Can You Do It Better?

“…when I was 12, I was watching a bad science fiction movie called Devil Girl from Mars,” she told the journal Black Scholar, “and decided that I could write a better story than that. And I turned off the TV and proceeded to try, and I’ve been writing science fiction ever since.”  Octavia E. Butler

Octavia Butler, Author

When I founded my company, I searched for a name that would keep me focused on providing the best service possible. The goal was a brand that would bring to mind excellence each time I had to write it down, spell it out or leave a voice mail message for a potential client. DORO does that for me. Octavia Butler is the author of some of the most incredible science fiction of our generation, including the book Wildseed from which I took the name. Her writing is everything I would like my business to be: innovative, prescient, smart, creative and BOLD! How did she become an award-winning author, scholar and winner of the MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant – the first EVER in Science Fiction? She started with a simple thought: I can do better than that!

There’s something that you know you do well. Maybe you have a knack for organizing spaces and places that awes all of us who are challenged when it comes to figuring out where to put that one piece of paper?  It could be your unparalleled baking skills, proven by that pound cake that no can taste without closing their eyes and saying, “Girl, you put your foot in this cake!” The bottom line is, there is at least one thing that you can do well. And once you do it well, you can do it better!

Some folks are destined to do something so well that world takes notice, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,  Julia Child or Susan Taylor. Others like my grandmother are legends in their own neck of the woods. What’s similar about each person known for their personal prowess or skill is the fact that they began with the thought that they could do it better. They then practiced, failed, succeeded, practiced some more and worked their behinds off until they reached better.

As I continue to work towards my own better, I am astonished by the number of things I do poorly (like that paper organization thing.) But that’s where I find the person who does it better than I ever could and we work together. Each client teaches me something. A current client has killer networking skills, while another has unimaginable hustle. And they choose me for what I do better than they could – developing a brand.

Imagine just where we would be if we all believed and then worked on our own personal “better thing.” Our families, communities and companies could then work their way to best! Today, we begin with believing.

The Life in Your Years

The 2012 Start!

Entering the 2nd week of the year 2012, many of us are already reconsidering some of those resolutions. They always sound so good in the days leading up to the New Year and nothing feels impossible when the ball drops at midnight. A few days later, school starts again, everyone is back hard at work and there’s no Dick Clark countdown to motivate us each day.

But as we begin to gather on The Porch again, sharing stories, dreams and plans for increased productivity, it’s important to make sure that we keep the most important goals in the forefront. Just is critical is the daily decision to remember those personal landmarks and courageously pursue them, though they may only be important to us.

A hospice nurse wrote a blog post about the five regrets that people have shared as they prepare to make their transition. What gave me the most relief while reading it was the fact that each of the people made their way to peace. Finding peace is a journey, it requires action. We don’t happen upon it, but rather we make choices daily that lead us to that place.

In a nutshell, the five regrets that the nurse identified in the blog were the following:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

First, making the changes necessary to avoid regret is a major step. Each time we adapt our lives to fit the happy place we envision, we remove regret. Can we do the same for our businesses and professions? What’s the look back list for your business? I’ll make mine and share over the next few weeks.

For now, we’re back on The Porch and hopefully, prayerfully working on a 2012 that we will be able to say was “The Best Year of My Life So Far!”

Let’s get it!