Posts Tagged → writing

Annual Review Part 2: Lessons Learned & Looking Forward

Quilatoa Crater, Ecuador

This is the final post (#4) in the series wrapping up the year that was in 2010. Previous posts can be found here, here and here (with my favorite annual reviews around the web posted here). I can honestly say this has been the most thorough annual review I have ever done. I’ve chewed and let pieces of it reverberate in my head and it’s felt really amazing to take this time to reflect on where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going.

Year of the…

I believe in creating themes and having power statements as I look forward. I’ve made vision boards and life lists. I actively envision the future I want. But for the first time, I’m creating a theme for the year. My friend Erica O’Grady talks about this, as does the master of the annual review Chris Guillebeau. I’ve decided 2011 is the Year To Be Mindful.

Mindful is a mix of being aware and cognizant. I look to 2011 as a year not only of focus, but as a year where I am aware and indeed mindful of my actions, decisions, interactions and entire being. This includes how I spend my time and my money, where I spend my energy (personal and professional) and the outcomes of those actions. Part of this is meant to streamline my own process, I’m simply one of those people who want to do everything. All. The Time. In reality that is impossible. I can’t know everything all the time, read everything, be everywhere or be everything to everyone. This will be a challenge for me, but a welcome one. I plan to be mindful of being mindful, have fun along the way, and of course share my thoughts and perspectives here as the year goes along.

What lessons did I learn in 2010?

You control how fast the wheels spins. I can easily let myself spin out of control with too many obligations and saying yes to everything that crosses my plate. About half way through this year I was completely burnt out. And not fun to be around! I had a situation where I was asked to submit a proposal for a big (huge) brand and they offered me the job but countered with an offer that was way underpaid. I wanted to say yes because of who they were and what it could do for my career, but I also knew it was too far below my bottom line. I realized I control the wheel and I control how overcommitted I let myself become and also value my own work and not compromise to a level I’m uncomfortable. I said no to the project, and took back control. Saying no (respectfully), taking time off from being online, and creating boundaries are glorious revelations I’ve had this year that have made me better and stronger. I’m more of a marathon runner now and I don’t feel that push and pull of being burnt out or pressured by what I perceive as other peoples’ schedules and how that impacts my own psyche. It’s an amazing shift and I’m not letting go of this one for a long long time.

Learning when to exhale. Home, for me, is where the heart is and where my friends are and where my family is. It’s not always my home where I rest my head or the driveway I pull into or the ever-elusive view of where I think my life should be. I didn’t have a permanent place to rest my head in 2009 and in 2010 I moved into two separate furnished places in New Orleans. Both felt immediately like home. I went to Seattle and Los Angeles and Pittsburgh and New York City and immediately felt at ease. I wondered why. It occurred to me that without realizing I had fundamentally changed the concept of what home is to me. Refined the idea of stuff. My heart might be in one place while I’m physically somewhere else. It’s all less tenuous to me now. I can exhale and relax easier knowing it’s not tied to preconceived notions of stuff.

Walking makes everything better. I can seriously get my walk on. I have always loved being outside and walking but the big change this year was feeling the difference in me when I could take that time to get outside, clear my head and change my environment. I have a theory that everything changes when you walk 10 minutes in one direction. Often this year, I needed that perspective to keep going because life was so busy and I was balancing a lot of emotions at once. It wasn’t only walking but also leading a healthy lifestyle including yoga, eating healthy, limiting caffeine and alcohol intake, all of these things made a huge difference in me and almost eliminated entirely the mood swings that I remember all too well from my 20s. I largely credit walking.
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The Year That Was: 5 Annual Review Posts You Should Read

Photo courtesy of Taylor Davidson

As December came to a close and January kicks in, I looked around for inspiration on how I could structure a post summing up the year that was or looking forward to the upcoming year. Especially since I just wrote about having a bit of a block about how best to do this. I often find myself with tabs open across my browser and when I did this exercise just now I found a few really moving posts that I wanted to share because we can all use some inspiration to get into the right mood for 2011. Right?

Here are my favorite posts from some of the best of the best and why I love them.

1. Danielle LaPorte’s it’s been very real, 2010: a white hot retrospective

Words with resonance. Testimonials that made me glow. And a couple surprise wildfires. Here’s a glimpse.

Danielle rocks. She has a way of writing, of creating and of being that just makes me excited. Her simple post of highlights from the past year show me that this “summing up the year that was” can be simpler than I thought while still deeply gratifying.

2. Felicia Day’s Five Things About 2010

I know I’m the guiltiest of all for setting unrealistic expectations for resolutions (Last year on my list were: Learn Chinese, and Trapeze Lessons. Huh?) but this year I decided to, before making a list, look back on 2010 and figure out what things I actually LEARNED as a human being.

Felicia took her year and summed her accomplishments into lessons she learned. I love this! It allowed an entire year of experiences, hardships and triumphs to be put into five lessons. Too often I think we do something and move on without thinking about the consequences or what we learned from the experience. Felicia encouraged me to think not about specific experiences, but what I learned from them.

3. Gina Trapani’s 2010 Lessons Learned

Don’t waste your time on stuff that doesn’t matter. I learn and re-learn this lesson every single year, and I swear the universe will continue to flog me about the head and shoulders with it till I get it right.

Gina is brutally honest with herself and poignant in how she writes about it. I really related to her reflections on having thought life was going to go one way and instead it went another way. I admired her honesty, but also her ability to unabashedly take credit for her success. That’s hugely important and a good reminder to step up and step into what I did well last year.
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The Causemopolitan Relaunches!

Friends,

I’m incredibly excited to share with you a brand new version of The Causemopolitan. The Causemopolitan will still provide you with information about philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and cause-filled living opportunities for you to find ways to give back and continue to build cause into your life. Only now, it’s brighter, bigger and better than ever! There are more ways to find the content you want, stronger category and tagging infrastructure, interviews, and more targeted content to match the reader base. The layout and design have been given a facelift. New logo, new design, new colors. I hope you enjoy the new look and feel as much as I do, and would love to hear what you think in the comments!

Another great addition! The Causemopolitan has gone social! You can ‘like” posts, share on Twitter and add to StumbleUpon all at the top of every post. I’ve created a page on Facebook for The Causemopolitan and that is going to be the main portal for sharing cause-based videos, events and information and I’d love you to join the conversation.

If you’re not signed up to receive FREE updates from The Causemopolitan what are you waiting for? Sign up takes less than one minute and you can do it here! Of course, You can still add The Causemopolitan to your RSS feeder as well.

When I first started The Causemopolitan in February of 2009, I was looking for a little place on the web to call my own. I launched the site with encouragement and assistance from good friends Jonathan Dingman (designed the first wordpress site), Erica O’Grady, (the big push) Mike Prasad and Jeff Henderson (hosting and support). Since then so much has happened. From New Orleans to the Philippines and back, I have shared over 300 posts and connected with countless people who have left comments or reached out to me because of The Causemopolitan.

My blogging history didn’t start with The Causemopolitan. I had been blogging as the Lifestyle Editor for the leading Los Angeles blog LAist (part of the Gothamist network) since 2005, and had kept up with my Tumblr blog in addition to being active on social networks including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, but I wanted more. I was on a journey after all spending 2009 giving back in volunteer projects around the world.

Here’s the funny thing about blogging. I know mine is just one of millions of post-it notes on a wall, but it’s my post-it note, and it’s come to mean the world to me.

I haven’t gotten everything right all of the time, haven’t blogged every day, haven’t shared everything I wanted to, but I have tried my best to grow the community around The Causemopolitan. As my yoga teacher says, “You might lose your balance, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t try your best.”

Some truly incredible things have happened over the last year and a half including:

Another great resource to follow along is my blogroll. Updated every month, I add links and resources as a benefit to those in the public and private sector to help identify ways to give back. It also has lists for other publications I write for, nonprofits I support and inspiring cause-based writers.

I welcome your feedback and looking forward to this next chapter for me, you, and The Causemopolitan.

Yours in cause,
Sloane

P.S. Last, you can always follow the latest in cause news that I share on my Twitter (@sloane) and on now also through The Causemopolitan on Facebook.

Daily Dose of Inspiration: The Changemakers Series

Once a week this summer, come back to The Causemopolitan to read a guest post that will inspire you right up out of your seat to get involved and give back in a special series called Cause It’s Summer! Featured bloggers will be sharing their own reflections and stories, tips and resources, and perspective on philanthropy, social entrepreneurship and their own cause-filled life. This week welcome Olivia Khalili, as she shares six stories of people and companies that are doing good in the world, despite all odds. The stories are inspirational, and also true testaments to the strength of the human spirit.

*****

Most of the time I forget to be inspired by myself.  Hang on, I’m anything but immodest, but that’s just my point. We’re comfortable with drawing inspiration from others, but don’t usually tap our own stores of experiences and learning.  So before I share some of the people and projects that inspire me, I’m taking a minute to silently include myself, to put to use the lessons learned from my life of gaffs and victories and tamed uncertainties—and I think you should do the same.

Much of my time is focused on using business to positively affect society. This puts me in contact with social entrepreneurs, homespun do-gooders, professional changemakers and many types in between. I’d like to share some of my favorite inspirations whom you might not yet have heard of, and offer them up as a potential inspiration for you too.

Philip Rosedale
Philip is the founder and CEO of Linden Lab (the maker of Second Life).  Every quarter, he sends his employees a quick questionnaire asking:

“Do you want to keep me or find a new CEO?  Over the last three months, did I get better at this job or worse?  Why?”

Voting is anonymous. Rosedale shares answers to the first two questions with the entire company. Overtime, as responses indicated that it was becoming increasingly difficult for Rosedale to improve, he tapped a successor (that was last fall; this past June he rejoined as CEO). I’m inspired by Rosedale because he routinely opened himself up for criticism.  He held the success of his company in higher regard than his own success and ego.

Joyce Lavalle
A sales director named Joyce LaValle left a copy of Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce on her CEO’s desk, which led to a complete transformation of the company and the industrial carpet industry as a whole.  Joyce works with Ray Anderson, the founder and CEO of Interface Inc. Hawken’s ideas inspired Anderson to commit his company to zero waste by 2020 and alter the methods and resources it uses to produce carpet. Interface is well on the way toward its goal and has eliminated hundreds of millions of dollars in waste, as well as increased sales by more than $1 billion.  Sixteen years later, Joyce heads the marketing for InterfaceFLOR.
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First Quarter Review: Changes and Upgrades To The Causemopolitan

This is the first of three posts reviewing the first quarter.

Life goes by fast and I’ve found if you don’t stop and smell the roses, well, it passes fast and it’s hard to look back and remember things. Remark on them. Tell those you care about how much those moments COUNT for something.

A friend of mine told me of an exercise where she takes the printout of her calendar and at the end of each month writes on the back what she is most proud of, who she is happy she connect with or who impacted her the most that month and then looks forward to the next month.

I’ve been wanting to do that for every month of 2010, which of course didn’t happen. It was a whirlwind and instead of fighting the wind, I succumbed to it. I was wrapped up and twisted into post-Davos, Superbowl, local election, Mardi Gras mayhem, trips to Los Angeles and SXSW and wouldn’t you know, a truly terrific cold and cough that once I recovered from, I was staring down the face of mountains of work. The work I love! It just leaves little time to post, to write, to share.

No matter. I can go back and recount what happened a few weeks ago, a few months ago. I’m no less busy now, but sometimes you just have to force yourself to MAKE time. This is me making time.

So looking back on the first three months of this year, I’ve decided to break the posts into three parts:
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