april.holle.blog

This is my answer to Pam Slim’s “Your Ideal Life” exercise (pg 65) in her book, Escape from Cubicle Nation. Which by the way, I highly recommend.

Home

I live in Portland, OR in a self-renovated historic bungalow with wood floors and a fireplace. Outside the birds eat out of a feeder and play in a water fountain in my backyard garden paradise that I created myself. The neighborhood is quiet but the neighbors are extremely friendly and down to Earth. We often get together for neighborhood barbecues or coffee in the morning on each others porches. The main town center isn’t too far away from our community, allowing us access to downtown if we want to go out on the town or attend a business meeting.

Relationships

I treat myself with dignity and respect, allowing myself the time to enjoy doing things that don’t always involve work. I allow myself to appreciate life in the finer details that money can’t buy. I am proud of my life and my accomplishments. I have a loving, supportive spouse who sticks by me through the tough times and celebrates the great times. Someone that can appreciate the value of communication and understanding. I have two children whom I provide love and guidance to, teaching them about the good and the bad all while not being too serious considering they’ll get enough of that when they’re older. I still keep my exotic animals to remind me about how to adapt to life so remarkably well that it seems you were always made to do just that. I have a great group of people I call friends all over the world that I can depend on for support, guidance and a good night out. I’m extremely close with my family and even though I may live far away they know they are still close to my heart. We still make time to visit and to call each other to show we care. The people I do business with are good people with great ideas wanting to make a difference in this world. Passionate and driven to do the right thing they trust my expertise to help them in their mission. They aren’t in business for the money it makes but for the drive they have inside themselves to create and serve their customers and communities to the best of their abilities. These people compliment me by being a sounding board for my business decisions, help build our businesses together and remind me why I do what I do.

Health

I sleep well at night and wake up each morning rested and ready to take on the day. I find time to take nature hikes with the kids and relaxation through yoga and pilates practice. We have a great time cooking healthy meals at home or learning about ethic cultures while eating at local restaurants. My body feels alive and youthful since I started focusing on my overall health, both mental and physical. I don’t sweat the small stuff and I am no longer stress junkie. I respect myself by allowing myself time to reflect, stop and enjoy just for the sake of enjoying something. To make time for me and my passions that I do merely for the fact that they make me happy.

Work Style

I work both alone and with several different teams of people that vary from time to time. Allowing me to continuously create valuable relationships with a variety of people over a expansive network of industries. I work both from my home office and on the road as I travel once every one to two months for different speaking engagements. My schedule does vary quite a bit, allowing me flexibility in my day and to work when I really feel the motivation and to relax and not stress out if I’m just not feeling it between 8 AM – 5 PM. This also varies from week to week but with some lead-way, so that I can comfortably plan a few weeks in advance.

Nature of Work

I am blessed that I get to create and teach at the same time. I enjoy the strategy I do for clients and the analysis of the success of that work. I through presenting my work I am allowed the opportunity to teach my clients how they can make their business better through more than just marketing but through meaningful client interactions that can benefit them as well as the customer they’re looking to reach. Then overseeing the implementation of that strategy over many networks of integrated communications to put that plan into action. In addition to still creating, I also teach people within this process how to excel their ability to make these connections through design, communication, strategy, process and finally analysis which invariably leads to revision in most situations to increase each connections success. I enjoy solving real problems with ethical solutions in a way that is accountable and reliable. I help bring people together in a cohesive team that allows for better efficiency while allowing more honest, open communication among team members.

Financial Life

I make enough to help our family be comfortable in our 3 bedroom / 2 bath house, with the kids and a couple of trips a year, nothing crazy just your standard family vacation on the cheap, maybe skip a couple years and go some place exotic that requires a passport. I have benefits with my job, some of them people would call perks – insurance through either my husband’s full-time position or through our own insurance, my flexible schedule allows me to usually be around to pick the kids up from class if they’re sick at a drop of a hat, I can work mostly at my own time and set my pace, and even sometimes clients trade out for extras such as hotel stays or clothing. My income does fluctuate at times depending on the type of work I’m doing, but I have enough in savings (3-6 months of expenses) to wait out the dry times. I have a great credit score that I keep up on, I am extremely reliable with my bills and pay my contractors not only on time but maybe even a bit extra for an awesome job well done. Besides the house and the car I’m debt free and only have a credit card for emergencies for the business.

So what do you think? Am I asking too much?

A soapbox about Phoenix community, but first, a video about ants.

Last night I was talking to my father about the Climategate, Cap and Trade and other world issues all of which are way way bigger than either of us, and all I had was one question, how can I help? Then dad mentioned a lesson he had shown me many years ago, “Remember the ants we used to watch when you were a kid? We need to be more like them, instead of fighting and trying to move in all different directions, we should group together and work to solve the problem.” If ants can do it, why can’t we?

Lately I’ve been hearing the rumblings of a revolution, and I love it. I hear empowered passionate voices of community members looking for value, acceptance and critique, and I embrace it. And I ask of you, get behind it, because it’s YOUR community we’re creating, you simply have to be a part of the creation. We don’t all have to “start” something to be a part, but show your support for ideas, movements, businesses and groups that share your vision in for the Phoenix community and the world. Here are some examples:

• Eat local, try Liberty Market or La Grande Orange
• Pitch in and volunteer your time/services, if you hear of someone working on something you want to be a part of or have ideas for don’t be afraid to commit to helping that group
• Donate to local start-up sanctuaries trying to make a difference like the Toys for Tots drive at Gangplank or donating items and services to Fractal/Dojo Collective
• Ask for help,  are you working on an idea or have a movement you would like support with? Don’t be afraid to ask for help, there are so many people in our community that want to make a difference you just have to connect with the right ones
• Buy your books locally (and perhaps even used), try Changing Hands Bookstore or Bookmans next time
• Thank them, if nothing else, find something you support, go up to that person/organization/business and thank them for what they do for your community and your way of life
• Share your ideas and your actions on how you support your community here and elsewhere

With all that I’ve said here, I want to thank all of you, you make up such a wonderfully rich diversity of community for me. I will continue to support the Phoenix community and I hope you’ll join me. I’m not asking you to change the way you live or how you live it, but to be thankful and support those who provide you with the that way and those means. Appreciate what you do have and support the change you want to see where ever you are.

With All My Love,

April

Alright, so “crowd sourcing” thing is all the rage, so I’m using it to my advantage. It’s time for you to choose my hair color. That’s right, leaving it up to you fine folks out there to pick what color my stripes are next.

I’ve been sporting the black with teal stripes for a while, and while I like it, I want to mix it up a bit… so below are your choices. Remember, black as the base, so you’re just picking the stripe colors you sillies! To vote, simply leave a comment with the color name. A winner will be chosen at 5 PM today and photos will be posted of the final outcome.

First, a disclaimer, I’m not an economics guru or a politics whiz, so what I’m about to put out here is simply and observation from an American Gen-Y female in the technology and advertising industry. That said, feel free to read on if you’re interested in my perspective.

I was recently reading an article called The Smart Growth Manifesto posted on the Harvard Business blog and I thought it had some great points about smart growth and how we may be able to dig ourselves out of this economic hole we seem to find ourselves in today.

If it’s one thing I’ve learned about making mistakes it’s that there are VALUABLE lessons hidden inside each one that help us grow if only we can understand how we made the mistake in the first place. History repeats itself, and if you don’t understand HOW history happened you can’t evolve your process to avoid those mistakes again.

The Smart Growth Manifesto considers the 20th Century Economy to be based on a poor growth model that was unsustainable, unfair, and brittle. Using what we’ve learned in this 20th Century growth model, the article suggests we move to a smarter growth model that provides sustainability, equality and resilience.

This new “Smart Growth” would be based on four pillars, each of which I really agree with and see happening in many successful start-ups these days. These four pillars are:

1. Outcomes, not income. We no longer base our net worth on how much money or product we make, but how much BETTER our lives really are. We need to create meaningful, authentic value that really makes a difference in peoples lives not just how much money we line our pockets with.
2. Connections, not transactions. We don’t look at transaction volume alone but dissect how each transaction is connected and how to increase the overall value of the entire system from supplier to manufacturer to consumer by co-creating and collaborating together instead of fighting over “our market share”. We should know that globally our economies are connected and to rise above competition and create relationships for the good of the whole world.
3. People, not product. We quit focusing on what makes a cheap product and start focusing on the people who make great products. While you may save money going with the lowest bidder, you also get what you pay for. The people behind great work is what really makes all the difference. We should empower people to learn, create, invent and innovate to help stimulate growth and provide new arenas to build better goods and services.
4. Creativity, not productivity. We need to base success measurements on creativity instead of just productivity. Creativity would measure how much NEW value is actually being created as opposed to simply shifting old value around to different markets.  This would bolster creation of new ideas, shake up the “status quo” and push businesses and economies to become more resourceful and efficient.

These pillars aren’t only found in economies but in businesses, many new “revolutionaries” are already tossing out the old ways of business for these smart growth ideals. Myself, being in the advertising, internet and technology industries are seeing a lot of new businesses turning the tides of the economic climate that are based on these four pillars. The article states several and I have to seriously agree that when I’m reading these principles I can clearly see them in businesses such as Apple, Etsy, Threadless, Google, and others.

I’d love to hear your point of view on what you think of this article and if this really is a full economic movement to “smart growth”. What do you think?

I was in a meeting with one of my co-workers today when she mentioned that as a child she would lay on her back with her feet up in the air, as if she could walk on the ceiling. It brought me back to that time in my life, remembering how life would be if you had to step through door ways and your head would bump on bookcases and chairs hanging from the ceiling.

Remember playing that the floor was lava? Jumping from one piece of furniture to the next, trying not to scald your feet on the red hot bubbles below? Your mom screaming at you to get off the entertainment center or the refrigerator?

The days in life, where you could make rabbits and dragons out of clouds, where ants crawling on the ground still made you point and stare.  Those days when rain drops and bubbles made you laugh and when that soft blanket made the worlds troubles go away.

Stop when the 9 to 5 starts to grind on you, when your love life seems not so lovely, or when you have to rush groceries in between the post office and the vet. Then remember, laying on your back, pretending that you’re walking on the ceiling and smile.