Cool Beans SF

The constant search for Good Ideas has resulted in many techniques for generating them. Part 1 of Good Ideas will briefly discuss Franklin’s (2003) research into the types of ideas that are most likely to succeed.

The research investigated the types of ideas that had been most successful in the past. Six types were defined:

a) Need spotting - where individuals would actively look for a need and attempt to resolve it.

b) Solution spotting - where a technique was already known and the individual went out searching for a problem to apply it to (e.g. laser technology was applied to music, resulting in CD’s and DVD’s).

c) Market research - ideas generated as a result of needs establishing through market research.

d) Random event - moments of serendipity when people stumble across answers they weren’t looking for.

e) Mental invention - pure random ideas with no previous knowledge of how they may be implemented. An approximate example is Einstein’s E=mc squared.

f) Trend following - ideas that resulted from following the crowd.

Of all of the above, a random event generated the highest success rate and lowest failure rate.

Solution spotting - that is, having existing knowledge and seeking problems to apply it to - scored an 87.5% success rate and a 12.5 % failure rate.

The conclusions are, in fact, open to interpretation. It is possible to increase the probability of random events occurring but it seems the most manageable and tangible process of coming up with successful ideas (according to this theory alone) is to use established knowledge and competencies and seek out domains where it can be applied.

This topic is covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com. You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

Kal Bishop, MBA

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com.

Most households in North America own at least one pet, and most people care for their animals as much as they would for their own child. People spend thousands of dollars a year on their pets to pamper and spoil and them. If you enjoy photography and love animals just as much as their owners do, you could be making money by combining these two things into a rewarding business.

All you will need is a room set up as a studio, good quality cameras, lighting equipment, tripods and of course film. You could also have different back grounds and props to make the picture more interesting, or fit certain occasions. To get the best picture you will want to get down to pet level and use toys and treats to get the pets attention. When you get the animals attention, you should have a squeaky toy, or flash that will make the animal look strait at you and perk up it’s ears.

Since cats are particularly hard to get to cooperate, you will want to schedule longer appointments for them in order to become comfortable around them. You should be knowledgeable in animal psychology and also a people person, since most pet owners will be present and a lot will want to be in the photographs with their pets.

If your photography skills aren’t the greatest you can take classes at your local community college to ensure you will be providing your customers with what they want. To attract customers you could make enlarged copies of some good pet photographs you have done and post them up at your local library, veterinary office or coffee shops. Make sure to include a phone number and your name so they can get a hold of you! You can also establish yourself by creating a small portfolio with pictures of your own pets, as well as the pets of family, friends and neighbors. You can then turn this into a flyer and distribute in people mail boxes. Of course you can always publish an add in the Yellow Pages as well. Offering weekend and evening hours will also attract more customers.

Most pet photographers charge a basic rate of $5 to $10 per person or animal and then charge between $40.00 and $175.00 per package of photographs, depending on the number of photos, number of poses, etc. You can also sell pet photos at art fairs for about $20 to $200 per picture (as long as you have written permission from the owner), or sell your pictures as cards, or note book covers.

Author Barney Garcia is a proud contributing author and enjoys writing about many different topics. Please visit my web sites @ www.camera-shope.info and www.photography-stop.info

I admire the paparazzi. They do a difficult job in difficult conditions. Whatever you overall view of them, there are things to be admired.

I know that the right picture will net them enough money to retire twice over. But, in reality, the majority of images will just about bring in enough cash to feed the kids and perhaps go out to the theatre once in a while.

For every one paparazzi stealing a quick candid, there are twenty others and you can be sure that the most sought after images will be also sought after by your peers and rivals.

Then there’s the waiting. Standing in the baking sun or howling gale, being soaked to the skin or burnt to the core, that picture has to come otherwise the kids don’t get their nourishment.

Images of celebrities sell, of course. But images that are out of the ordinary sell faster and for more cash. For the right image you have to wait. You must know your subject, study them, follow them, be with them and be at the ready to snap the shutter when the time is just right.

You may have to miss a few meals or bathroom breaks to be sure that the images you take will adorn the pages of widely sold glossy magazines or newspapers the next day.

It would help if your subject would obligingly show a part of their anatomy that would otherwise be hidden. Or perhaps snort a few drugs, be sick, stumble, fumble or kiss. It would also help if they could do these things in open spaces and not in crowded nightclubs, concerts or bars.

And it would help if either they or their minders would refrain from verbal and physical abuse.

As I said, the life of a paparazzi is not an easy one.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com

Fangs. Killer claws. Hisses, grrrs…and later, yelps. Who is not
familiar with cat-dog combats? It’s a “hair-raising” party of limbs and tails and yes, the loser sheds most of the fur- mostly, the cat.

It was night time and I was in the living room reading a tear-jerker when I heard a throaty, prolonged and wavering wail. Instantly I dropped the book and rushed to the door with one thought in mind - my cat was under attack. The thought brought an ugly picture to my head. I feared an on-the-prowl Sparky or a hyperactive Caesar or worse, the Big Dogs on the Block (BDOB a.k.a. askal) was circling my Khufu in anticipation of tearing her apart.

So you could just imagine the shock on my face when I caught Khufu chasing Sparky, a dog two times her size. A dog. My cat just chased a dog. I thought it only happens on TV.

“You were supposed to be helpless,” I scolded Khufu but actually I was torn between being proud of the cat and being afraid of it as it sat on its hind, licking its paws…Sparky completely forgotten.

But then my memory bank had retrieved from its archives a plausible explanation about what had transpired in the scene of crime. Said dog seemed to have a phobia with cats for once upon a time it received a blow from a cat’s paw on the head. So I thought my cat was just plain lucky. Sparky would avert from anything that meows.

But then another weird night came and dogs were running for their
tails. The militant cat had struck again.

Dogs. Not one, but two. Dogs- definitely not puppies. One was Caesar and the other was a BDOB- both bigger than Sparky. I was impressed.

Perhaps it would happen again, perhaps not. But I wouldn’t want my feline friend to make it a hobby or she’ll drive all the dogs away.

Here’s the norm: cats are to be chased by dogs. The poor cat must
have gotten tired of running for her life that she decided to make a brave yet an unthinkable move to alter cat life in our dog-infested neighborhood.

It seems she has gathered up her tattered pride and charge, come what may, to make a statement in the name of the feline race. The statement would be: We cats may be soft, but we are not fragile.

How easy it is for us to run away from our fears or to give in to the unfairness of the bullies to avert the hassles and side effects of battle, having known not the possible victories we could achieve…dreams stay as mere dreams.

But fear is fear. If only we could just throw it out of the window and have it locked out from our minds. But fear is a part of our existence. It is a psychological battle, a tug-of-war between yes and no. For me, it is not something we bulldoze in a day. I remember how my cat used to sacrifice her food to the dogs and be rooted indoors. It took her time to gain the courage to go against the norm we thought could never be changed.

Perhaps the passport to courage is to be sure of who we are, to
believe, to act big no matter how small, like the cat that fought for its claim of territory and demand for respect with a personlity bigger than a dog.

We all have our own dogs to chase to turn our “impossible” into a
badge we can proudly wear. As for me, I’m not done with mine yet.

At some stage of living your life you will ask the question “What does it mean to be here?”

You may phrase the question in different ways but the essence of the question is the same. It represents your desire to know what it means to be alive on this earth. The search for meaning has gone on through all time. It has been a question for all the greatest minds and hearts that have graced this earth.

For many of you meaning is found in the work that you do. It is found in one or more of the roles you adopt. This can be the role of employee, mother, father, lover or friend. When these roles end there is a sense of loss. When work life ends for many the heart is broken and dies. Children grow up and leave home. Relationships end and friends come and go.

Placing meaning in activities you do and identify with will give you a false sense of security. Roles come and roles will go. However, without a meaning and purpose your life is only half lived, if at all. Too many people come to the end of their lives and regret that they missed a great opportunity to live to the full.

Each person is required to discover the meaning of his or her life. Meaning is not something that is waiting to be found in a book or from the teachings of another. It is more a flow of process than some fixed idea. It is a feeling moment-to-moment awareness of being present to your experience.

There is a paradox in seeking the meaning of life. The more courageous and focused you are the more illusive meaning becomes.

The search for meaning is told in many great fairy tales. The story of the search for meaning abound throughout the world’s cultures. In the West the major story is the search for the Holy Grail. The answer to finding the grail is in asking the right question at the right time. This means entering deeply into the question. It is to become the quest-I-on.

The meaning of life is not fixed.

It is a free flowing experience of knowing who you are in each moment. Those who know who they are live in the eternal now. When you do this there comes a point when you and life are one. You become holy. Then in that moment you know. Your search will be over. You have come to the place of the Grail. You will not be so concerned about the meaning of YOUR life because you will have surrendered to the Beloved. You will have become one with it all. You who are part will become whole.

You will know the meaning of life is simply to be here now.

We can learn more about the meaning of life by watching small children at play. When you ask a child why it is playing a game you often find they get annoyed. They will think you are asking a foolish thing. You are enquiring of them what it means to be playful. They will look puzzled. They can only say they know. To try to explain is to lose the essence of play.

The question of the meaning of life is often approached with a great sense of seriousness. It is asked via the intellect when it can only be felt and known via the heart. The knowing of your life’s purpose is an individual act of the highest courage. It is to become a child again. It is to become childlike without the intense separation anxiety you experience when you were little. You return to the garden and know that this is your home.

Allow yourself to play more and do less. Ask great questions and wait. When you do this then “the singing bird will come.” This is a phrase I love. It comes from a Chinese proverb. The full proverb is

Keep a green bough
in your heart
and the singing bird
will come.

I leave you with this proverb. It focuses your direction toward meaning via the heart. Keep the sap of your heart knowledge flowing and you will come to know the meaning of your life. Whatever you discover know that you are enough now and forever more.

So be it.

Tony Cuckson is an Anam Cara. This Celtic term means “Soul Friend.” He specializes in providing insight for the spiritual journey, Blessings for YOU, words of wisdom and finding inner peace. Visitors to Irish Blessings Matter website and Tony’s Blog get the opportunity to develop a purpose driven life through articles, newsletters and other programs.

Get your free report called “7 ways to it’s a wonderful life” at http://www.irishblessingsmatter.com/, or go to Tony`s Blog at http://www.irishblessingsmatter.info/
where you will find links to information related to spiritual parenting, spiritual coaching and spirit in business.

Besides your daily feelings, thoughts, and experiences journal, there are many ideas for journals or diaries that you can keep, some are suggested below. Buy a blank book or a notebook with a particular journal topic in mind and keep this book for only that topic. You may decide to keep several kinds of journals at the same time, so remember that you do not have to journal every day.

1. Family Journal - Journal about yourself and your family, the children, your parents, or relatives. You can have a weekly ‘family journal night,’ where the whole family can get together and either journal or discuss their journals. For any age, drawing is a way to journal thoughts.

2. Letter Journal - After you’ve written a letter, make a copy and keep it in its own file or binder.

3. Memory Journal - Think back, and journal one memory a day.

4. Gratitude Journal - Journal one thing in your life that you are grateful for that day.

5. Prayer Journal - Journal a prayer a day. Your prayer, a friend’s, the prayer from the paper, etc.

6. Good Thoughts Journal - Journal at least one good thought each day.

7. Books/Movies Journal - Journal the books you have read or the movies you have seen. What were your experiences? Who suggested the book or movie? Who did you see the movie with?

8. Couples Journal - Take time every day to write something to each other. Journal about each other, an experience of the day, a dream for the future, even an, “I’m sorry.”

9. Dream Journal - Upon waking, journal your dreams.

10. Friendship Journal - Journal your experiences and feelings about the lunch you just had with a friend, your visit with your sister, what you are looking forward to with a co-worker and the new work project.

11. Birthday Journal - Have your friends pick a date and journal why they picked that date, and ask them to retell a funny story, journal how you met, or say why they care for you as they do.

12. Recipe Journal - Journal past and present recipes. Include where you got the recipe, where and when you served it, who was there, and what they thought. You can keep a journal for salads, dinners, and a third for desserts.

13. Sports Journal - Journal your experiences with your favorite team.

14. Health Journal - Journal how you feel physically and what you are going thru health wise.

15. Diet/Exercise Journal - Journal what you eat, and your current times, distances, repetitions, weights, and other capabilities, tracking your progress.

16. Finance Journal - Daily you can journal all expenses, certain expenses, or have a place to keep this journal for family or employees to enter their expenses. You can also use this journal idea to track your present financial situation, or reflect on what you want to change or keep the same.

17. Collection/Hobby Journal - Journal your experiences and feelings about what you collect or your hobby, your stamps, coins, furniture, scrapbooking, dolls, etc. Besides journaling about the actual collection, you can record your feelings, what you saw, what you heard, who you met.

18. Focus Journal - Journal what you want to focus on tomorrow, or what you did focus on today.

19. Joke Journal - Journal a joke a day. Make one up or record a good one that you heard.

20. Travel Journal - Journal your travels, all those adventures and experiences.

www.the5yearjournal.com
info@the5yearjournal.com

Doreene Clement, a cancer victor and author of The 5 Year Journal, is currently writing a new book, Blessed, about her life and her cancer experience. For more information http://www.the5yearjournal.com 480.423.8095

Copyright 2005 OMDC, LLC All Rights Reserved

Feel free to pass this along to your friends. About Journaling, http://www.the5yearjournal.com

Question: I am a sales manager for a business services firm in Minneapolis. I am responsible for all new business revenue for my company and I have 5 sales people that work for me. Of the 5 sales people only one is a star performer. The issue I am having is he breaks all the rules and creates really bad relationships with all the other people in the company. I am on the senior team and the rest of them are angry that this keeps happening. While I don’t like to hear the comments from the senior team, I am aware that I cannot make my numbers goals and the company can’t make there’s for the year without him. What do I do?

Answer: I call this a terrorist! A terrorist is someone who knows what they have on you and they use it to hold you and everyone else in the company hostage to their behavior. I like to take my clients through an exercise of understanding the Goal, Position, and Strategy Questions to determine what actions need to be done.

The first question I ask is, “What is the goal around the problem?” This is to ensure that we are aiming at the right issue. What I invite my clients to do is to first reflect on the organization’s overall goal. Then link that to the current situation. This way what ever you do, you will be in total alignment with what is best for the business overall.

In this situation you have identified the fact that in order to make your business unit’s goals and the company’s, you need this employee. That is a big step and oftentimes leaders become so emotionally charged by such situations they act before they consider the goals and objectives of the company or the department. I commend you for your forethought. Typically leaders who do this are considered high in emotional intelligence. This has been shown to be one of the key components in assessing one’s long term success in their career.

The next step is to understand the position you and your company are in. Elevate to 50,000 foot level to see the whole situation. Go beyond yourself and ask, “How did this begin to happen? Sometimes we might find the root cause built into the culture of the organization. Is this type of behavior is tolerated here?

In the case of Enron when the CEO learned that two of the traders were stealing from the company he did nothing and then soon after said, ‘keep making us money.’ What they were stealing was minor compared to what they were making the company. He knew that if he took action, he would stop his revenue machine that he needed because it was his end goal. It also gave permission to the others that if they were that good at making money for the company they could steal from the company as well. It was the outcome they got, should not have been a surprise. This is the extreme case of the terrorist working for the company - and it was exaggerated by a lack of moral compass by the leadership. In the case you present, it is apparent that this behavior is contrary to what the leadership tolerates is searching for from a behavior.

Once you go up to the 50,000 foot level and see if the company has had complicity in the situation, then it is good to come down to 10,000 foot perspective and see if “you” have complicity in the situation. To be frank, and I hate doing this in a column where I can’t ask qualifying questions, but it is hard to imagine that you did not allow this to happen. It is not about absolving the terrorist from his behavior because that is wrong, however, if you had stopped the behavior cold, this would never have happened. I say this because the solution, whatever one you choose, will need to involve your being mentored or coached into creating boundaries for your team. Without these boundaries you will be faced with this issue again.

The third part of our position investigation is to go to ground level - the situation itself. When we find ourselves in this type of situation with an employee we only have two choices, we can either fire or teach. If an employee makes a mistake, it is because we did not teach them correctly or because they are not capable to do the function. Ask three questions to determine what choice to make. The first, is the employee capable of learning? Secondly, does the organization or I have the time and resources available to train this employee? Lastly, is this employee motivated to learn and change? If you answer anyone of of these questions is NO, the decision is chosen, you need to let this person go. The decision is, as Donald Trump would say, You’re Fired!

It is unclear from your description if the employee has the capacity to change behavior, so I will assume that he is rather good at what he does for your organization and likely has the ability to change. It is clear that for your number one producer you should have the resources and time to help him come into alignment with the company. The bigger issue is that of motivation. Often times a terrorist does not feel the threat of what can happen to them if they don’t start falling in to line. They have become fat, and happy and arrogant! This arrogance is what blocks their ability to realize that they need to change. The company has reached a point where it can no longer tolerate this kind of behavior.

Unlike Donald’s TV Drama we live in the real world, and just letting him go is not a great first choice given the company’s dependence on his revenue.

In almost all other circumstances the move would surely be to fire, but because this employee mean so much to the organizations health as far as revenue.

The last part of understanding our position is to understand whose decision is it to make, and what needs to be done. If the consequences of your actions will compromise the strategic direction of the company, I would invite you to consider involving the senior team and that the responsibility is yours to deal with it, and the final decision may actually be the team’s or the CEO’s call, given its importance to the organization.

This is truly a strategic decision then, it is not simply letting one person go, it is letting many people go, if one presumes in a service firm, lower revenue means fewer employees needed to service the customers.

At this point I would coach you to have a conversation with your CEO and the rest of the strategic team and tell them the steps that you are considering and ask these strategic questions: At what point as an organization are we willing to take a principled stance on the issue over that of revenue? Are we clear what the outcome of this will be to our other employees? Will we need to do cost cutting to compensate for this move? What will the industry see from losing our most talented sales person? Will he go work for our competition? What impact will that have on your company? By working through these strategic issues as an organization and lifting this issue to its proper place the senior team - you will be aligning everyone to be part of the process and stop complaining about it.

By going through these questions the conclusion you may arrive at the end of this process is that you use a three pronged approach to dealing with this situation. Executing three plans simultaneously.

Plan “A” You will need to continue coaching the employee towards the behavior that is in alignment with the firm’s values, beliefs, and rules.

Plan “B”, at the same time I would highly recommend moving the rest of the sales team to a higher level to loose your dependence on this terrorist, and operationalize Plan “C” and start the recruiting process for the possible if not probable replacement of the employee.

It is important that the others on the senior team and your sales team know that you are coaching this employee in these areas of behavior and that it is not sitting OK with you. But no more information than that - it is inappropriate to say more than that in a public setting. It will build your credibility as a leader and not allow one persons behavior sink the culture the company wants to build.

Gary B. Cohen is co-founder of CO2 Partners. He is an Executive Coach for leaders of fast growing organizations. Gary was President and co-founder of one of the fastest growing publicly traded companies in Minnesota, going from 2 to 2,200 employees, starting with only $4,000. He serves on many for profit and non-profit boards. He can be reached at www.co2partners.com or co2leadership.blogspot.com.

Here are some interesting questions you might want to try answering. One: If you could completely change places with any other person in the world, would you do it? And who would that person be? Two: If you could work at any job you could choose, would that work be different from the work you’re doing now? Three: If you could live in any part of the country you want to live in, would you move from where you are now living? Four: If you could go back to age 12 and live your life from that point over again, would you do it?

Studies indicate that the great majority of people, even though they have a certain amount of dissatisfaction with their present lives and don’t seem to be as happy as they might be, will answer “no” to all four questions. A person often feels when he’s accomplished everything he’s worked and struggled for so long to achieve, he finds himself depressed more and more of the time. He has a fine job and an excellent income, a beautiful home, a wonderful spouse and children. In fact, everything is finally just as he’d planned it for so many years. And for no reason that he can put his finger on, all the fun and enthusiasm has strongly disappeared. He’s listless and unhappy, and he can’t think of a single reason why.

This has become a common modern malady, especially in retirement, and it’s what so often happens when a person runs out of goals. This is when the game of life begins to go to pot, and the person needs to remind himself of the basic rules for successful, enthusiastic living. And the first rule is that a human being must have something worthwhile toward which he’s working. Without that, everything else, even the most remarkable achievements of the past and all the trappings of worldly success tend to turn sour. Achieving our life goals can be compared to opening our presents on Christmas morning and watching those we love open theirs. We look forward to the day, plan, and work toward it. Suddenly it is there and all of the presents have been opened, and then what?

Well, we must then turn our thoughts and attention to other things. The successful novelist begins planning his next book before he completes the one he’s working on. The scientist always has something new and challenging to turn to when he completes a project. The teacher has a new class coming up. The young family has children to raise and get through school, the new home to buy, the promotion to work for.

But for millions who reach their 40s and 50s and find they’ve done all they set out to do and that there are no new challenges to give them stimulus and direction, there often comes the most trying time of their lives - the search for meaning, for new meaning, and it must be found if the old interest and vitality are to be restored to their lives, if they’re to achieve renewal as persons.

If you understand this, even the search for new meaning can bring new interest into your life. You’ve got to say to yourself, “All right, I’ve done what I’ve set out to do. Now I must find something new and interesting to do.”

Earl Nightingale co-founded Nightingale-Conant. an audio publishing company and world leader in personal development with over 2 million loyal customers. In addition to Earl’s audio programs, Lead the Field and The Strangest Secret, Nightingale Conant publishes authors such as Zig Ziglar, Wayne Dyer, Brian Tracy, Napoleon Hill, Deepak Chopra, and many, many more.

It all started early one Sunday morning in September 1997
after a two-minute encounter that would end up changing
my life. It was with a man in a red pick up truck with a P.O.W.
license plate. We were the only two vehicles on the road that
morning.

I had no idea what I was doing with my life it felt out of
control. I had just moved to Port Charlotte, Florida from
Grand Rapids, Michigan just a few months before. I just picked up
and moved with no money, no job - just opened a map book, pointed
and moved.

I was 25 years old, super depressed and needed to get away from all
those who had defined me my whole life. I don’t know what
compelled me that morning, up to that point I was pretty much
pissed off all the time. I felt misunderstood, judged and unworthy.
I was sad.

I had no idea who I was or why I was here, but I remember feeling
very lucky and grateful to be in a country where I could go off and
find myself. I could take as long as I needed to figure things out
and I had the freedom to try as many different things as I needed to
until I found my purpose.

I’m sure I looked crazy as I pulled up next to the red pickup and
motioned the man to roll down his window. He looked at me very
suspiciously. I don’t blame him; I was just some punk kid with
aggressive facial hair and dark sunglasses.

I think most people would have hesitated, but after one more motion
he finally rolled down the window. I asked him, “Are you
the P.O.W. on your license plate? “Yes I am”, he replied. I took off
my glasses and said “Thank you for my freedom.” The light turned green
and I pulled away.

He caught up to me at the next light and with tears in his eyes,
he thanked me! He said “Not one time since I have been back from the
war has anyone said that to me, I will never forget you!”

I never got the man’s name and I have never seen him again, but
the look on his face changed my life. The feeling we shared that day
was not of this world, I felt it in my soul. From this experience
my life’s work was set in motion. To create a way for others to
experience the feelings I felt during that chance encounter.

That day I uncovered one of the secrets to life.
it’s not the love you receive but rather the love you share that
makes you truly happy.

© Andy Thompson - All Rights Reserved

Andy Thompson is a writer who enjoys the “growth” part of the
Self Growth Process. He recommends the breakthrough 21-day
self empowerment program Habit Busting and publishes a quality
information packed monthly newsletter. Read more at
http://www.BadHabitBreaking101.com/pow/ and sign up for our free 7-day
goal setting e-course.

You may reprint this article in your newsletter as long as appears
exactly as printed above including the link.

Spring sprang this weekend in New England. We enjoyed temperatures in the low 60’s, a veritable heat wave considering that a mere seven days before we got clobbered with snow and ice that required school closings and road closures to boot. And with it came the requisite spring fever: that irrepressible itch to get outside along with the hope that someoneor somethingmight come along and scratch it.

I’m not complaining that winter lasts well, seemingly forever up here in the northeast. It starts in November and extends fully into April or May, with trees never budding before then. And kids require sweatshirts or the ubiquitous North Face zippered fleece until almost summertime. So come one weekend with sunshine and warmish weather and we all get rather feverish. Crazy for the outdoors. With several rituals of the season begging to get underway.

Ritual number one requires a general purging of junk from my house. Spring cleaning at its best. Closets, drawers and cabinets get a thorough going through. Outgrown kids’ clothing gets donated and outdated medicines get thrown out. The cleansing in and of itself makes me feel lighter…a good thing considering that winter always makes me carry several unwanted pounds around my middle. (Ugh!)

Ritual number two requires a decorating and window-staging effort. Out go the snowmen and the sleds. In come the bunnies and the butterflies. Indeed, few things energize me more than re-decorating corners of my home with seasonal visual delights.

Ritual number three requires a long walk around our garden. Or I should say our “yard,” as we do not yet have a “real” garden. When the weather warms up a bit and we finally get to go outside, my husband and I love walking around the yard in an effort to figure out what we shall eventually do there. With steaming mugs of coffee in hand, and perhaps the sound of birds chirping in ear (I heard my first one the other day), that first spring walk-through brings a comforting sense that hope really does spring eternal.

Ritual number four requires that I pull my mountain bike off the ceiling hook in the workroom. A fresh pumping of its tires and a good wiping of its seat get me all zoo-ed up for a good race down my street and an hour-long ride around a nearby lake.

Such was Saturday. I looked forward to the impending warm weather since I first learned of it on the TV news a few days before. I longed for the purging and the decorating. For the garden walk and the first bike ride. For going through, wholeheartedly, the rituals that signaled that spring was finally on its way.

The sunshine begged first for ritual number four. And so with newly-inflated tires, newly-wiped seat and a newly-cleaned helmet firmly planted on my head, I raced down my street for what was to have been that luscious first rite of spring. Oh, it felt good! Oh, to be in that seat again! The air was still crisp and my thighs were still flabby, but to be on my bike again was nothing short of glorious!

I got to the bottom of my street, just a few minutes from my house, and turned the corner as I had done a hundred times before. It was my familiar path. The one I had looked forward to for so long. I turned that familiar corner and I totally wiped out. I felt it coming along with that dreaded sense that I was going to have a serious accident and would be unable to do anything to prevent it. I felt my brain caught in slow-motion, knowing that I was about to be flattened. My bike flew out in front on me and I lay sprawled on the street, directly in the path of oncoming cars. Seems some snow had not yet disappeared and, mixed with gravel, provided just the right texture for a good wiping out.

Realizing that body parts both up and down, left and right, were throbbing in pain, forced me to pull myself up and figure out whereexactlythe pain was and how badlyor notI was hurt. I wanted so much to just get up, wipe myself off and get back in the saddle. To carry on with this favorite spring ritual and enjoy the day as I had anticipated and planned. But one look at my aching, bloodied elbow and its many layers of missing skin, along with my throbbing knee and left thigh, and I knew that I was a mess.

A few minutes later, a woman drove by slowly in her car and, seeing my bike and me scattered across the street, offered to help pick me up and get me home. Too shaken up to fully understand exactly how bad things were, I at first declined, only to realize that the throbbing pain would most likely keep me from walking the ten minutes home. She helped me to the car and drove me there; I stumbled inside the front door a veritable basket case, crying out from the pain that freshly-abrased skin always evokes. I was a messy sight, and a rather loud one, too, and my yelps brought my husband and kids running to my rescue.

Wiping out is the worst. It stinks. Having done it quite a few times in my day, I thought I was done with it for awhile. Thought I was immune for at least a few years, anyway. (We have had a time of it over here, after all!) As my husband cleaned me up and my kids gagged at the sight of my raw elbow area, I re-traced the many times I have wiped out on my bike. The couple times in Miami where wet sand caused me to spin out of control, or where protruding Banyan tree stumps caused me to flip over so fast I never knew what hit me. Or of when the driver of a car failed to look both ways and hit me while I was riding on the bike path. That one was the worst, requiring surgery as well as a year of physical therapy (and a permanent scar and ever-present achiness during our bitterly cold winters).

Yes. Wiping out is the pits. When I wipe out, I can never quite tell if I am angrier that I wiped out and got hurt…or that my perfect plans for the day got completely derailed. Certainly, on Saturday, I was thoroughly ticked off that I missed out on that glorious, long-planned hour-long bike ride. As I lay on the sofa watching too many hours of HGTV, I couldn’t stop thinking of the rituals of spring that just didn’t get done. No walking through the yard. No staging of the house. No cleaning of the closets.

And I kept thinking (but only because my husband kept reminding me) of how it could have been worse. Of how I could have broken bones or dislocated shoulders or permanently damaged my one and only brain. And my mind kept going to friends who had recently wiped out in far more serious ways. My friend wiped out skiing in Colorado last month and completely tore her ACL; she endured surgery last week. And others completely wiped out in the financial arena. Made bad decisions and are living with the consequences. Others wiped out in the personal arena. And are dealing with relationships in disrepair.

Truth is, we all wipe out at one time or another. We screw up a friendship or fail a test or don’t make it to the next interview or file for bankruptcy. It stinks and it hurts and it seems so unfair. And we try to clean it up or clear it out. And it hurts even more. When Ernie dumped hydrogen peroxide in my open wounds I thought I would go berserk. It stung and it bubbled and I screamed out for mercy.

Wiping out stinks. We think to ourselves: “Say it ain’t so.” And we look around and realize that this is our reality and we wonder how we got here and how we’re going to get out.

I hope this Newsletter doesn’t find you recently wiped out. But if it does, know that I am feeling it with you. My thigh hurts and my butt hurts, too. And my elbow is raw and my knee doesn’t feel too great either. It hurts to walk and I’m a little grumpy. So I’m eating way too much dark chocolate in an effort to feel better. But I’m forcing myself to get back in the saddle. I’m playing tennis in the morning. Playing hurt.

Wiping out is all part of the deal if you want to play at all. If you step into the arena, you’re going to wipe out sooner or later. It’s not wiping out that separates you from the rest of the world. It’s how you wipe yourself off after you wipe out.

Wiping yourself off slowly and retreating to the sofa might be a wonderful short-time fix (as it was mine almost all day Saturday), but you gotta get up and at ‘em at some point. Wiping yourself off angrily doesn’t help much either, although I confess to doing a lot of that, too. Wiping yourself off reflectively? Well, maybe there’s something to be said for that. Wiping yourself off gratefully? Now there you go.

I wish you smooth sailing all week long! No wiping out! But if you do, a wiping off that separates you from the rest of the pack.

Carolina Fernandez earned an M.B.A. and worked at IBM and as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch before coming home to work as a wife and mother of four. She totally re-invented herself along the way. Strong convictions were born about the role of the arts in child development; ten years of homeschooling and raising four kids provide fertile soil for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is widely available online, in bookstores or through 888-476-2493. She writes extensively for a variety of parenting resources and teaches other moms via seminars, workshops, keynotes and monthly meetings of the ROCKET MOM SOCIETY, a sisterhood group she launched to “encourage, equip and empower moms for excellence.” Please visit http://www.rocketmom.com