Last year I just couldn’t imagine how to proceed with our beloved Living Room Lectures when the tiny big “C” with its social distancing stopped not only every face-to-face meeting but also our founding process (see also year in review).The original idea was to train our brains, meet like-minded parents to break out of the mummy bubble and at the same time having our babies and toddlers with us or include babysitter service. We thought about transferring that setting to Zoom.
But have you ever had an external zoom call with a toddler at home, not mention two or more toddlers? In my case a total nightmare, absolutely no way to concentrate and latest after two minutes (which seems already an eternity!) it always ended in a fight about the tablet or laptop to watch Peppa pig, fireman Sam or whatever. Also evening calls are difficult for me to meet. In our case it’s always quite late until every child is finally asleep and often, I’m just too tired to attend any Zoom session afterwards – if I haven’t fallen asleep with the children myself before. Let’s face it: zoom calls just did not work last year and they still do not work right now with the children around. At least for me.
But there are more ways to empower parents to contribute their value into society and the labour market without tearing themselves apart. So, following consequently my motto of 2021 to take a clear-cut position, these six things will change in 2021:
1. Building my naptime empire
I love the sound of it: naptime empire. There’s so much power in these two words. And it says everything at once: I am building my empire aka business while baby sleeps. And here we are with a new baby in town, working on a new business idea. So, time is rare. Baby does not like to sleep that much anymore. Therefore time (and energy) management will be one of my top priorities the next months. But whatever may come, this is going to happen for sure: in summer we will become officially a business. Not like we expected last year but maybe even better. There is still a lot of work ahead of us, but also loads of baby naps to use.
2. Kill the company to save the company
Sometimes you have to kill the company to save the company. Sounds maybe a little harsh but it’s a very common tool in systemic business coaching to open minds for change. How does it work? Let’s say you know it’s good to question your business’s status quo because you want to make progress. But you don’t feel the real pain or urgent need right now or you feel so comfortable right now. Maybe you just want to stick to processes, things, settings which feel good to you or which are dear to you. Maybe you want to change something but you feel like being trapped and don’t know how to escape the situation. Then the question is: what does it need to let my business fail. It’s incredible how much energy will be set free just thinking about how to drive your business totally at full speed against the wall. But that’s the door opener for change! Only then you’ll have the free mind and energy to ask yourself what you need to change to bring your business to success and to take action.
Now what does it have to do with the Living Room Lectures? Well, I took me very long to accept the fact that if we want to proceed with the Living Room Lectures in one way or another, we’ll have to let go of our former educational setting. At least for the moment. I cannot change the current situation. Therefore, we herewith allow ourselves to leave the Living Room Lectures Sessions under sleeping beauty’s spell until the Covid situation allows us to meet again. That way we will not “kill the company” but are open for new roads – wherever they may guide us. This leads me to …
3. A blog is born
If someone would have told me a year ago that one day I would start to blog I would have laughed very hard at her/him. I’m not the big writer. I’m more the one for direct personal interaction. But I have a lot of ideas which need to be structured. And there is no better way to structure them by first writing them down and second look at them from different perspectives. This is how my blog was born.
As queen of procrastination (with small children there is always a reason why you have no time, energy, concentration …) I knew that if I start blogging alone, I would go lost very soon. That’s why I joined “The Content Society”, a blogging community of around 80 entrepreneurs who support and motivate each other. The main target is to write an article per week and spread our expertise into the digital space. Judith Peters, the “Queen of Blogging” guides us through the process by sharing her knowledge and experience and providing a general editorial calendar for the whole year. So, all I need to do is write, stick to the process and keep blogging about …
4. Smart parents, smart transferable skills, smart work
I truly believe that parents are an underestimated but highly valuable workforce with high potential, competencies and capabilities which stay hidden or unseen by future or current employers. That’s why I’m about to start a project about the skills every mom and dad develops along their parental journey. Skills that are in great demand the next years in the labour market. Skills that can be easily transferred from unpaid care work into paid workforce. I want to raise awareness about those gold nuggets, make them visible, available and usable – and that way bring value to both parties. And as different ways lead to Rome, one part of this project will include ….
5. An Interview journey
During the last weeks of research for the smart-skills-project I spoke a lot to and read a lot about very fascinating and inspiring people who are very much supporting my idea of parents being a valuable asset for organizations. So, what started as a pure research approach will continue in an interview journey. And – maybe- published in an own podcast. Dream big!
6. Social Media learning journey
Blog posts and interviews do not make sense if they are solely written to be parked on an unknown homepage. So, we are talking about coverage and visibility here! Blog articles and interviews are important markers on my learning journey on how to hack a parent’s life to shape the labour market and through that our society. And there is no better place as social media to spread ideas and thoughts, to interact with a community of like-minded people and to exchange different opinions and perspectives.
So, I invite everyone of you to join me on my learning journey on my social media channels (Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin) to get to know each other, try out new things, fail, stand up, try again … and build the fundament of a bridge between smart parents and family friendly employers.