Certainly, my three children may have altered my career from a traditional corporate trajectory, but I think the necessity of flexibility resulted in an even better, more innovative career.

And because I had three children in five year — and I loved what I do — I created a company called High Tech Connect. Over the past 14 years, my business has benefited hundreds of clients and consultants, connecting people who otherwise would not have found each other, generating millions of dollars in business.

Will three (or more) kids kill a career? Only if you think it will. And if you think you can, you can create an even better, more rewarding and prosperous career.

Then the client calls stopped. Business screeched to a trickle, coincidentally right before the Big Move. Holy crap. Sleepless nights and anguished days dragged on with one nagging question: “What if I just made the hugest mistake?” Of course, new business is coming in again, and we’re thriving in an environment that will generate even more success. Still, even after 14 years as a profitable, successful business owner, it’s still a challenge to push past my fear of failure.

Sara Blakley was selling fax machines until she decided to cut the feet off her pantyhose. She invented Spanx. Of course, she didn’t exactly ride a rocket to success and fame and fortune.  It was two long years from the time she grabbed those scissors in 1998 to founding Spanx and then to today with 105 employees and a presence in 10,000 retail locations.

“When I cut the feet out of my pantyhose that one time, I saw it as my sign. I had been visualizing being self employed prior to this happening. It was my mental preparation meeting the opportunity in that moment.”

For me, living and working in Silicon Valley is the equivalent of getting an MBA in entrepreneurial chutzpah and prepared me for my own “ah-ha” moment.  After working on both sides of the freelance world, I knew lots of people looking for senior marcom professionals to work on long and short-term projects and I knew many more people who were a perfect fit for those projects.  I realized I could monetize my address book if I was willing to invest my own reputation and hard work.

But what if you move to a nice new building and nobody ever calls you again?

Sara says,

My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn’t have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don’t be afraid to fail.

I didn’t have the early mental training like Sara, so I find strength in her words and encourage you to read the interview, prepare yourself to be a wildly successful person and seize the opportunity when it comes by.

SmartMoney (a Dow Jones publication) recently published a great story, Ten Things Your Boss Won’t Tell You. Here’s a doozy:

4. “Your kid? Your problem.”

By now it’s common knowledge that women earn less than men – about 81 cents for every dollar. Having a kid hurts women’s earning potential even further. The so-called “mommy penalty” may manifest in many ways: A mother may get passed over for a promotion because the boss thinks she takes off too much time to care for her kids or that she’s more concerned about the family than her career. A mom may get overlooked for high-profile projects because the boss fears she won’t devote enough time and energy.

Those are hard slights to quantify. Not so for the penalty faced by women who take time off to raise a child – even for a period as short as 18 months. Women with M.B.A.s who left the workforce for a year and a half to raise children make 41% less than men with the same degree; female Ph.D.’s make a third less; lawyers, 29% less, and doctors, 16%, according to a 2010 study by Harvard economics professors Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz. “Business occupations place heavy penalties on employees who deviate from the norm,” Goldin and Katz write in the study.

I’m not saying this is fair. I am saying this does exist and goes unspoken in many environment and can work against you.

Please take the time to read all 10 and think about what your boss is — and isn’t — telling you.  –And let me know what you think.

Earlier this year, he published an article by Celine Roque on how you can become more productive, or, as she defines the problem…

On days where our tools, skills and energy come together, our output seems to flow seamlessly. On other days, though, no matter how many tools we use or how many cups of coffee we consume, something seems to be blocking us from getting anything done. On our worst days, we can’t even get our work started.

In other words, anyone who’s a knowledge worker spends their working moments somewhere between two states: choke and flow.

What’s so great about Celine’s post is that is draws from a variety of different sources and then fits them all together like puzzle pieces revealing an unexpectedly beautiful picture.

A simple way to put it is that if we waste our brain’s resources over-thinking how we’re going to do something we normally do well, we don’t leave enough brain power for the creative act itself. So instead of dwelling on unnecessary details, maybe it’s better to remind yourself that you’ve done this work before and trust the instincts that you’ve honed over the years.

But getting to the flow state requires more than alleviating pressure. It means we should sit down and work long enough to get to the point where our vision of the work is clear and we’re not distracted by anything else. But working on the web gives us easy access to hundreds of distractions. How do we avoid giving in, especially when being distracted has become a habit? [more]

I highly encourage you to take a look at the article. She cites at least a dozen different sources and attaches at least three different reports to her post free to download.

Think flow. Go with it.

At the risk of sounding pedantic and grumpy, I’m constantly amazed how marketing communications professionals can do a such a poor job of marketing themselves. Then, the whole self-marketing communications problem is exacerbated as more and more people work remotely. Distance can breed low awareness or, worse, lack of appreciation.

Gina Trapani has thought long and hard about these issues and her insights have come to the attention of Fast Company who has given her a platform. One of her most pithy, accurate insights appears above:  How Telecommuters Stay Close.

Trapani does an excellent job of running down the different ways to use technology to stay close but doesn’t overlook the human touch such as making sure you visit everyone, and that means everyone, when you do make your way to the client’s office.

What are your tips for staying close from afar? How do you stay top of mind even if you’re in another time zone?

Richard Branson needs no introduction.  The founder of Virgin Records, Air, Cellphones, Everything — Branson is a successful entrepreneur by any measure so, when he has some advice, I’ll listen.  In a recent article on American Express’ Open Forum site, Branson shared his experience about time management, taking time off from work and success.

The challenge of making time for one’s family is equally tough and closely linked to the need to let go. To many just starting out in business, the difficulty of simply surviving can make striking a balance between work and family seem impossible, but spending time away from work is important to helping you maintain perspective on the challenges you face, and thus to the future of your company.

I employ two solutions to help achieve a balance, though they may not be possible for many people. Ever since I first moved into the houseboat, I have always tried to work from home in order to stay close to my family. When our family became too big for the houseboat, we moved to a house in Holland Park in London, and we now live on Necker Island, in the British Virgin Islands.

Second, I took my family on business trips, especially when the children were younger. This meant that we did not spend too much time apart and I would often see them when the children wandered through meetings — a welcome distraction from the worries of the business world. It is amazing how the bright smile or questions of a child can help relieve even the most stressful situation.

I’m not entirely sure about taking my family on a business trip, but we shouldn’t argue too hard against success. I think the warm breezes and shrimp ceviche of Cabo San Lucas are calling me right now.

Here’s a link to the entire article.  Let me know what you think!

That’s what many of our corporate clients do daily in the high-tech marketing industry. Full-time employment isn’t even close to a 40-hour job any more. Seems they are not alone.

Jason Fried, a CNN reporter and author of a new book called Rework, says, “The modern office has become an interruption factory. You can’t get work done at work anymore.”

I’m thrilled on Fridays when usually only one other team member is there in our small office — because I get SO much done. And when I need to crank out an important article or focus on a strategic project, I’m always more efficient and creative between 10 pm and 2 am. Too many college cram sessions, I guess. On the other end of the spectrum, Michelle Stewart gets up at 5 am to plow through her email and tackle client issues before they even log in for the day.

The point is, not everyone works efficiently in a traditional office and this is why clients have reached out to High Tech Connect for home-based expert help over the past 14 years. We were freaking visionaries, way ahead of our time!

So how about some solutions? Jason says there are a lot of things you can do to discourage interruption at work and give people longer stretches of uninterrupted time to get things done. Here are a few:

1. Instead of casual Fridays, how about no-talk Thursdays? Try it. You won’t believe how effective it is. On Thursdays — and you can just try this once a month if you want — no one in the office can talk to each other. You’ll be blown away by how much work you’ll get done that day. I’m just asking for one day a month to start. Try it, trust me.

2. Use passive instead of active communication tools. When someone calls your name, knocks on your door, or stops you in the hallway, you can’t avoid them. Even if you try, you’re already distracted. So, instead of relying on so much face-to-face communication and collaboration — what I like to call “active” communication — try more passive methods of communication. Use e-mail. Use instant messaging. Use collaboration software. Here’s why: If people don’t want to pay attention, they can turn that tool off. They can hide it. They can put it away. You can’t put away a knock on your door or someone calling your name. But you can quit your e-mail app for a few hours. Then, when you’re ready, you can open it up — on your own schedule — and get back to people.

3. Cancel your next meeting. Or just don’t attend it. I’m not suggesting you boycott all meetings — just the next one. Life will go on. And all that stuff you thought you had to talk about with eight other people around a table will get worked out some other way. You’ll gain an hour of time you can spend on more important things. And so will those eight other people. Work can happen without that next meeting. Once you recognize that meetings aren’t as necessary as you thought, they’ll become a last resort instead of a first resort.

Here’s the entire CNN article and video from Jason.

What do you do to minimize interruptions at your job?

One of the challenges in our ever more connected world is that social media is one, full-on, constant coffee klatch.  The party’s on, whether you’re ready or not. Sign into Facebook and all your friends might know you’re there … and ready to chat.  Sign on to Gmail and Yahoo mail and the same thing happens and the next thing you know, you might be involved in two simultaneous chat sessions as you’re trying to clean out your inbox.  And nothing much good is going on.

One of the blogs I follow, Freelance Switch, had a great article last week about how to use social media and protect your focus all at the same time. Here are some of the lessons to learn:

1. Have a plan
2. Track your time
3. Maintain fueling stations
4. Take breaks
5. Delay reactions

…and here’s a link to the entire post. Do you have a way to manage the social media firehose? I want to know. Pass them on and I’ll share them with everyone here.

Take a look at this link and you may want to share it with friends. With the current economy, most people are contemplating options and working on safety nets to ensure their survival. Thank you, Wall Street Journal, for giving everyone reliable, practical guidance.