Mom 2.0 Live Blog ~ Personal Track: Redefining Success

Personal Track:  Redefining Success 

Brene Brown

Alice Bradley

Coert Vorhees

A writer writes.  Rejection is proof that you wrote.  Writers string things together all the time and then try to work it into something that people may or may not read.  The great writing moment is when the faucet is pouring and the bucket is ready.  Difficult time is when you don't have bucket and it is pouring or ….. faucet is pouring and the bucket is at the school program, doing mommy stuff.  

Balance:  Balancing creative life of writing with real life happening around us.  Just write - time becomes more valuable when you are a parent.  We want to do right by our kids, live life that honors and serves as role model.  Time is more valuable and it is more important that you use it well.

Uncomfortable parameters and confinement in time sparks creativity.  We apologize to our kids too much for our work.  Nothing wrong with our children seeing that we work and are not available all the time.  When your work is creative that kind of work fills up whatever space you give it … new kind of work environment we live in - we can always be "sort of working".  

Creative endeavors have a perceived self indulgence.  If we dig deeper it comes to the fact that we live in a culture that connects success to money.    

Great dialogue going on about "what feeds your soul" and having balance.  Someone says that what feeds her soul doesn't feed her children.  

It is essential to feed your soul - it is never wrong to feed the soul.  Dominant paradigm - movement of women is exploding the media world from the ground up so there is pushback.  They say:  Who do you think you are?

Comparison can be the thief of absolute joyfulness.  What do you need to be happy?  Do you need a million followers etc?  Be honest about what it is that really makes you happy, not what others think should make you happy.

SM can make you feel small and scarce.  There is value in building community - building market share and community are different.  Amazing things can happen when you make connections.

We have this Idea of perfectionism and making sure things are perfect before we send them out.  Perfectionism is not about being your best, it is a way to protect yourself from criticism, blame, and judgement.  We are turning it on ourselves.  If you are writing and putting things out there so people will love you that is fine but at the same time you need to realize that they won't all like you!  Some people will be totally turned off by you.  

Dealing with negativity.  It won't go away and you don't get used to it but if you are writing for other people's approval you will feel that you have failed when you don't please them, but if you do it without that goal it still hurts but it doesn't dig against the very purpose of your writing.  Not everyone has to like everyone.  

Our capacity for connection is what makes us effective.  Much easier to criticize than it is to contribute.  When you stop caring you lose the connection so it is a thin line.  Sharing makes you vulnerable and it feels risky but don't share what is intimate - starting 4th and 5th grade is very shame vulnerable age for children.  Different kids have different boundaries so it is critical that we teach children to protect themselves in a world with so little privacy.  

Authenticity is not compartmentalizing ourselves.  But there are still spaces that are appropriate for certain things but we do need to integrate.