Highrises, 4x4s, and the Wisdom Cafe

Well whoopie dang, here I am, a few days before Christmas, at the Wisdom cafe, sunlight making rainbows in my left eye corner, shining through my eyelashes from the side. It's been a wee huge (is there such a thing? Dunno, somehow it sounds right to my fingers) time since I've written in here. Why? Well shoot, life's been happening, and I've been feeling pretty driven to get the wheels turning on my consulting practice. Thanks to Terra and her revolving cast of advisors from the other side, who at this moment seem to have a business bent, plus Terra's own well seasoned advice, I've been getting many insights as to directions to go with it.

This includes contacting a web host/tech business services company based up in Chico, and offering a taster of my services to be bundled as part of new business packages. And also creating a Code of Conduct for myself, a How I Work document for clients, and a questionnaire for them to get the juices flowing and the thoughts clarifying before I meet them for the first time. This, and a spiffy new site (link here) despite my being in huge resistance/avoidance/fear about doing the site, has all happened in this past month. I'm really proud of how well the site came out, thanks to some great advice from another consultant, one of the architects behind Treehugger.com, and one of the people I connected with while doing the social media/blog campaign for Act2. And yes, I've managed to forge an alliance with that company in Chico. It's been a bit of a slow train, that alliance, but it's happening.

Twice, perhaps three times, I've reached the man behind it, when he "happened" to be free, in between clients. I had to smile, the timing's just being lined up in my favor. The Universe, it's on my side yo. This guy is also a limo driver on weekends, as well as running this company, and raising two children. In the past I might have felt lazy in comparison, but now I just see what he's doing, look at what I am doing, and know that they're both fine.

In many ways my life has been turning for the healthier. Like right now, another Terra recommendation, taking a whole day, once a week, for meandering, dreaming...and offroading, woot! Yep, it seems each week I do this (Friday is my day) I've ended up on muddy roads. Following my nose, intuition, angels on my shoulders, whatever it is, I go driving, and see where it leads. The first week I went down You Bet road. How could I not, with a name like that? So I'm going down it, beauty all around, big giant truck behind me, and I'm ably managing its curves, when JAMBAGOONGAAYiyiyiyiBumpetaBumpetarumblerumble, I'm suddenly on a dirt road.

What was once a civilized street with upscalish houses suddenly was...dirty. Muddy. Lovely. I come up to this opening in the trees, and there's a couple of guys standing there, checking the view. Bookmarked it to come back. Onward I go, slack jawed at the tire tracks going up and down the 20 foot high sides of the road. I was squealing with glee, I LOVE finding things like this, the unexpected bits, the places not commonly explored. At least by mere mortals like myself.

Fortunately our car is all wheel drive, so I'm fine. Where am I? No idea. Perfect. Continuing downdowndown it just gets more interesting. At one point, I spied a perhaps 60 foot high hillside, again with tire tracks somehow running up the entire height of it. I can just hear the phantom "YeeeeeeeeMutherfuckingHaaaaaaaa"s echoing there. I've stumbled upon where I'm guessing my neighbors across the way go. I always wondered, seeing these vehicles when in the Bay Area, and even here, where do they go? Is it all for looks? No. It's here. It's real. And it looks real fun. I found a good, deepish, mud puddle, and gunned it while going through there. Oh yes. Life is good.

And so it's gone these past several weeks, getting my exploring jones satiated, taking time to mentally meander here in the Wisdom Cafe. It's a blessing for sure.

Now if I can only find the right tool(s) to run my business. I've been using HighRise for the past month, which does a nice job with linking contacts with what I said, what I promised, with specific tasks. It has been a step forward to helping to manage the at times whirling chaos that is my brain. And yet, it's lacking in some ways that makes it not the whole enchilada. Just some stupidness, that the company's other online tools, tools of less sophistication, have. I think they do things like this on purpose, so when they do roll out changes, they get to be heros. Feh.

So onward I look, and it's been causing me (self induced) stress, getting anxious about finding the best tools for a business that I don't yet know what it's going to look like, who or if I'll be working with others. Does it matter if what I choose is platform specific? Is choosing something web based a vulnerability if the web isn't behaving? There are times, often, when I just have to chuckle, to step back, get way up high above it all, and see, this really doesn't matter in the whole scheme of things. I've managed to make it this far without the tools I seek.

And yet, there's this sense of laying foundation for what looks like, judging by the flood of strong connections and alliances I've been creating, that have just jumped in my lap, that it is really important to get all the ducks lined up, tails a-wagging, pistons all firing, and other such metaphors. 2008's going to be banner year. And so, I breath, and know, it will all happen, as it's meant to. In my search this week, I've gotten so much great advice, from both strangers and friends. Really generous. I'm so lucky. Hopefully I'll see the Daylite, soon. Or Copper out. Ok Paul, stop typing, time to pick Vanessa up!