Yo I'll tell you what I want what I really really want

I had great fun today sharing some of my thoughts on the secrets to success in business with a group of really inspiring Mums who are managing to have their cake and eat it (literally and metaphorically). Seriously I mean create some of their identity through doing something they love and spend time with their children. We also enjoyed the most fabulous looking and scrumptious tasting cupcakes made by Louisa so any MTBHerts event is worth attending for the cakes alone.

What people thought the session was going to cover and what it actually covered were two quite different things. Some wanted practical advice on how to niche though in some cases they really had done it already and interestingly others thought it might cover that sticky one for Mums and that is how you create work life balance (WLB). It covered neither of those in part because WLB is such a personal thing in terms of what it means to each of us; and I have a belief that marketing/ nicheing and other such "how to" topics come after a much more fundamental thing and that is understanding what you really want.

As one participant explained, she has no problem with working in her own time to 1.30am if necessary or at weekends because she is passionate about what she does. In fact there were many there who felt that way about their work but there were many like the Spice Girls who still had no clue as the song says So tell me what you want what you really really want...I wanna I wanna I wanna I really really really wanna zigazig ha. And despite seeming clueless about the direction of travel, the Spice Girls made their fortune.

Anyway that gives you a taster of our session for which I was grateful to receive some really fab feedback from participants which always gives me a glow (a bit like the ready brek advert). If that was not enough I was able to take some of the scrummy cupcakes home for my tribe which made the whole day even more worthwhile. I leave you with some of the evidence ;-)

How does she do it?

I am beginning to wonder if there is something in the cosmos at the moment but as I am not an astrologist so I cannot be sure. It just seems that many people I know are having very busy times that can at times be extraordinarily stressful. Below is an account of my day today because it highlights what those of us who are Mums and running businesses go through a lot.

I am launching a new course next month and have done a great deal of prep for it. My initial email had not had much response so I ended up going to a networking event this morning as I knew I would meet some of the people who had signalled initial interest there. This sounds easier than it was. Last week I had to call in a favour with a good friend and ask her to look after my 2 y/o as despite the event being aimed at Mums, there is no creche. I did not feel too bad as we usually see said friend and her 2 y/o on Wednesdays at the same playgroup. What it involved was getting to the venue 40 minutes early to deposit my youngest before heading off to the meeting.

However that was not all. Part of the reason I had not gone to bed until 23.30 last night was because I had to wrap a pressie and write a card for the daughter of a dear friend (we went to school together) because she was three today. It is the 3 y/o's ballet class on Wednesday and so I had to call in an even bigger favour and ask one of my local friends if she would pick up the 3 y/o from pre-school, feed her lunch, let her play w/ her daughter then take her to and from ballet. She often takes the 3 y/o to ballet but would now be responsible for her for 4.5 hours. Despite feeling uncomfortable about this, I did ask and she did say yes last week. Just needed to remember to pack her ballet stuff for pre-school and take her car seat with us too!!

That done the 2 y/o and I headed into town. This involved finding a new car park where I was going to meet my friend, so a quick look on the internet was needed before we headed out. Deposited 2 y/o then a mad dash to the networking meeting stopping briefly to apply lippy in the car mirror. As soon as the meeting had finished and I had caught up with a couple of people, it was a mad rush back to the playgroup where I sang a couple of songs with my 2 y/o, touched base with friend then a quick march homewards for lunch. Just needed to check that all was ok with friend who was picking up 3 y/o because she had not been at pre-school or answered her phone that morning so popped into her house. Ended up going through a convoluted explanation with her husband as that friend was out and then hurried home to feed 2 y/o.

After a quick sandwich we headed off to Buckingham about an hour away. We had to stop en route to fill the car with diesel as it was virtually empty! We arrived at the softplay area in plenty of time and so I was able to fit in 3 business calls including one about a possible venue for my 3 y/o's birthday which is next month. Importantly I got the last space in the car park. We stayed for an hour and a half. There was more food including chips and other starchy stodge for the mummys. We managed to see the cutting of the cake before we left. Despite a good run home we still got back after my friend so there was a message on the home phone saying that she had my 3 y/o at her house. That did make me feel guilty so we scooted over as fast as we could to collect the 3 y/o.

Since then I have been at home with two very tired children doing the bedtime ritual including supper and party cake. Not a great combination with a rather stressed, over-caffeinated Mum to boot. Is it all worth it I wonder? What do you think?

What does community mean in a business context?

There are a number of things that have been mulling around my head recently that I have wanted to put into a post but it is difficult to know where to start especially when people and emotions are involved. In broad terms, it is about community.

For some, my notions about business may seem quaint and old-fashioned but time again I see them being reaffirmed in the transactions that I observe around me. Right now I feel the need to share them. This is in part because of a recent incident in the twitter community of Mums, for more do check out Vicki's excellent post, which brought home the importance of being surrounded by people that care. In addition I have pointed out that online social networks could play a much bigger role in building community in a post for Mumsrock.

As a Mumpreneur with my own business, I have an underlying desire to establish my credibility and of course enjoy the fruits of my labour. That said those things are not what drive my business. For me it is part of a bigger vision. I want to make connections with people, support them in their endeavours by sharing what has worked for me and learn from them all at the same time.

I also recognise that it is very tough in part because of the economic climate but also because if one has a small business and/ or is a sole trader then one does not have the brand of a company like PricewaterhouseCoopers. We all know that for every lead generated it can often take months before there is paid work coming from it and sometimes what happens is that one come up against a series of dead ends which can be frustrating at best, soul destroying at worst.

That is why all small business people need a support network around them so that on those occasions when resilience fails and it seems impossible to bounce back and try something else, you know to whom you can turn to facilitate that turnaround. For that reason I am passionate about community and creating it wherever I can.

This does not mean we should be surrounding ourselves with "yes" people or those who have the same world view, as sometimes we need to hear tough messages in order to grow. In fact one of the Mumpreneurs that I speak to regularly has a very different energy to me. She is very driven and focused and some may see her as quite hard. What I take away from our exchanges is that I may need to re-examine my stretch targets and ask myself is this really a stretch for me as she never settles for second best. This is invaluable to me and helps me to grow as a person and a business woman.

I also believe in the adage that people do business with people that they know, like and trust. One of the reasons I spend so much time on twitter is that I see it as a quick way to get a feel for what a person is like and to start building a relationship. Recently I met two wonderful men through connections in twitterverse. We then had a tweetup and were surprised at the level of synergy there was between us. We are now looking at how we could work together and I am so looking forward to our meeting next week. Who knows there may even be a co-authored book in the mix.

It does not always work that way. One thing I find less helpful is when I feel that a contact is building a relationship with me because they have an ulterior motive in mind such as selling me something or getting me to attend one of their events. I guess that is because it feels like they are trying to manipulate me and that at some level they take me for fool for not realising that I would suss out their game. In those situations trust is lost.

So how easy is it? To an extent it is straight forward. Currently I get a great sense of support and camaraderie from members of Minerva's Mind, Judith's Room and an offline community called Enterprising Mums. Can you ever have enough? Probably not but it comes back to the age old issue of needing to juggle time and other resources so that they are spent wisely. And this is why I am wondering about whether to involve more time in other networks that I have dabbled in and new networks that I have recently become aware of.

As with all these things there are no easy answers. It is about experimenting with things and sticking with what works and letting go of those that prove to be time wasters.

How to manage the busyness of being a parent

Real mothers

Real mothers don't eat quiche;

They don't have time to make it.

Real mothers know that their kitchen utensils

Are probably in the sandbox.

Real mothers often have sticky floors,

Filthy ovens and happy kids.

Real mothers know that dried playdough

Dosn't come out of carpet....

Real mothers don't want to know what

The vacuum cleaner just sucked up....

Real mothers sometimes ask 'Why me?'

And get their answer when a little

Vice says 'because I love you best.'

Real mothers know that a child's growth

Is not measured by height or years or grade...

It is marked by the progression of Mommy to Mom to Mother

Author unknown

So how many of these stanzas do you read and think yes that's my experience. I am very grateful to Sandra Solano Huber for sharing this poem.

Are you an enterprising Mum?

So what are you doing this Thursday? Enterprising Mums are having a Business and Start up Fair aimed at Mums wondering what is next. So if you are thinking about becoming self employed, setting up your own business or you want to meet other Mums who work from home then come join us.

I will be there doing a talk on whether you can have it all and how to manage our way through whatever life throws at us! Currently trying to work out how we can get the insurance company to pay for a new hot water tank which they claim has leaked due to wear and tear, as this is not covered on our policy. We have a small problem of no hot water and no heating at the moment.

We will be at Plinston Hall, Letchworth on 28 Jan in the morning from 9.30am until 1pm and 6.30pm until 9.30pm. There will be lots of stalls and talks on a range of topics including how one Mum set up her own chocolate business or come listen to From Slummy Mummy to Yummy Mummy.

Mum's Monday: have your say

I have been commissioned to write a series of articles for a new magazine that recently launched. I will be producing twelve pieces over the next year. Here's the interesting part, my brief is to represent the voice of Mums and to provide them with inspiration. I am very interested in hearing from my readers who are Mums, and that includes grandmothers, with ideas about what they would like to read. I will be finalising my next six articles by the end of the week so don't delay, leave comments on what you would get you going. If the piece is likely to involve a case study or two then feel free to suggest people who I might contact who fit the bill. Thanks and I look forward to reading your ideas.

What are some of the steps towards inter-dependence?

I was coaching another Mum today and as a result of our conversation realised what a short period of time it actually is that our children really depend on us. Certainly by the age of twelve they no longer want to do stuff with Mum, it's much more cool to hang out with their friends.

It struck me that for much of the time when children are very young - mine are 3 and 2 - one often finds oneself thinking if only they could do that themselves. Recently my eldest has got into the habit of jumping out of bed half an hour after lights out, having shouted for me because she needs the toilet. I have insisted that she go by herself then she comes downstairs to find me and asks me to tuck her up again. I can find this an intrusion into my time rather than seeing it as endearing.

And yet when our kids decide that we are superfluous to requirements and become more independent, there is a part of us that encourages this change because it is the first step on the path to adulthood. If we are honest another part of us is saddened by the loss of those moments spent together in the park or whatever it was we did together. How many parents give themselves space to acknowledge these feelings or ever voice them to their children?

This is one of life's conundrums. It seems to me that one of our roles as parents is to enjoy whatever stage that we are in with our children. The other is to help our children discover inter-dependence as this is the route to a greater sense of contentment in adulthood. Isn't life about finding the balance between the urge to belong and be accepted and the need to find our own destiny whilst being in relationship with others?

Can you have it all?

Yesterday I had the great privilege of being part of the Network of Black Professionals and the Women's Leadership Network 's new mentee programme for senior women within Further Education. The participants were an impressive collection of women, many of whom were at Vice Principal level looking for tips on how to progress their career that bit further. It was a very interactive session with much of the input coming from the delegates and that could explain in part why there was such a feeling of openness and trust within the room.

I was surprised at how well the section on barriers to career progression went as women really made the most of the opportunity to share the challenges they faced. What saddened me however was the extent to which some of the external pressures had not changed. There were still references to the old boy network in the sense that conversation amongst peers tended to focus on football; huge challenges around family commitments and work/ life balance existed; and the experience of the glass ceiling was common. The most significant finding was the part that self-limiting beliefs played in many cases and/ or a lack of confidence in their own abilities to perform at a more senior level.

This shocked me and also made me realise that there is a place for the work of Minerva's Mind in these type of environments which has a focus on helping people develop their own leadership style and realise along the way that it is their imperfections that make them more accessible to others. It also made me realise how real the struggle is that many Mums face who want to work and have a role in which they are taken seriously alongside providing a loving environment for their family at home. Furthermore confidence or the lack of it is not just the preserve of those Mums who do not go back to work but affects us all wherever we find ourselves on the spectrum of to work or not. It is much clearer why Mums at Director level have decided to choose another path because having it all is a myth.

Mums' Monday: to work or not to work

I have spent this evening working with a group of Mums in the area of boosting confidence skills as part of the Minerva's Mind at home session. It was a real privilege as they shared so much of their life and it left me thinking how hard it can be for all of us who are Mums today to make sense of our choices. It is so easy to fall into the trap of low self-esteem as there is an expectation that Mums will be the main carers of their children, and yet society places no value on this important role. Added to which many who enjoy staying at home fear that they will have too much free time on their hands once their children go to school if they do not have to work for financial reasons.

For those of us that do take the plunge and go back to work or forge a new career for ourselves, there is the constant juggle between our role as "domestic goddess" and spending dedicated time towards earning a crust. In our house today, we have had the difficult conversation over whose work gets priority in that I need my husband to work at home one day a fortnight so I can attend a networking event and he can no longer make that commitment due to pressures at the office. I feel unable to challenge that too strongly because he is the major bread winner and yet how can I build up my business if I am unable to attend networking events regularly?

There is no easy answer, I am not able to come up with a "cooker cutter" solution. What I would say is that it is about finding the right balance for you and the best way to do this is to work out what your core values are. To do this start asking yourself some of these questions: How important is it for me to contribute to the income coming into this house? What weight do I put on providing a stable environment for my child(ren)? To what extent if at all do I want to put the needs of my family before my own? How much risk am I prepared to take in order to obtain my own goals? How would I feel if I do nothing?

Do let me know how you get on.

The power of living your life on purpose: a personal story

I had a fantastic day yesterday on so many levels - have been asked to do at least two pieces of work for the Ministry of Justice with opportunities for more. I was also filmed for the Politics Show which will be shown on Sun 20 Dec and I will be the Mum representative on the People's Panel in the run up to the election. But the best bit of the day was a conversation that I started on Hitchin station with another Mum when she commented on my coat. The rest of this blog is about her story which is inspirational to us all.

George has two children who are 9 and 7 and she moved to North Herts when they were toddlers. She did not go back to work once she had had the children. Instead she embraced motherhood. Then as they became older, she began to think what would I do with my life if I had it all over again. She realised that if she could start again, she would be a doctor. Her first degree had been in English and she had a successful, international career in Marketing which was total incompatible with being a Mum. By the time she decided on Medicine she was in her mid-thirties with completely the wrong set of A levels and not a lot of support for her dream from those around her. Undeterred, she took Chemistry and Biology at the local college and then applied to University. She did not get a place because they said she did not have enough relevant experience. Not put off by this setback, she found a local hospice where she volunteered one day a week and made sure she built up a range of experiences to put on her personal statement. She then reapplied to three Universities rather than one and was offered a place at all three.

She chose her first choice and got the high A level grades they required to secure the place. She has now completed eight weeks of the course and in the first exam came in the top 20%. She has even put herself forward for University Challenge. Approaching forty she is the oldest student in her year but she is loving it. This woman has succeeded in spite of facing a number of challenges and I believe she is an inspiration to us all to follow our dreams. She like me believes that we all have a purpose in life. Have you found yours yet?

Mum's Monday: organising kids' birthday parties you either love it or hate it

How do you feel as your child's birthday party looms on the horizon? Do you like hosting parties for your kids, try and avoid doing anything major at all costs or fall somewhere in between? Inspired by the carnival of parties insomniac mummy is hosting on her blogsite, I got thinking about my experiences and what follows was the result.

I have always enjoyed hosting dinner parties because I love cooking and the whole social interaction with others. However for the first two years of my eldest's life birthday parties were low key events and that was partly to do with the fact that there is only 15 months between my two girls and it was enough getting through each day. This year coming up to three, Sienna really understood for the first time that she was going to have a birthday so I felt it was important to mark it. And yet the idea of a theme or a party entertainer just did not appeal.

It just so happened that one of my friends from our postnatal group also wanted to make it more of an occasion so we decided to join forces, as we had a common core of six people. We wanted to keep it manageable so we agreed that we would each invite up to six other children. However we had forgotten to take into account that many of our children's friends had siblings and that as it was a family affair and we often knew both kids, the whole family would expect to come. We had also both thought that we would keep the family celebrations separate so as to contain numbers but our families had other ideas. On the day we ended up hosting a party for 50!

It nearly did not happen because I have the most appalling hand writing, which comes from the fact that I experimented with different writing styles when I was at school for the fun of it and the end result is a real hodge podge. It turned out many people thought I had written that the party was going to be on 10 rather than 19 even though the former was good Friday. I then had to text everyone to confirm the date so that there was no one turning up 9 days early and it meant that one or two were then unable to attend.

Naively I thought that holding a party in a village hall where we had access to the hall's toys and so had the entertainment covered would mean that we would be able to keep costs down. We had not taken into account the cost of producing party bags and we felt that we needed to do them as our kids always seemed to get them. I spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of time on ebay sourcing the best deals. Only to find that the other Mum had bought a whole load of stuff at Sainsburys which was a valuable addition to the booty but added significantly to the price. I had wanted to have all wooden toys but they were much more expensive so there was a lot of plastic tat in the bags.

We had lots of discussions about food. We decided who would provide what which worked. I was keen that we had high quality ingredients so ended up buying organic sausages, cooking them and cutting them into cocktail sausage size just so that I knew what the kids and adults were eating. That approach of course meant the costs went up and my co-party organiser was not sure we would have enough so supplemented with some ready to go cocktail sausages from Morrisons. We also felt that adults often got a raw deal at kids' parties so produced a number of smoked salmon and cheese bagels for them. These went down very well but I had not realised how long it took to put bagels together and probably over-catered. We bought 50 mini bagels and I think managed to prepare about 30 for the party!

For me the highlight was making the cake. My friend was concerned because her son had set his heart on a Thomas cake from Waitrose which was around £20 so I promised to do something fun. Initially my daughter wanted a pink heart but I did think that was a bit too girly for a boy so she then chose a gumball machine - you know the ones where you put in a penny and get out a handful of jelly babies. It was red and white with a black piece for the slot machine and four black screws, one in each corner. I filled it with mini chocolate easter eggs as their birthdays are near Easter, and stuck a 1p into the slot machine. It was quite a healthy carrot cake with orange flavoured cream cheese icing, and despite one of the cakes being a bit over done because I am not used to a fan oven - which needs a slightly lower temperature than a conventional oven - the cake went down well w/ adults and children alike. In fact I felt chuffed that one Dad is very fussy about cakes said it was the tastiest carrot cake he had ever had - he must have had a bit from the non-burnt end.

In spite of all the mini dramas along the way, it was very enjoyable to organise the party with someone else and as long as you keep your sense of humour, I can highly recommend this approach. In the end the event cost two hundred pounds which when you think of the numbers attending is about four quid a head so pretty reasonable. I would love to hear about your experiences of organising kids' birthday parties so please do leave me a comment.

MM: some dos and don'ts when starting a business

In talking with a couple of people recently I realised that I needed some left brain energy to tackle some burning issues such as dealing with paper work that had got lost in the all consuming world of Minerva's Mind. As I looked into the matter further I learnt all kinds of useful information that I wish I had known when I had started. Here follow some helpful tips for anyone in the early stages of running a business. I was thinking of Mumpreneurs who are starting out, as this is Mums' Monday but the advice applies to all new business owners:

1. When you set up your business you have 13 weeks in which to inform the Inland Revenue that you are a business owner. If you miss that deadline then you could be charged a £100 penalty fee. This is where you need a good accountant who can show how some of your initial activity relates to pre-start up costs etc. If you are self-employed click on HMRC to register.

2. It is vital to set up a separate business account because then if the Inland Revenue decide to investigate you they are limited to looking at the transactions in your business account. If they want to extend their investigation then they need to go and ask for further powers. It does make sorting your accounts out much easier too as all transactions go in and out the same place. Which banks?

• Abbey offers free banking for life. There are no major catches but they encourage business owners to do everything on line as there are limits such as cashing no more than 100 cheques a month;
• The Co-Op bank interested me because my personal account is with their Internet bank. They offer free banking for life for as long as you are a member of the Federation of Small Businesses; and
• HSBC has a good package if all your transactions are online.

3. It is worth having the services of a good accountant because he/ she can save you a lot of money by helping you identify allowable expenses. For example, did you know that if you work at home then you can claim £1,000 a year towards electricity, gas and heating costs? I can highly recommend Will Farnell. He gives very generously of his time and before setting up his own business, worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In other words don't do what I did and leave it until the last minute! So what tips can you add to this list? Feel free to drop them down in a comment at the end of this post.

Mums' Monday: what does half-term mean to you?

Some have already started half-term if they have a two week break. My eldest daughter’s starts today and I have been looking forward to it for weeks. Why is that you may ask? There are two main reasons – the first is that I have missed having her around since she started pre-school in September and I am looking forward to spending time with her this week as the days do whizz by. Secondly it is one of the wonderful things about working for myself. I can choose what hours I do; who I work for or with so if I want to have more of a go slow week, I can programme that into my schedule.

Those that know me well would probably say that I tend to sort play dates etc. quite last minute and at best the week before so I am also revelling in having been more organised this time. I have a range of treats some of which are more aimed at the girls and some that have my name on it. It all started because I picked up a flyer at the St Albans Baby Show, at which Minerva’s Mind had a stand, at the beginning of September. The flyer was for Going on a bear hunt which was due to perform in St Albans during half term week. Within a couple of weeks, I had spoken to lots of my St Albans friends with kids and arranged for eight of us to go on the Tuesday of half term. Going through that process got me thinking about what else we were going to do and I remembered that due to illness we had not seen a good friend of mine and her girls in the summer holidays so I arranged to see them. What with work days that only left one day, which got filled up when I bumped into a friend in Hitchin two weeks ago and we realised that our two eldest girls had not seen each other since the summer hols because her eldest started school this term and has been too tired to have play dates.

Reflecting back on all this I realise that part of the novelty of it all has been having a plan to which I can refer when asked by friends about half-term. It would seem that in “Myers-Briggs” terms, my latent J is making a bid for being recognised over the normally transcendent P. The benefit of advance planning was that I have been looking forward to half-term. In part this is due to the fact that it means a change to routine which is always a good thing in my book. This is interesting because Professor Richard Wiseman who espouses positive psychology, and has done some studies into the reasons that some people seem to be happier than others suggests that one of the reasons for that is that these people embrace change and are actively choosing new experiences. These may include taking a different route to work periodically or only talking to people at an event who are wearing a red tie.

You can see how much I have gained from taking a different approach to something that happens regularly so my challenge to you is to think about what you could do differently, try it and see what happens. I would love to hear about your experiences so do leave me a comment or email me at kate@minervasmind.co.uk. The question I am going to leave you with is what are you going to do differently this week?

My relationship with order is changing...

I was very impressed by Heather Townsend's blog because as with so many things she espouses it has an order and a structure to it. When reflecting on the launch of my whole self leadership model (check out this blog to find out what people thought of it) with Beth on Friday, I realised that I have a preference for right brain approaches currently. What do I mean by that? Well I have noticed that recently I have had an aversion to order and I expect that is a reaction to the fact that I spent many years working in a highly analytical environment where left brain approaches were the norm. And to some extent that is what one should expect when surrounded by lawyers and accountants as I was. As we went through exercises to connect more with our right and left brain, I realised that I needed a bit more structure in my working life. So I am going to start by making some changes with this blog.

From next week, the Monday post will be dedicated to Mums and called Mums'/ Moms' Monday and the aim will be to have one other post in the week that focuses on other parts of the whole self according to this blog. I am also going to introduce an element of play into this by experimenting with the length of the blog to see what that leads to. So watch this space and let me know what you think. And thanks goes to the efficiency coach who gave me the idea inadvertently through her blog.

What's the big deal about having a positive mental attitude especially as a parent?

One of the things that I am fascinated by as a coach is positivity, what it means and how it can affect our lives. Earlier this year I wrote about my first experience of Positive Psychology which was very inspiring; and of course in my line of work there are many coaches that espouse the Laws of Attraction as a way to live one's life. Much more recently I caught most of an interview on Women's Hour that involved the self-defined pessimist Ariel Leve and the Director of the Happiness Project, Dr Robert Holden. I was finally inspired to put pen to paper by a wise woman, Lisa Pearson, who has studied and adapted John De Martini's work in her coaching practice. Finally as if right on cue, another enlightened coach, Beth Follini, signposted me to Barbara Fredrickson's research on the subject and an article written about it. So below follow my current thoughts on the topic with a part specifically relating to parenting.

Initially I had some real concerns about unrelenting optimism, not least that it would be exhausting to maintain, as well as being a “turn off” for those around people who practise it. This seemed to be borne out by Ariel Leve's experience of parenting by her father. She found him exhausting because he was always so positive about everything in his life. Perhaps that is why she has taken up the stand that she has in life as a self-assessed defensive pessimist. From her perspective nothing can disappoint her because she has already gone through the worst case scenarios in her head. Interestingly she and Robert Holden did reach some agreement in that he stated excessive optimism was unhealthy because it probably meant the individual practising that was not being completely honest with their lot.

What is fascinating is that a great deal of Fredrickson's research supports the belief that I instinctively believed to be right but could not prove and that is about finding a balance between the negative and the positive emotions. What can happen is that our focus is on the negative because positive thoughts are so much more fleeting. This is where training the mind can come to our aid - such as the use of affirmations, meditations, future self visualisations and my personal favourite, setting intentions; or a combination of them all. Fredrickson's research indicates with an increased diet of positive thinking, we are likely to feel much more like we are living life on purpose more aware of the social support and see the opportunities for co-activity. This has certainly been my experience and many years back I would have put myself in the Leve camp!

You may be wondering well how do I do that? Positive emotions grow out of the ordinary transactions of life—being with others and following your interests. They are not related to affluence. In other words, as long as our basic needs are met, it is accessible to everyone.
Here's the really great part, Fredrickson worked with a mathematician and they proved that three positive events to one negative event was the tipping point for going from average to high performance. It is even more effective if we manage a five to one ratio where possible. However, one step at a time!

For me this has had major ramifications with regard to parenting and my lesson in all this is that I need to adapt my style to enable my girls to follow their interests more fully. I say that because with two toddlers, I do find myself saying no much more than yes and at times being disproportionately cross with the girls. I have vowed to become more aware of the level of negativity going from me to them and to aim to get it in proportion to the positivity they receive from me. Helpfully Fredrickson has developed a website called PositivityRatio.Com to help us do this. So why not check it out yourself and see what happens when you observe and make note of your positive to negative ratio in relation to your children or other parts of your life. If it starts to change, what impact is that having on your life as a whole.

I would love to hear your comments on this article so do jot them down on the blog or drop me an email to kate@wholeselfleadership.com.

The power of positive thinking

I feel compelled to share with you what has been happening to me over the last few days. It is amazing. In energy terms I feel as if I have tuned into this very positive, incredible life force. It is as if I could do anything that I wanted to do and it's as though someone is watching over me.

On Saturday I realised that one of my favourite earrings had fallen out. I was very upset because they were from Tiffanys and of great sentimental value too. Normally I would completely lose it and drive my family nuts but I remembered Gretchen Rubin's wise words about emotions in a crisis and decided to believe that it would come back to me. The next day both my husband and I took turns to search the bottom of the pool to no success. By chance I explained what I was doing to those swimming in the lane so they did not get irritated and the woman in the group came up to me a few minutes later with my earring in her hand!

Over the last few months, I have been working with another coach, Karen Wise, to develop a programme for Mums. What is incredible is that it has gone from one programme to two programmes aimed at different types of Mums thanks in part to feedback from friends on facebook in particular Jan Morgan, Becky Alexander and Annette James. One is aimed at Mums with 6-9mth babies and the issues that they tend to be facing such as whether or not to go back to work and lack of identity, me time etc; and the other is for Mums with older children who have made sacrifices for their families and feel that there is something missing. They are either SAHM, WFHM, invariably working from home with little prospect of promotion/ progression, almost on a treadmill with children, husband, work competing for their attention. They are thirsting for a mental workout.

This morning I met the editor of a new magazine aimed at Mums in the car park of Hitchin swimming pool. She is looking for interesting articles for the magazine and Mumpreneurs to put forward for the annual inspiring Mumpreneur awards in September. What a great contact!

It is incredible what can happen when one has taken a stand and lives by that stand. New opportunities keep showing up. As I sat down to write this article I read Rosalyn Clare's post about saying your dreams aloud and seeing what happens. It is so powerful because if we believe in what we are doing, others will too.