What a great week!

Though a lot of new exciting things have been happening around here, like the pre-release of the Wish I Knew ebook and the Joss & Main Curator’s Collection (which is now live!), I had one of the greatest moments yesterday.

Each evening, Mr. Lively and I are in the habit of asking about each other’s day.

And for one of the first times that I can remember, I didn’t spend time reflecting on what had actually happened during the day in order answer.

I simply responded from the positive mood I was in in that moment. It was a “good day” because I was in a good place!

Though that may seem simple for some, it’s kinda a breakthrough for me. I’ve known that is the way to be, but have sometimes struggled to “get there.”

But hey, one day at a time, right?

This Memorial Day weekend we are ducking out of town and going camping in Wisconsin with our buddies.

We’ll also be bringing Franklin for the first time. We’re taking bids on whether he’ll return a white or brown pup.

Either way, we think he looks pretty dashing in his camping gear.

Thank you so much for reading and have a great Memorial Day weekend! 

I am so, so grateful for the outpouring of support for the new Wish I Knew ebook! Thank you all so much!

If I could, I’d run around and give you all hugs.

However, the bonus limited edition Just Keep Going prints sold out more quickly than I expected (less than six hours).

Because of the quick sellout, I’ve talked with Sarah Tolzmann, the print designer, and we have decided to release the print as a bonus desktop wallpaper for pre-order customers going forward.

This way all pre-order customers get a little piece of the pretty.

And of course, I couldn’t resist offering it in my favorite color combo of all time, white and gold, as well.

So if you pre-ordered, but were not among the first 50 to receive a limited edition print, you will be getting these beauties in your inbox soon.

And of course, if you have yet to pre-order, you are welcome to do so now and grab your own dose of desktop inspiration as well!

Thank you so much, guys, I’m so excited to serve you in this new way!

computer image via

Good morning!

I have been waiting for this day to come for a looong time!

I’m so excited to announce that my first ebook, Wish I Knew, is launching in just a few short weeks!

To explain it in more detail, I thought I’d do what other authors do: go on The Today Show and have Matt Lauer interview me about the book.

So that’s what I did.

Just kidding.

It turns out that the folks at The Today Show were a bit hard to reach. So I decided to be interviewed by the next best media source.

My husband.

Yep, Mr. Lively is here to interview me about the book. And I have to say, I was quite impressed by his interviewing skills.

Take a look.

This ebook, as the video (edited by Evergreen Lane Productions) shares, is a compilation of the last 50 Wish I Knew Wednesday newsletters. Only they are now edited by a real editor, formatted and designed by a great graphic designer, and sorted by topics so it can be a quick reference guide when needed.

Here’s a line up of the topics we’ll cover,

Chapter One – Setting Up Shop

Chapter Two – Going Full-Time

Chapter Three – Legalities

Chapter Four – Raising the Bar

Chapter Five – Personal Advice for Entrepreneurs

Chapter Six – Money & Sales

Chapter Seven – Project & Time Management

Chapter Eight – Branding

Chapter Nine – Marketing, Social Media, & PR

Chapter 10 – 100 Insights from 10 Creative Entrepreneurs

We also stepped it up a notch in Chapter 10 by including 10 extra interviews with 10 successful women business owners in a variety of creative fields.

In total, this adds an extra 100 insights to the book that have never been seen before.

Claudia Smith, Fig. 2 Design Studio, stationery designer

Kathryn Jackson, Protect Your Pumps, product inventor and online shop owner

Michelle Ward, When I Grow Up, life coach

Serena Faber Nelson, Pretty Fluffy, pet lifestyle blogger

Clara Artschwager, Clara Persis and Channeling Contessa, event strategist and food blogger

Kim Vargo, Yellow Brick Home, artist and online shop owner

Amanda Genther, AmandaGenther.com, business consultant

Kendi Skeen, Bloom and Kendi Everyday, boutique owner and fashion blogger

Jeanine Hays, Aphro Chic, lifestyle product designer and online shop owner

Bryn Alexandra Dunn, Bryn Alexandra Interiors, interior designer

The official launch to be the week of June 10th. But you can pre-order the book starting today.

And for the first 50 people that do pre-order we have a little something extra…

[Update: as of 4:51p cst the free prints are all sold out.]

This free 5″x7″ coral print (unframed) is designed by one of my favorite graphic designers, Sarah Tolzmann of Note to Self.

I hope that this little extra gift can live on 50 gallery walls and inspiration boards across the world – inspiring entrepreneurs to just keep going, even when things aren’t easy.

If you pre-order and are among the first fifty to order you will receive an email within 1-3 business days letting you know that the print is on its way via USPS First Class. (So at checkout, please be sure that your address is correct.)

[Update: as of 4:51p cst the free prints are all sold out.]

If you’d like to see more info about the Wish I Knew ebook, please hop over here.

And of course, you can pre-order below as well!

Thank you so much for your support – I’m so excited to serve you in this new way!

Though I reminded Mr. Lively on several occasions before we started reading, that I am fluent in all 5 love languages and therefore require every love language in very high and equal levels… this has proven to be false.

Even once I acquiesced that I might not be every language, my ego secretly hoped that my language would be gifts.

Because who wouldn’t want to read a book that tells your husband to give you more gifts?!

However, I have now come to recognize my true love language is quality time.

Which totally makes sense.

I am pretty adamant that we spend a lot (read: insane amounts) of time together.

On the other hand, Mr. Lively’s love language is words of affirmation.

Which was surprisingly not my own language. As long as I hear “I love you” at least seven times a day, I’m set. But Mr. Lively likes to hear more than just sweet nothings. He likes to be given more varied positive feedback on a consistent basis.

And when it comes to Franklin, we are quite honestly torn.

I am pretty sure his dialect is gifts treats.

You should see this dog when he has a frozen peanut butter Kong. 

Whereas Mr. Lively thinks that his pup language is words of affirmation, like himself.

For reference, this was mentioned in a conversation about Franklin’s weight and whether he had one too many of the aforementioned frozen peanut butter Kongs.

Mr. Lively insisted that I was hurting the pup’s feelings by being so critical and insensitive. He surmised that because I was ignoring Franklin’s pup language, Franklin preferred him more than me.

But in all seriousness, I think the book can be really enlightening not just to learn about your partner, but also to understand what you really want most out of a relationship.

For me, it’s not about getting little surprises, like I expected. It is about spending a Sunday afternoon walking around Evanston with my hubba and my puppa.

Since moving to the new apartment, I have grown bored of the floral painting I made for my old bedroom, which is now housed in our guest room.

Though it looked great in my last apartment (bel0w), it felt a bit too literal in its new home.

taken by

So I did what I did before with the flower painting, I decided to paint over it.

Only this time I wanted to test out a new style: abstract.

I’ve been a longtime fan of Jen Ramo’s work, and have been adoring Danielle’s piece in her apartment for several months.

But since I don’t have the budget for a piece like that for my guest room, I decided to try my own take on abstract in a cheerful palette.

… However, the first attempt was unsuccessful.

While I was going for, “cheerful abstract,” Mr. Lively aptly coined this piece, “Clown Vomit.”

Though the name stung a bit, I knew he had a point.

So this weekend I attempted to resurrect the piece and make it slightly less… vomit-like.

This was the end result.

As you can imagine, I was quite keen to hear what Mr. Lively’s art critique would be this time.

He first assessed that this new version looked like “Bird Footprints on Clown Vomit.”

Again, not good.

But then he took another look, and felt there could be an alternative title; “Abstract Tulip Fields.”

Much better. 

So that’s what I’m sticking with.

“Abstract Tulip Fields.”

Though it might not be everyone’s cup of tea – and I know that I’m meant to keep my day job - I kinda like it.

It makes me happy and it feels right at home in the guest room.

Which is really what it’s all about.

Throughout our lives we encounter difficult situations.

In order to survive those challenging times, we often create a defense mechanism to help us cope, thrive, or survive – depending on the intensity of the circumstances.

If our siblings got into a lot of trouble growing up, we might have decided to “do everything on our own” and be extra independent, so that we didn’t become an extra burden to our parents.

If a relationship that grew organically over time didn’t lead to a lifelong commitment, we might be very selective and focused on the long-term potential with our next partner.

These actions are all stem from a good source.

They are seeds of truth that do help us go through challenging situations.

However, over time, our lives change.

We grow. We evolve. And we often move past the initial seed-born circumstance.

Yet quite often, we take those seeds with us to the next chapter of our lives as well.

Now that the seed and its scripting is deeply ingrained in our psyche, it becomes an automatic response.

When applied over and over again in new situations, the seed that once served our best interests, begins to form a hard shell that blocks us from connecting with others.

We might have trouble receiving help or support from others, even when we need it most. Or we might be overly pushy a new relationship.

Our hard exterior stops us from growing, or even healing those initial wounds.

I believe that the seeds in our lives which help us through difficult times, are later meant to help us receive the love we were once denied. 

Rather than harden into a shell that blocks love out, I believe the seed is meant to blossom.

This is what allows us to grow and evolve as people. To become our fullest potential. To heal the cracks that come from living in an imperfect world.

The challenge is to recognize when a seed is being used as a hard shell, and when it is meant to become a flower.

This is nothing new.

I’ve actually found myself in this position many, many times before.

Two of my greatest strengths: ideation and activation, are constantly cooking up new ideas and then putting them into action asquicklyashumanlypossible.

It’s how I’ve rolled my entire career.

However, each time I find myself in this position, I usually have a little internal ego crisis about the situation.

I get super stressed out juggling everything and trying not to let my career take over my entire life. Eventually, after a season of self-doubt, I finally get to a point where I surrender and let some things go.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the back of my mind my ego whispered, “You can’t keep continuing every project you’ve made for years on end, so you must seem kinda seem flaky.” 

But I’ve now come to a peaceful realization: bushes are meant to be pruned. 

In order to live my life with intention and design my business in a way that I love, I will constantly be coming up with new ideas and launching them.

That is just who I am.

For me to continue to become the fullest version of myself also means that I need to allow myself to evolve and prune my career as I go. 

I’m all for trying new things. But in order for me to do so – without going crazy – I’m going to need to reign in other aspects that aren’t serving me anymore. 

Because I happen to be a pretty constant “new idea” person, this may mean that I will need to prune my business more frequently than other business owners.

That doesn’t mean that something is wrong with me.

It doesn’t make me flaky.

It just means that I happen to evolve and reinvent my career quicker than some.

I don’t need to continue stagnant projects that no longer feel exciting and spirit-led, just so that I won’t disappoint some people or because I want to “keep pace” with other business owners out there.

Heck, if I lived that way I never would have closed Jess LC in the first place.

I’d just keep launching product collections on top of a million other With Intention projects and go insane.

To keep doing those projects that pump me up and stay sane, I gotta be able to have a natural and healthy pruning process on a regular basis.

Like Joyce Meyer says, “You’re pruned if you do, you’re pruned if you don’t.” 

I might as well prune with joy.

{Heads up! Tonight we have a Chicago Business in the City meet-up! If you are in the Windy City and have a business (or biz idea) I hope you join us!}

For this month’s Living Well column on The Everygirl, I’ve shared ways to say yes to the unknown.

From the moment that I launched my business full-time out of college over five years ago, to this week’s video shoot, I’ve learned certain ways to overcome the ego/fearful thoughts we have about “good scary” things we face everyday.

Hop on over to see suggestions and insights you can use in your own journey.

Elsewhere on the web, I’m honored to share that Blogher has syndicated my post about Online Myopia.

Pinch me.

This has been one of the most fun and unique undertakings of my career.

Though I had a healthy dose of nervous energy the night before, I am thankful that things went well. Our team had fun and did a great job working together for an excellent end result.

While I was on set, my amazingly awesome assistant, Caitlin, tweeted photos and sneak peeks from behind the scenes.

Though I won’t go into too much detail since we are still working and taping today and tomorrow, I can say that is for Business with Intention and it will debut later this spring/summer.

Now, it’s time for me to get back to work!

I haven’t been sharing much on the intentional style or exfoliating front lately because there hasn’t been too much to share that has been super exciting.

However, I have a new favorite bag that has quickly stolen my heart – and is fulfilling a few of my intentions (to purchase high quality items when possible, and give back in meaningful ways) at the same time.

I first came across Sseko in a Glitter Guide feature around the holidays.

I quickly became enamored not only with the tote design, but also with the social mission of the company (Ugandan women hand-make these bags to help pay for their college education).

In February, after my January shopping hiatus, I purchased my own tote and anxiously awaited it’s arrival. Because the high holiday demand had wiped their inventory clean, it just arrived a week ago.

But boy was it worth the wait.

Since I was a bag designer myself in a past life, I have high expectations for quality and leather.

And this Sseko tote is no joke. It’s reasonably priced - especially compared to other large leather totes from high end designers – and has great interior pockets for all my items, including a sleeve for a 15″ laptop.

And the best part? It happens to have interchangeable details. So when I tire of my gold herringbone beads, I can swap them out for a pretty bow (among other options).

Overall, it just feels nice to know that, like Toms, doing good can look good.

Though I couldn’t get a great photo with the DSLR, she also looks pretty snazzy on our new “Lively” hook as well.

{No compensation here. This is my own personal review because I love this bag so freaking much.}

I believe that the intentions we have for our lives are largely unchanging.

They form a “constitution” of sorts about what we believe and want for our lives. Though they may certainly evolve over time, like our country’s constitution, it is not often that we choose to amend them.

A well formed intention is created from a place of deep consideration for our deepest hopes, values, and life vision. It is something that we can re-commit ourselves to every morning.

Even if we may have faltered the day before.

It allows for changes in circumstance, and does not include metrics or “goals.”

An intention that will stand the test of time allows our life situation to change, yet remain steadfast.

It is a compass for navigating new waters.

With intentions in our hearts, we are then able to design our actions and habits to support these intentions in a variety of ways. 

Though my intention to listen to my gut, or intuition, when it comes to my physical well-being remains constant, how I design my life around this intention changes all the time.

I’ve fired my ego from controlling my eating, I’ve eaten one banana a week, I’ve ran every other day to help ease the discomfort of an incorrect prescription, and right now I’ve returned back to doing yoga once a week.

I’m curious to see how I evolve with this intention in mind in the future as well.

How I fulfill this intention when I’m an expecting mother may be different than how I do it now, or even after I have children.

I used to think that once I created a habit to support my intention, I had to keep doing it for a really long time.

If I started going to yoga, I wanted to keep going for years. If I ate one banana a week for a little while, I wanted to keep doing it for the foreseeable future.

Now, however, I’ve learned to lessen that grip on the habits and let them flow more naturally.

My habits don’t need to remain locked in place forever. They can grow and change as long as they are still serving the greater plan – the overall intention – for that area of my life.

As long as a habit is fueling my well-being and ultimate intention, I can keep going in that direction as long as I like. And if I later feel pulled in a new direction with a different habit, that’s fine, too.

I don’t need to be so concerned with the habits being consistent as I do about being focused on the intention that I bring to that moment.

In this season I might be into yoga, and next season I might be into running half marathons.

What I “do” isn’t as important as how I come to that moment to fulfill my guiding intention.

There is much to be said for dedication and commitment to habits.

But if we find ourselves stuck in tradition for the sake of familiarity and comfort, the intention can become lost and our desires may dim.

We may find ourselves simply floating through life, rather than staying alert to our guiding intentions or intuition. Our souls may be craving something new and different, but we may resist change in order to maintain the status quo.

A well formed intention won’t keep us stuck. It will help us change and grow into our full potential. 

And as a quick recap, I’ll quickly share that I started the year off by tracking the number of people that I served each day, rather than income as an indicator of success. Though the tracking system was inevitably flawed and inaccurate, it helped me shift my focus to service, rather than revenue.

I had a gut feeling that by focusing on service, not cash flow, abundance would naturally follow. I had a hunch that the income I need to earn for my portion of family contribution – plus more – would come naturally as a result of a service focus (much like Mastin did in the second video here).

And for a few months, my attention to serving really transformed my life.

It felt wonderful to come from a place of “How can I serve today?” rather than, “How can I grow my business by 30% this year?”

But over time, I started to get so caught up in the act of helping “more” people that I started to place my own intrinsic worth on the service tracking numbers.

I became more and more desperate to help everyone and anyone in any way that I could, often at the expense of my own wellbeing.

Which is a recipe for failure. You gotta put that proverbial airplane air mask on yourself before you help others.

I ended up taking some time off from the online world to reconnect with myself internally.

While this break did help me quite a bit, I eventually realized this frenzied focus on “doing” good works was not much better than my previous focus on what I wanted to “have.”

So, with some reservations, I resigned myself to the fact that I simply needed to focus on how I came to each situation. As long as I could “be” in each moment with a heart to help people, that is enough.

Though this is often seen as one of the highest spiritual states to achieve – a focus on simply “being” – I didn’t personally feel quite there yet.

For a few recent weeks I’ve felt a little bit like a mouse who ran around a maze hitting dead end (“having” what I want will lead to peace and joy) after dead end (“doing” what I can to help other will lead to peace and joy).

I finally felt like a little furry creature tired of running around the maze. So I stopped and sat with my chin propped in my hand.

Surrendering.

While the perfectionist part of me in the past would have loved to try to “strive” to get to that highest level of success, to “be,” as soon as possible; the wiser, more relaxed part of me knows that I’m not completely there just yet.

In the meantime, I talked with my “massage therapist” turned actual “therapist.” I shared how this whole year has led me to so many new lessons and insights, but ultimately, the burn out from the service metrics left me feeling kinda numb to helping others.

Part of me was scared that if I derived some sort of satisfaction from it, it could be a slippery slope back to validating my worth based on my actions.

So though I continued helping people everyday, I didn’t truly feel any sense of self-worth hinging on it (which is a good thing) nor a positive satisfaction from helping others (not so great).

I was just kinda drifting.

In our session yesterday, she helped me find a new way to look at serving that helped immensely.

Spiritually, I believe that everyone is connected to one another. That we are all just parts or pieces of the same Big Thing (the Universe, Love, God, etc.).

With this connection to the universal in mind, helping one person is the same as helping Everyone. Helping 12 people is the same as helping Everyone. Helping two million people is the same as helping Everyone.

Therefore, helping one person – or two million – is the same as helping Everyone.

Scale, or service tracking, becomes largely irrelevant with this truth is understood.

One person is not better than another for helping a larger number of people.

They are both ultimately doing the same thing. They are helping Everyone.

Which means that little ego part of me that still likes to value scale and metrics to indicate growth and “goodness” is missing the deeper truth.

Seeing the world in this new light allows me to now appreciate serving, without striving for an ever-growing mountain of good deeds.

If this approach leads to a greater impact and helping more people, wonderful. If it keeps me at a similar level to where I am now, wonderful.

It’s not necessarily up to me to reach for a larger circle of influence. That may come or it may not naturally out of this new state of being.

Most importantly, I’ll only be able to find peace and joy when I divorce my own self-worth from that equation and focus on my intention and acceptance in each moment as it comes.

Do I still rely on this new state to provide the income needed for my family to meet it’s financial obligations?

Yes.

Do I still want to go out in the world and “do” good things?

Yes.

Can I go about helping others and receiving abundance without validating my own self-worth based on those actions?

Yes.

Today I want to share a few favorite videos as a new take on the term “power hour” (far from traditional college pre-game game).

This power hour consists of inspiring videos that would take roughly sixty minutes to watch (I think the actual total is about 50-ish minutes).

The first video is a favorite that really resonated with me several months ago. In fact, I became familiar with the term “shiny penny” from Mastin’s insights with Marie.

This next one (shared by Laura) is a new classic , particularly in the career and small business realm.

And last but not least, this short clip sent to me by Mr. Lively makes a great point about small business.

Enjoy!

As long as I’ve known Mr. Lively, I have known that he dreams of having a garden.

His mom is a prolific gardener, and while living as a bachelor before moving to Chicago, Mr. Lively had his own vegetable garden as well.

And though we one day hope to have a home with yard or roof deck for our own vegetable garden, for now we are making the most of our current patio.

As you might recall from our home tour, the patio looked like this during the fall.

photo by

Very cute, but lacking plants.

But after a little work this weekend, it now looks like this.

Same chair, rug, and vintage cooler, but now with a flower box full of color and a pup looking for his next treat.

On the left side of the flower box, we also have a new little friend.

Gus, the Garden Gnome, hails from the land of Target and now sports a gold-painted hat (of course).

In addition to the flower box in the center, we have a box filled with basil and cilantro, our favorite herbs, on the left side of the patio.

We also added a big pot filled with all the shade loving flowers we could find, as another “garden” element.

Because Franklin is fond of eating everything, we currently have it resting on a chair, out of the pup’s reach, until we can find the perfect perch.

While buying flowers for the pot, we overestimated how many plants we would need.

So the remaining plants made their way into a few empty vessels on the patio dining table.

Here’s a wide shot to give you the full effect.

Overall, we are really happy with how it all came together.

Though the space is rather small (5′x12′), it has everything we need for dinners and drinks outside during the warmer months to come.

I dedicated my career to service this January, and I’ve been focused on making that the highest priority and indicator of true success.

To help myself break the “money” focused measurements and goals, I created my own little service-based tracking system.

Rather than track dollars and cents as an indication of how healthy my business was, I tracked the number of times people told me that I had helped them.

Though I knew that this metric was far from an accurate picture of how much service I was really providing, it helped me break the focus on cashflow as a guide for my business decisions.

I believed deep down, that by focusing on helping people one-on-one, on the blog, and at live events, abundance would be a natural byproduct.

However, service tracking was really just another “shiny penny.”

Perhaps a seemingly more enlightened penny? Maybe.

But as I’ve discovered over the past five months, it’s not any more satisfying when used in the wrong way.

You see, I read a passage in Power vs. Force that has stuck with me:

The ladder of success seems to have three main steps: 

(1) Initially, it’s what one “has” that counts – that is, status depends upon visible signs of material wealth.

(2) As one progresses, status is afforded by what one “does,” rather than what one has – at this level on the ladder, one’s position and activities bring significant social status, but the attraction of social roles loses glamour as one achieves mastery and matures, for it’s what one has accomplished that is important.

(3) And finally, one is concerned only with what one has “become” as a result of life’s experiences – such people have a charismatic “presence” that is the outer manifestation of the grace of their inner power.

For me, last year was a year I got a lot of the “has” parts  in level one. In doing so, I realized that it truly does not mean that happiness and peace abound. So this year I decided to move to level two. I aligned my values with the level that I’m able to contribute.

At first, it was amazing. I found that living from a place of service is deeply satisfying and leads to amazing opportunities and sustained periods of true joy.

But the fact that I remained determined to track the service I was providing started to take it’s toll.

The downside of tracking, anything really, is that it can easily lead to an outward focus on “doing,” rather than the third success level: being.

Regardless of how many people I helped, as I continued to get some element of satisfaction from the number of people that I served, I remained unsatisfied.

I was putting my sense of self-worth on the amount of service I provided.

This became clear to me as I had my biggest “service” week ever, yet I found myself miserable.

My focus went from the selfish desires of level one, to outward service in level two. And in the process I lost my sense of intrinsic worth.

Online myopia crept in.

I always knew that my service tracking was simply a tool to help me break the satisfactions of level one success. But it was not the true answer.

Heck, Gandhi was never going around worrying about tracking how many people he helped each week. He simply lived his message.

So for the past month, I’ve stopped tracking my service. I’ve stopped tracking my income as an indicator of success.

I’m just kinda “floating by” with the intention to serve and listen to my gut.

Though I’d like to say that edging closer towards that level three has felt ammmmmazinggggg (said in Oprah’s intro voice), I’m not sure I can say that honestly.

Sure, it’s been nice to break the cycles of the last two levels. And I’m probably still in the level two “doing” – but without the focus on metrics.

The scary thing about living without metrics, is that there is less for my ego to latch onto as a means to validate my worth and growth as a person or a business owner.

Our society places so much emphasis on tracking and measurable progress that I’m now kinda at a loss.

Which, though uncomfortable, is really a blessing. 

This is the deepest lesson to learn. I am not “what I have,” nor “what I do.”

Though I may have paid a lot of lip service to that truism in the past, now I’m staring at it face to face.

I’m learning to just be.

I loved seeing what I’ve been saying for years, “just keep going,” shared in such an eloquent way.

This idea of setting out to do something unknown and “figuring it out as you go along” is really something that all successful people do. It’s impossible, in fact, to really innovate in any other way.

In my own journey, I’ve found that as long as I’m willing to do what it takes, I find people who can help me along the way.

PS – As requested by Angela (an awesome JL reader), I have now made a Pin board and a Quotable category on the blog so you can see all the quotes in either place. 

download full-size wallpaper here

Happy May! I don’t know about you, but April was a doozy for me. I’m looking forward to new things that May will bring.

How timely is this month’s quote, considering yesterday’s post about growth? Totally unplanned!

Wallpaper designed by Joy Laforme.

For a long while, my personal life was going great, but I was resistant towards my purpose in my career (helping people find their purpose).

I had the hardest time giving myself the permission to own my gift. Which is supremely amusing considering the fact that I was perpetually giving my business clients the permission to accept and celebrate their own purposes in their businesses.

For some reason I could not do the same for myself.

Then finally, after weeks of wrestling with every flawed egoic reason that my brain could think of to avoid honoring this gift, I simply surrendered. I stopped fighting my purpose, wrote my manifesto of my beliefs about purpose in the small business world, and shifted my services to better support and communicate my perspective on purpose-based business.

The results have been astounding.

When I was resistant towards owning my purpose, while knowing deep down it was there, business slowed considerably. Once I stopped hiding it and simply put it out there, clients and opportunities started appearing at a higher pace than ever before.

It feels effortless. I get to be “me” and do what comes naturally.

For a week or two, I felt a strong sense of peace about life and business.

However, a week and a half ago, a personal matter came to light which has turned parts of my personal life upside down.

Isn’t it funny how one thing can cause friction and the moment the friction is removed, another area of our life can change on a dime?

Thankfully, this matter is not health related, and I have a strong hope that this situation, though difficult, will turn out for the best.

Because this matter involves more than just myself, I cannot share the details. But I hope one day to be able to discuss this more openly in hopes that it may encourage others in similar situations.

For now, I just know that I’m experiencing one heck of a growth spurt. 

Though sometimes I feel like crying out, “when will I ever be done growing?” I realize that if I was truly “done,” I’d stay where I am.

If I was done growing before I owned my purpose in business, I’d stay stuck helping people, but never truly sharing my real gift.

If I was doing growing before this personal matter came to light, I’d feel “happy” day-to-day, without having the chance to dramatically deepen a meaningful relationship.

So though these challenges have been difficult to process while going about my daily life and working on the upcoming projects that I’m excited to share, life is better this way.

Like many intentional choices, it is not “easy,” but it is worth it.

We extended the style established on the new With Intention website here on the blog.

Though we’ve decided it doesn’t feel quite as “designer-y” as the last blog look, this is first and foremost a text-driven site. And this larger format makes reading much easier.

But quite frankly, Franklin remains unimpressed. He demands to be taken on a walk around the city.

Which is exactly what we plan to do next.

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During this kinda/sorta chaotic week, I haven’t had a chance to share some very exciting news: I’ve been profiled in Design*Sponge’s Biz Ladies series!

I deeply respect the Biz Ladies series and I recommended it to many of my business clients. It is a great resource for free, high quality business advice.

To find myself among the women and men profiled here feels pretty surreal.

I’m deeply grateful that I got to share the journey I’ve been on over the past fourteen years of entrepreneurship. As usual, I kept it real and shared the high and low points of the journey and have some practical advice for those starting out.

Thank you Grace and Stephanie for the chance to share my story!

Contemplating major behavioral change or seeking the next steps in some area of your life?

This single question is remarkably insightful and practical.

This week I have been hustling with my regular workload while preparing for the San Francisco Life and Business with Intention workshops this weekend.

Since today is the last day I have to get everything settled until next Tuesday, I have quite a lot to jam into the few hours before and after my client sessions this afternoon.

Which means I’m taking Mr. Job’s advice and focusing on the top priorities and keeping things simple.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how working from home has led to a almost constant desire to eat out.

And though there were many amazing suggestions proposed to help me find eating at home more appealing, the winning response goes to Cass Comerford for suggesting Blue Apron.

At first, I thought Cass was suggesting we get a cookbook, which I promptly dismissed. But a random hunch had me google to find out if it was indeed a cookbook or something else more enticing.

It turned out to be a meal service that sends ingredients and directions for three meals a week to your door. Kinda like PeaPod (a grocery delivery service), for those that live in the city, but with only the items needed in the exact proportions for your weekly meals, designed by a chef.

That proposition sounded way more fun than a regular cookbook.

Then, Ann Marie chimed in and linked to a Blue Apron Gilt City deal which gave the first week of meals for just $35. A steal at $6 per meal.

When I showed the site to Mr. Lively, our resident cook, and he got excited as well.

We got the Gilt deal and since then have been cooking Blue Apron dinners for the past three weeks.

It’s been amazing. It’s kinda like eating out (my favorite), only you eat in and you have the Blue Apron chef select the menu.

Since Mr. Lively enjoys cooking, he’s loving this method because it takes a lot of the hassle we don’t enjoy (picking the recipes and grocery shopping for a specific special/rare ingredients each week) and leaves him to do what he likes: cooking.

And I have to say, our meals were generally uninspired before. They did not make me excited to eat at home.

But now Mr. Lively’s cooking has hit a whole new level with the prep work done by Blue Apron. I actually look forward to what we are having for dinner.

In fact, here’s what we’ve been eating lately…

Steak Fajitas with Guacamole

Oregano Chicken Thighs with Squash Ribbons and Quinoa

Turkey Burger Sliders with Arugula Salad

Chickpea and Cucumber Salad

Cod with Caponata and Fergola Sarda

Blood Orange Roasted Salmon

They also have a vegetarian meal service and you can get either the meat or veggie meals in quantities for two people per meal or four people per meal.

Each week we receive our box of ingredients packed in ice to preserve freshness and the meals are substantial enough that I often have leftovers for the next day.

Inside the box we also find our “menu” and cooking instructions.

Mr. Lively has really liked they photo and text instructions. It is almost like taking cooking lessons at home.

We are saving these cards in a folder to one day turn into our own pre-tested and approved cookbook. I find that I’m way more likely to actually return to an older Blue Apron recipe that I tried and loved than look through cookbooks for new ideas. (As you can tell, I’m still far from being a chef or cook myself.)

As for the cost? It’s $60 per week or about $10 per meal. Though this may be more than we could spend if we went grocery shopping for different meals each week, it is much less than going out every night – which was my previous desire.

Grocery shopping has become insanely simple, too. We just make sure we grab what we need for breakfasts and lunches each week. The main headache (What are we making for dinner? What do we need to buy?) is removed.

Though we may not stay on the service for years to come, we are certainly excited right now to enjoy the convenience and personal cookbook we are building.

In summary, those who are more frugal, have dietary restrictions, or love selecting recipes, may not enjoy Blue Apron.

But those, like Mr. Lively and I, who don’t have much time or interest in picking the meals but like to cook, may love the service.

To me, it brings a who new excitement to the phrase, “So what’s for dinner?”

This post is not sponsored by Blue Apron in any way. I just want to share my intentional eat-at-home journey with you.

In many ways, this post on The Daily Love by Chela Davison reflects things that I know to be true yet struggle to internalize completely.

We’re all a work in progress, right?

I recommend reading it, especially to all those Type-A’s out there, like me.

Fruits, especially during the winter months, aren’t extremely appetizing to me.

So for several months, I did my best to buy more fruits in order to increase my intake.

Specifically, I would buy two or three beautiful bananas.

I’d have visions of myself eating these beautiful bananas at home over the course of the following week (with flowing hair and an intentional gleam in my eye, of course).

But in reality, I’d watch those beautiful bananas day by day go from bright to brown.

If they were lucky enough to avoid the trash the following week, they became chocolate chip banana bread.

Not exactly the healthful habit I had in mind when I bought them.

Recently however, I decided to switch things up. Instead of buying multiple bananas each trip, I’ve begun buying a single banana. 

And you know what? I’ve actually started to eat bananas once a week!

I went from buying 2-3 and eating none, to buying and eating exactly one.

For some reason it is far easier to motivate myself to eat the single banana sitting on the counter than eat a single banana when there are three available.

Watching my own behavior change as I adjusted the number of bananas I bought reminds me of a tip I gleaned from one of Ramit’s ebooks (I can’t remember exactly which one).

In the ebook, one of the habit forming strategies shared had to do with flossing more often. Instead of committing to flossing every tooth every day, the person committed to flossing exactly one tooth a day.

Paring back the intention to the simplest level made the idea of flossing regularly attainable and habit-forming. 

Then, when flossing that one single tooth, it was very easy for the author to continue flossing the rest of his teeth. Which ultimately resulted in a much higher floss rate overall.

Perhaps the unattained intentions we seek need to be pared back a bit to gain traction. Though it’s great to be ambitious about our goals, we may sometimes overshoot our current ability (or willingness) and miss the mark altogether.

Eating 0% of three bananas is not better than eating 100% of 1 banana – even though the goal was more ambitious.

And who knows, once I get in the habit of eating one banana weekly, I might be ready to bump it up to two bananas per week… or maybe a banana and an orange.

Which goes to show that less can mean more when it comes to making sustainable improvements in our lives.

You might have noticed that there have been some blog updates on the sidebar recently. Among the tweaks, I’ve decided to take sidebar sponsors down from the site.

This has been an intentional decision made a few months ago. As sponsor ads have expired, I have intentionally turned away future sponsors with the understanding that I would be removing sidebar sponsorships completely.

Currently, for my content and readers, I no longer feel that sidebar ads are the right fit.

This is partly due to the declining value of sidebars in blogging as a whole (as shared at Alt Summit by multiple panelists) and the evolution of my own blog and business.

Though sidebar revenue was always a nice bonus, it was never what “paid the bills” throughout the years. So though this decision is happening now, it is not drastically affecting my business in any major way.

And though I may eventually do collaborations with other companies or small businesses in the future, they will be more intentionally content driven –  rather than sidebar focused.

I have deeply appreciated the support of my sponsors over the years and I am proud to know that many have had wonderful business connections and clients come from appearing on the blog.

You might be wondering, “What does it feel like to go sidebar sponsor free?”

It’s actually been a pleasant surprise. Though I never felt any extreme pressure to “perform” when I had sponsors in the past, the site and content now feels a bit more intimate somehow.

It’s just me, writing to you.

Just like before, but… quieter somehow. Simpler.

If for some reason I need to take a few days off of blogging, I feel a lightness about that decision.

Statistics feel more irrelevant now that traffic isn’t a guiding factor for sponsor rates.

And my final hope, like I’ve found lately with my WIKW newsletters, is that I’ll feel more comfortable being the full “me” in this space.

Sometimes I have the subtle feeling that I am holding back (a little) from saying all that I think and feel about a subject if I fear it might be somehow alienating to some people.

This softening of my opinions on some topics isn’t doing you any real justice or true service, even though it might be more palatable overall. And though this has nothing to do with sidebar sponsors specifically, I think it speaks to my feeling that we are now in a more intimate space.

My home.

I’m not planning on being controversial for the sake of it – I just want to push the boundaries of my own bravery. To be the feistier, goofier, and slightly more opinionated version of myself.

The way I am in real life.

It has been a while since I’ve shared much on the design front regarding my client projects and my own home. So today I’d like to give a few updates and sneak peeks!

First, I’d like to give an update on the hotel project branding and design project: we are still awaiting city permits to begin construction on the second half of the hotel that will include the lobby.

While we are waiting to break ground, we are in one of the final rounds of logo designs. They are looking great and I cannot wait to share the new look with you once it’s complete!

I’m also helping residential clients with their in-between home as their new house is built. We’ve been selecting nursery items for their soon-to-be baby boy and their guest room.

On the home front we’ve introduced a new pattern in the living room…

Loving it compared to the (now deceased) patterned rug.

Though the old rug was great, it had seen much prettier days after years of wear and tear. Franklin chewed a hole in it a few weeks back as well. So there was that.

We also scored a new piece off – wait for it – Craigslist.

He has great lines and the upholstery is good enough to keep as-is until we have the funds to refinish him.

He’s quickly become my reading nook of choice.

(The chair is now where the black lamp is in this photo.)

Pinterest has me thinking one going two different ways with the makeover.

Bold and punchy:

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Neutral with coral pillows:

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Or if Mr. Lively has his way, navy and velvet:

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Any favorites?

photo 2 and 5 by

I think today is a good day to spend a little time remembering the wise words of two iconic ladies who are no longer with us.

Three years ago I wrote a simple little post which I believe still holds true for business owners and bloggers (and anyone else struggling to start something new). 

Over the past few months I have been getting more emails from women writing me about advice for their businesses or blogs. In talking with many of the women, I am noticing a pattern: people want to make things more complicated than they are. I am all for due diligence and research, please don’t get me wrong. I think that is an important part of being successful. But ultimately, I think the research and constant “what if-ing” will halt all progress which leads to the launch of the actual business.

Please don’t let your dream or purpose lie dormant in your heart (or in a business proposal binder) because of any uncertainty – all entrepreneurship will involve uncertainty. The key is to just begin, and then keep going. To cross the start line and then start tripping, then start falling, and after each tumble you get up and continue onward.

Another obstacle lurking before the start line to avoid is the “everyone else has it figured out” trap. When you look around at your competitors or even businesses that inspire you, please do not assume they all launched with perfect clarity, perfect graphics, and perfect products. They stumbled and fell many, many times on their way to success. And the key is that they learned and grew after each failure and honed their craft to the beauty you see today.

Take my {now previous} business for example, though I’m pretty darn proud of what it has become, I make no bones about where it began: with ugly ankle bracelets.

Not exactly a threat to Tiffany & Co.

But at 15-years-old, I didn’t let that stop me. Some women bought them from me at a pool. And the first thought in my head was, “how can I sell more ankle bracelets?” I didn’t think about creating the perfect company, I thought about how to improve from where I began. I started with selling ankle bracelets made from seed beads. Then I taught myself to wire wrap. Then I bought crystals. Then I built a website. It was all done one step at a time. It’s that simple.

It’s always that simple.

Don’t let your ego talk you into thinking you need to be anything other than incrementally better than where you are now. This is not a race for anyone but yourself. As long as you are getting faster and moving forward, you are winning. And winning beats the heck out of spraining your ankle before the race.

Little known fact about me: this quote by Mr. Thoreau was my senior high school quote in the yearbook.

Enjoy!