the grave.

And there's the hope. Even though we're surrounded by death, we can be alive. 

I don't know about you, but I want to be fully awake and alive. Even though it's Monday. :-)

P.S. My other favorite part is at 2:38. Gives me chills.