Photo courtesy of Therese Kay Photography

No matter who you are, it’s hard not to feel a personal transition each time you witness summer fade away and start preparing for the impending cold weather. I remember sitting on my front stoop in Florida in the middle of October and having a “whoa” moment as I realized that it was autumn. My favorite season had become unrecognizable to me, drenched in the persistent heat and humidity of the south.

Experiencing the seasons was something that our family was looking forward to coming home to when we moved back to Massachusetts, and every year I find myself appreciating the opportunity it gives me to note the passing of time, thinking about where the last three months have taken us and contemplating what the next few (or six, in the case of winter) months will bring. With winter staring us down after our Halloween Nor’easter, I’m already finding myself anxious about Christmas plans, New Year’s Resolutions (both business and personal), and strategies to survive the long winter.

How does one prepare for the holiday hubbub, the usual business that needs to be taken care of, and also grow and elevate life beyond the daily grind? This has been my new challenge. Now that I have mastered the highest levels of spirit-crushing productivity, I have resolved to take advantage of some of the results of that productivity–extra free time and a finished basement–and create a space separate from my office and every other place in our house that is overrun with toys and within reach of grabby toddlers. In this space I would really love to get back into some actual hands-on artwork.

Before I became a business owner and a mother, art played a huge role in my life. Watercolor, oils, pastels, collages and sculpture, all relics of my past life. As spread thin as I felt in my college days, I always made time for art in some capacity. Eventually that manifested its way to graphic design, and ever since then I’ve had a monogamous art relationship with Photoshop. Well, I’m sorry, Photoshop, it’s me, not you. I want to see other peop–um, media. Very simply, I need to explore other outlets. I’ve had a slab of wax in my basement for five years and it’s begging for some molding.

Right now my five-year-old has more focused artistic time than I do, and that realization, among others, has pushed me to get back to the basics of who I am (or once was) as a creative person. So on that note, I’m going to get off of my computer and get to it.

Enjoy these last moments of fall, friends!

With my summer commitments safely in the past, this seemed like a great time to jump back into the thick of things. Then I got sick for a month. After a few weeks of feeling horrible, I did some WebMD’ing and decided to go to the doctor with my findings. I met with him and his army of medical interns to discuss my symptoms, and following a barrage of tests, my findings were confirmed, mostly. I had started to suspect that I had a stomach ulcer, when in fact it is only inflammation. It is what I refer to as a “baby ulcer” because telling people you have duodenitis sounds scary.

Taking some strong antacids and curbing my desire for caffeine and spicy food has certainly helped bring me back to about 95%, but it’s clear that this will take some time to fully heal, and in the meantime, I also need to keep a handle on stress which has been an interesting challenge considering everything that I have on my plate. I think I’m actually getting the hang it of though. The prospect of inviting searing stomach pain if I get too worked up about something is pretty motivating to just shrug and say “Oh well!” and let life go on. That is not to say that I don’t care about things, but I am getting better about skipping the “upset” part and moving right into “let’s just deal with it” part. The only time I’ve noticed “upset” sneaking up on me is when I’m driving (or in some cases, being driven). As long as I live in Massachusetts, I’m not sure how I can avoid this.

In any case, there’s nothing like a health scare to make you take a good and serious look at your life. All of this has forced me to slow down–which is nearly impossible for me to do otherwise–and reassess many things in my life and at work. While I would have loved not being sick this past month, I am actually looking forward to challenging myself to work differently, and ideally creating some long-term solutions that will prevent any baby ulcers sneaking up on me in the future.

This week my husband decided to take me on one of his annual hiking trips to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I will preface this entire story by saying that I am not really a very physical or outdoorsy person. The office is my natural habitat, and while Jonathan did not drag me there kicking and screaming, I was definitely apprehensive about the whole thing.

Within the first hour of the 5,367 feet climb to the top of Mount Madison, I was silently cursing myself, my husband and everything holy as the terrain became increasingly difficult to negotiate. My feet hurt, then my neck, then my thighs, rounding up with my hips feeling like they may simply disconnect from my body. Annoyance turned to exhaustion, then to pure frustration, then to anger. It’s amazing how many phases and emotions are experienced on a journey like this, resulting in my absolute determination to reach the treeline in as short a time as possible.

Two and a half hours later, we crawled out of the mountain forest, into the cool blue sky of the mountain top. The views were spectacular, I made friends with a moose and enjoyed some creature comforts at the hut (including warm meals and a legitimate bed). We proceeded to climb two mounts, including Mount Adams which I have officially renamed the Mountain of Death and Rocks, namely because I thought I was going to die a few times and after coming off of it, I never wanted to see another rock ever again. That was followed by what I was told would be an “easy” descent off the mountain on a different trail which was actually just rocks, more rocks and a means to excruciating knee pain.

After everything was said and done, I can say that the entire experience was extremely challenging. I wasn’t pushed to my physical limits, I was pushed past them, leaving me asking my husband and myself, WHY on earth do we continue to challenge ourselves so dramatically. To the point of delusion, screaming pain and total emotional chaos? Was the view worth it? It’s hard to say because I can’t even ascend the stairs of my house at the moment, but I left the mountain feeling thankful for the experience with my husband, the great photos that I was able to capture, and of course knowing that I conquered two mountains without crying.

So, what did I learn?

I learned that I probably could have covered twice as much ground as I did. I probably wouldn’t have my toenails or a tear-free hiking record, but I would have found the physical and emotional fortitude to keep going. People definitely underestimate themselves. If you challenge yourself to a goal just beyond what you feel is possible, it’s likely that you are very capable of achieving it despite personal fears and doubts.

I learned that climbing mountains is very much like living an ambitious life, where your end goals seem this close but take forever to fully achieve. For the record, the very top of the mountain is never where you think it is. It’s always 10 minutes further away. I spent the majority of the trip feeling 10 minutes away from everything, counting down the miles to the end.

I learned that reaching the top is satisfying, but fleeting. It is important to enjoy the journey, because the high of achievement soon wanes, and you will soon be off on the next journey.

So, here we are. The BLOG. That’s right, I can write as much as I want to! I might post a poem by Walt Whitman below, just because I can. I suppose there are pros and cons to the microblog challenge.

Pro: Short and Simple

There is absolutely no room for unnecessary adjectives, adverbs or run-on sentences. As an English major, I spent four years jamming sentences full of so many fancy words to meet a word count. In fairness, whittling your thought down to the essential points can be really beneficial. As a CEO, if more than three sentences come out of your mouth without a “point” to them, I’m already annoyed. Skip the fluff, spit it out and let’s move on!

Cons: Getting Your Point Across

Let’s face it, sometimes you need some space to express your thought. Some thoughts are important and complex enough to warrant a full paragraph. And I don’t care how you slice it, a biography is like the human mission statement, and unless you are five years old, 140 characters cannot capture a person. Important concepts require at least the space you would dedicate to an introductory paragraph of a paper. Intro, three points, and a conclusion? Having a thought and tools to express yourself well, but being told to stop mid-sentence for lack of allowed characters, is like telling a marathon runner they can only walk around the block, once.

In any case, it’s an interesting trend, and as much as I enjoy the freedom to post a short thought, I really enjoy having the space and opportunity to express a full thought when I want to. Hopefully people don’t stop forgetting how to string more than two sentences together in a meaningful way!

* * *
A NOISELESS, PATIENT SPIDER

by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

NOISELESS, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them–ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,–seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d–till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

As you can guess from the accompanying photo, I grew up on a farm of sorts. My parents had 25 acres of land, most of which were rented to nearby farmers for various crops, usually soy beans or corn. We had a barn and 5 acres fenced in to contain our menagerie of farm animals. We had everything  from sheep to ducks to pot belly pigs and always a mess of cats, all of whom I tended to with daily chores. I had sleepovers with friends in forts made of hay bales, I had my very own John Deere riding mower and the nearest mall was an hour away.

The irony of course is that I currently have no pets, and driving more than 20 minutes outside of Boston makes me nervous. I guess I have turned into a bit of a city girl, and while I have certainly enjoyed being a New Englander these past few years, there is a lot about my upbringing that stays with me, like a solid work ethic. Nothing like manual labor to make you appreciate a desk job! I think I also have an appreciation for the little stuff in life. Country life, by comparison, is fairly uncomplicated. When something exciting happens, it’s pretty darn exciting! If you know me, you know that I get pretty excited over painfully small things, like a new mousepad or a shiny cell phone case, and then when really exciting things happen, like holiday parties, watch out! It’s weird but I suppose it’s better than taking most things for granted.

While every minute of my day is now spoken for, a little part of me longs for country life. I imagine there is a chance that things might go full circle, and who knows, I may find myself feeding the ducks, collecting chicken eggs and falling asleep in cornfields in my retirement!

This comes after back-to-back employee vacations. In a small business, whenever someone leaves for any significant length of time, it is stressful. We all work hard and contribute a solid 8 hours to projects every day, so losing even 5 days can really throw a wrench in things. As much as we prepare in advance, it never fails that suddenly everything that person was working on becomes urgent, clients get grumpy, we have to reassign work, make other clients grumpy, fun fun. Unfortunately for me, nearly everyone in the office took their vacations this fall, so as soon as someone came back (sigh), someone else left (grr), and naturally I am the wizard–in front of the curtain usually–trying to keep it all together, short staffed and increasingly short on patience.

Damn right I was going to the Dominican. As soon as I looked at that link, I saw light beaming at the end of the tunnel. There may have been masseuses and rum runners at the end of the tunnel too. Suffice to say delusions of a tropical getaway alone improved my spirits for at least a week, and with this I realized that as much their vacations irritate my work week, the people on the team not only deserve a vacation, but they likely come back better people by the end of it. The monotony of daily life can wear on anyone and having a reprieve is an important way to reset.

I never took vacations as a kid, and having indulged in a few as an adult, I tend to feel a little guilty about taking them. Prying me away from my email is a feat in itself, but slowly I’m getting used to the reality that time off, whether that is in a tropical paradise or just hanging out with the family at home, is not a luxury but a necessity that everyone should get a chance to take advantage of. We didn’t end up opting for the Dominican special, but it has spurred tentative plans for the spring and having something to look forward to has really made a difference for me. In the meantime, I have a new desktop background to keep me motivated.

My typical day involves checking email, updating the project schedule, making sure all our employees have questions answered and a work agenda for the day, lunch, more emails, maybe some design and/or brainstorming, and if I absolutely have nothing else to do, dreaded paperwork. Paperwork includes payroll, retirement contributions, organizing papers for filing, budgeting, taxes, bills (ick!) and anything that requires a call to customer service (double ick!). This is usually the very last thing on my agenda. Of all the hats I wear in the office, the finance manager role is my least favorite. But alas, the work still needs to be done and as much as I may dread it or procrastinate, typically it’s just faster if I do it instead of delegating. If we hit it big, this will likely be the first position I hire for!

So today Eva and I decided to take our second field trip to the office (she is now 2 weeks old, so it’s only natural that we get a jump start on her work ethic). We arrived, I fed her, and my invisible timer was set at 3 hours. I had not factored in my employees randomly stumbling into my office to hold, coo and nudge the baby though, so my 3 hour window was more like 3 one-hour windows as I tended to Eva between interruptions.

Interruptions aside, I was able to tick all items off my checklist, including all the dreaded paperwork, an employee review, my usual work emails and checking in with my work peeps… because I know they miss my face.

Knowing that I had a limited window of time and having a clear to-do list, I was able to blow through the day’s work in just a few hours, where during a normal work week being at the office every day all day, it may have taken me all week or more to actually get around to doing everything.

The moral of the story is:

1. Make a list

2. Set a timer (or goal)

3. Get it done

4. Go outside and enjoy the rest the day!

***

Recommended for managing your to-do list: http://tadalist.com/

A couple weeks ago I took the afternoon to enjoy the rare window of warm weather and sunshine that we were having here. I sat outside for about an hour eating cheesecake and doing nothing. Some might argue that I should have also been thinking about nothing, but achieving the “doing” nothing part is momentous enough for me, and the result was that I ended up having a really important idea for the business. After I finished my cheesecake (of course) I spent the next two days mapping out and implementing this new idea and service plan. Already it has made a significant difference in our ability to appeal to a broader range of clients and budgets.

Literally that one hour of silence and allowing myself that brief reprieve from being engaged in thought about work, kids or anything at all, gave me the clarity I needed to generate an idea that hopefully will have a lasting positive impact on the business for the next several months. I imagine this is an argument for practices like yoga and meditation, even walking which can meditative in itself. I imagine my hour in the yard is probably the closest thing to meditation I’ll get to experience for years to come until I can let someone else run my business and my children are out of the house. But I’ll take what I can get, if that’s periodic bursts of clarity and inspiration.

So, being habitually busy or productive can be great of course. Obviously as a CEO I have a go-go-go mentality, but I realize more than ever that having moments of silence can be just as important as pushing through on a project or a concept in other instances. Thinking outside the box in this case was more like being able to think outside of the hustle and bustle of the daily grind.

Spring is upon us. Don’t forget to take a moment in the gravity chair with an iced tea some afternoon and let your mind take five!

2005.

Pearse Street's First Logo Design, May 2005

As I was wrapping up the writing for my last issue at Destin Magazine, the idea of establishing Pearse Street as my first entrepreneurial endeavor took shape. I had spent the past year profiling local businesses for their features in the magazine, and in the process I could not help but feel that the potential for starting up my own business was well within reach. Thanks to the support of my husband, a military firefighter at the time, I designed our first logo after hours, and first website design came to life in March. Voila, we were in business! My first client was a local author and Hollywood actor, Thom Gossom, Jr. who I met while heading up the Emerald Coast Writers group. We ended up developing a number of websites for Gossom’s various projects, and maximized our circle of friends, cow0rkers and author connections to keep Pearse Street profitable for our first year in business.

2006.

Sean consults on a web design

I was expecting our first child and my husband was deployed in Iraq, so I spent most of the year working on small websites and took on a long-term book editing project that kept me busy through my pregnancy. Little did I realize that Jonathan was honing his S.E.O. skills in the desert and shortly after Sean’s birth, we’d be experiencing a serious growth spurt. Within a few months, MySpace design had emerged as a legitimate niche market and we were approached by Interscope Records to design a series of profiles for their Shady Records artists, launching us into the big leagues of this growing industry.

2007.

Pearse Street's first commercial location

By January 2007 we were officially Bostonites. After our move from the Florida Panhandle, I re-established our office in Lynn, Massachusetts where we continued to expand our client list and web portfolio, hired our first employees to help with admin support and design, and in October of that year, moved to our first commercial space, a 400-square-foot semi-industrial space which accommodated our staff of four. Here we took on our first social network development projects and began transitioning into larger website developments.

2008.

Ribbon Cutting with Lynn's former mayor

In true C.E.O. mom fashion, the day after Pearse Street incorporated, I welcomed my son Aedan into the world. A few weeks later, with our three-month lease expired and having effectively outgrown our first commercial space, we upgraded to a 2400-square-foot office space in the same building to enjoy some more leg room. While we still dabbled in MySpace design projects for larger companies like Marie Claire, Bigelow Tea and Remington College, we focused on expanding our staff to accommodate our new primary service: social network design and development utilizing our newly developed social network software framework.

2009.

After four years of intense growth and expansion, this was a year analyzing the results of that growth with our staff, our product and our systems. The result was systematically trimming the fat, strengthening our focus and streamlining our systems. In the process of designing and launching more than 10 advanced social network websites, we also released two new versions of our social network software and built out a solid marketing department to complement our design and development services. On New Year’s Eve, we marked the end of an era by moving out of the Lydia Pinkham Building, onto better and brighter horizons!

2010

76 Lafayette Street, Salem, MA

From our humble beginnings in my living room (then garage, then basement), our team now enjoys a beautiful space in downtown Salem. We have just released our third version of the framework with some great new social network features. We’ve also expanded our marketing department, now running under Social Focus Marketing, Inc. to offer social media design and new media marketing services to our clients. As if all that wasn’t enough, we’re also expecting our third Pearse Street baby! We’re nearly through the first quarter, and it’s already shaping up to be a great year. Stay tuned for 2015… where will the world of social media take us by then?!

We spent this weekend with our family, as we often do. Today I was again reminded of how lucky I am to be a part of my husband’s especially large and welcoming family, who I hope I will never take for granted. We spent the morning with “Mamama & Papapa,” my husband’s grandparents. Even at their advanced age, you can find moments of intimacy between them. A hug they thought we didn’t see, or the silent understanding between them as they go about their morning. This all exists between the hearing-challenged bickering of course, which I cannot help but find cute. As we left, both gave me a big hug and kiss and told me that they loved me. I know they say it not out of habit or obligation, but because they mean it.

And of course there are our parents, cousins and siblings, who since our move from Florida have become so integral to our daily lives. I’ve maintained friendships from across the globe, having moved so frequently, but having a tight-knit community and our best friends essentially in our backyard is priceless. They care about our children, our successes and supporting each other when we need it most. You know you’re in the “crew” if you have low ball glasses dedicated to you in our liquor cabinet.

Call me crazy, but this Valentine’s Day I’m actually thinking about my staff too and the relationships that I have formed with people on my team the past few years, and the relationships that they share with each other, as colleagues and also as friends. I have never been able to completely subscribe to an “it’s just business” policy when it comes to our staff. In part due to the small size of our company, it’s hard not to get to know people well and care about them beyond what they bring to your bottom line. I’m not sure what our group dynamic would feel like if I didn’t. The general “quality of working life” seems substantial when I know that people enjoy coming to the office every day, happy to be a part of the Pearse Street family and work as a team through our highs and lows together. The past few months, we’ve been able to support each other through some trying transitions, with great success and at this point I feel that our team is closer and more focused and capable than ever.

It’s probably the hormones, but I love everyone today. I’ll even give a shout out to the office kitties. Seriously though, I believe there is something to be said for following your heart when, for me, it has brought so many wonderful people into my life. My husband, my children, my best friends, my family, my Pearse peeps. I hope today you’ve had time to look around and appreciate those people in your life too.