To me, they’re not made for any reason other than the fact that the calendar year is ending, which frankly is a crappy reason to promise yourself anything. When I make a promise to do something, context is everything.

So if it just so happens that I screw something up on December 31, or if I spot a huge opportunity on January 1, I might make myself a promise to pursue it then.

But the truth is that I’m making myself promises throughout the year. To do more of something that I’m doing right. To do less of something I’m not particularly finding useful in my work or my relationships or as a parent.

Resolution, to me, is a verb and not a noun. It isn’t something I reserve for the bright, shiny day of the new year when the possibility for renewal seems so full and rich, but whose luster wears off quickly in the dark, cold days of January when the day to day chaos of life kicks back in and I forget what I’ve promised, or suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so important anymore.

Improvement, change, adjustment and learning are part of my life cycle. It’s the only way it becomes something I can embrace when it’s needed and truly relevant, not when the date on the calendar says it’s supposed to happen. For me (and of course your mileage may vary), I’m actually more successful with adjusting something when I’m committing to it in the proper moment, or because I’m viscerally feeling the impact of not making that choice. And that can happen to me on March 14 or July 28 or September 16.

Change is impelled when it’s contextually and emotionally the strongest. When my mind and heart and spirit are immersed in the thing that makes the change so palpably necessary. January 1 is rarely, if ever, that day.

It’s not that I don’t ever want to improve things. Hell, this year, I’ve changed and adjusted and committed to more than in many years before this, in ways that can profoundly change my life. But the dates on which those happened were somewhat arbitrary. February 3. April 11. May 10th. July 11th. August 18th. September 3rd. Those days each marked resolutions of sorts. And they’ll change my life for good.

It’s not that I don’t understand the ritual of the fresh start, of the marking of a new year, of second chances and rebirth and the possibility in a clean calendar page. And if that’s what moves you to do or change something that you’ve been waiting to do for a long time, if the new year is the motivation you need to tackle something, by all means make that resolution. But remember this.

The part of the resolution that’s important is not that you announced it to the world in your blog post, or even that you told it to your friends. It’s not that you started the year with a new frame of mind and swore that “this will be the year”. It’s especially not that you made a promise to yourself that rings hollow to you, but that you think others are expecting you to say in order to demonstrate that you’re self-aware enough to change something.

The power in resolution is when that something inside you goes *click*, and when the next step feels like it needs to be different. It can be totally quiet and private. It can be in March instead of in January. It can be infinitesimally small, or overwhelmingly life-changing. And what’s most important of all is not that you change what you say, but that you rework what and why you do. That’s sometimes a long process. Even an eternal one, a lifelong pursuit that has no beginning or end. Or for you? The resolution may be not to change a damned thing.

Change is not a holiday on the calendar. It’s not a societal ritual that you owe the world. It’s the thing that you need, for your own reasons, in whatever moment you need it. If it works for you to mark it to coincide with the turning of another year, by all means do that and let it be your beacon for the months ahead. But do that because it’s what works, not because it’s what’s there.

As for me, I’m just going to keep on with things right now, because they feel right, and the promises I made to myself months ago aren’t much different than they were then.

Who knows what might happen in April.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
I Resolve Nothing. For Now.

I left my VP of Social Strategy job at Radian6, a successful post I’ve held for the last few years. And over the last week, my business partner, Matt Ridings, and I shared that we’d be launching a new social business venture together in the new year.

I’ve actually been really surprised by how many times I’ve gotten some variation on this question (mostly in private):

“Why would you leave a stable job with a good company at a time like this?”

Like this? Like what?

Do you mean in this kind of economic climate? In the current state of the social business industry? Do you mean because I’m a single mom of a preschooler with a mortgage and all that kind of stuff?

I imagine many of them don’t mean to criticize, but really rather to understand something that might be overly risky to them. The way I look at it is this.

As far as I know, I get one spin on this rock. There is always something you can point to that will illustrate that it’s not the “right” time to do something risky. There are always obstacles or challenges or what ifs, and as far as my career goes, no one is going to hand me the chance to do something amazing, I have to earn it (and grab it when it shows up). There are also a few things that I’m determined to be able to say when my spin ends, whether that be tomorrow or several decades from now.

I faced fear when it mattered.

Uncertainty is absolutely everywhere. So is risk and the possibility of failure. And a “day job” and a steady paycheck for the moment is no guarantee of a damned thing. We make that assumption all the time until the next person to be “downsized” is us. And we thought we were indispensable.

I’ve had my own share of derailments, devastating experiences, and unknowns, both professionally and certainly personally. I quit an old job once without any kind of a safety net, simply because it felt like the right thing to do (I don’t recommend this approach for everyone, but it sure taught me a lot).

And while I’m only human, facing what scares me is something that reminds me I’m alive and more resilient than I give myself credit for. I never want to look back and say “I didn’t do that – even though I wanted to – because I was afraid”. Some fears I’ll avoid simply because I’ve no desire to see what’s on the other side (there’s no part of me that wants to conquer rock climbing without ropes. Really, there isn’t.).

But the stuff I want so badly I can taste it? The things I dream of chasing and want to feel myself doing? I don’t want to do anything but flinch forward when they present themselves.

I grabbed hold of opportunity. Or, I made it for myself.

Opportunity sometimes knocks you upside the head. Other times it whispers, taunts you a bit. In either case, you often have to shut up long enough to hear it. I believe in something right now, that Matt and I have an opportunity to really make an impact in the business world. To find professional success for ourselves, but also to provide something that’s truly of value to the companies we work with. I believe our industry is important. I believe we’re good at what we do. I believe that there’s a chance for us to make a difference in one way now, and with success, in innumerable ways beyond what we can imagine at the moment.

I don’t want to sit and wait for someone else to create opportunity for me. I don’t want to bitch about all the chances I don’t have because of someone else or some obstacle that’s in front of me. I don’t want to be the victim of circumstance or someone else’s plans.

I want to make my own. And if that means I go down in a crazy, flaming ball of failure, that’s okay by me. At least it was on my own terms.

I’m building a legacy, not a series of jobs.

My job doesn’t define me. My pursuit of a purposeful career might, in part, but my job doesn’t.

That means that leaving one “job” in favor of building and creating something is about pursuing a purpose and creating a legacy more than it is making a living or earning a paycheck. I’d work at Starbucks or Target or the grocery store if I needed to in order to make ends meet (and I’ve made peace with that both times I’ve left the working world to start a business). It’s like Pam Slim says: I’m creating a body of work. There may be a lot of weird pieces to that, some of which seem utterly disconnected. But it all weaves together to create a professional fabric that I can take a great deal of pride in. And I daresay taking a few chances has had more than its share of positive impact on my personal side, too.

I believe I can always find a way to make ends meet. I truly do. If that’s not the factor holding me, than something else had better be or I’m out of excuses.

I want my daughter to take chances for herself, too.

My daughter is four and a half, going on sixteen.

As my friend Kat said so eloquently in a comment the other day, I don’t want to orchestrate an outcome, I want to raise a human being. I was blessed with parents who instilled in me not just the idea that I could “be anything”, but actually stood by me when that pursuit led me straight into a brick wall or smack into heartbreak.

I want my daughter to see me take chances. I want her to see me fail. I want her to see me succeed brilliantly. I want her to see the entire canvas and know that it wasn’t painted with a single brush. She’s an amazing little person already, and the only things I wish for her are to grow up as a decent, kind person (she’s already well on her way), and to know that life is about the choices you didn’t make, the chances you took, and how you respond to the outcomes. I want her to live without regrets, and with belief that she can create a path for herself woven from experiences she embraces and decisions she makes, for better or worse.

My Path, Not Yours

My path is mine and no one else’s. The choices I make may not make you comfortable, for a million reasons. Your circumstances, characteristics, opportunities aren’t mine, nor mine yours. So the point here isn’t to be prescriptive, and tell you that you ought to do things this way because they’re better than the way you’re doing things. Just like the point isn’t for others to judge my decisions by using a lot of “should” and “need to” statements (though they sure do).

The point is instead to share a bit about my own reasons, since a lot of people seemed to be curious. Stuff to consider, I guess. Maybe they connect with you too. If not, please by all means carve your path based on what you believe, want, and can do.

Our choices, decisions, and perspectives are a mosaic of the things we’ve observed and experienced, from the mundane to the profound. We stitch all of those pictures and possibilities together into something that we think resembles a path we’d like to walk, even if we can’t always see where it leads. And so we do. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it’s a mess. Either way, it’s life, in all its imperfect glory.

And I intend to live mine out loud.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
The Unknown Path

My actual dining room, crammed with stuff.

This is a bit of a long story from The Renovation Chronicles, so forgive me that. And I wasn’t sure whether it belonged on this blog or not, because it’s not so much about social anything as it is about good (and bad) business. You won’t hurt my feelings if you skip it.

But I’ve had *such* an adventure as part of my year’s worth of home renovation that I couldn’t resist sharing it. I think there’s a powerful lesson or two in it at the very end that I learned the hard way.

The Backstory

I have engineered hardwood floors in my great room that I purchased from Lowe’s and installed myself (with help from my mom) over a year ago. Most recently, I decided that it was time for the nasty carpet in the bedrooms to meet its end, and I wanted to carry the same floors from the great room into the bedrooms.

So, I headed over to Lowe’s to purchase the flooring. It’s worth mentioning that over the course of the last year or two, with all my house projects, I’ve spent many (many) thousands of dollars there. I had also decided this time to spring for professional installation. The original project was a bear, I’m about to start a new company, have a busy preschooler, and making the investment to have someone else do the hard work seemed like the thing to do. Since Lowe’s says they do professional installation, I figure why not kill two birds with one stone?

I asked the manager (who I was dealing with) about their contractors, how they vet them, how long they’ve been working with them, etc etc. I’ve had my fair share of experience with home projects, know enough of the basics, and my own dad renovated his entire house singlehandedly (yes, plumbing and electric too), so I considered myself a relatively informed customer who asked good questions. In fact, I had him remove some completely ridiculous charges from the installation estimate ($3.50 a linear foot to remove/replace baseboards that don’t need to be removed in the first place to install these floors?? No thanks.).

In either case, I was told that the floors would take about a week to arrive, then the contractor would call me to schedule installation.

Misfire #1

Ordering the floors was easy enough, but getting them here? Not so much.

First, Lowe’s calls me to schedule installation. We agree on a date and the infamous “window” of time. That time comes and goes on the day in question, and nothing. So I call. The guy puts me on hold, but not mute, while he proceeds to ask a bunch of guys around him if they know anything about my flooring order.

“It was just here yesterday, dude, right over there,” he says within earshot of the phone, “but now I don’t know where the hell it is and I can’t get ahold of the guy on the truck. It’s a huge pallet with a bunch of stuff on it. This chick is pretty pissed.”

Sigh.

Commence mumbling and shuffling, and they’re going to have to call me back. I hear nothing that day, and a second call goes unreturned. (Turns out that despite my verifying my number with them twice, some old phone number was in their system and they’d been trying to call it).

The next morning, I get a call from the store, on the correct phone. The guy is 10 minutes away from my house, found the floors, and wants to bring them over. Right then. Fine, I say (and cancel my plans for where I was headed). He shows up with a rental truck and a pile of boxes. I ask him to bring them inside into the office, but he says no, he’s sorry, they only do “curbside” delivery. So I have him bring them into the garage. Obviously that’s not good for wood, so I move them into the house myself, box by box (all 22 of them).

Misfire #2

Next, the contractor calls to schedule the installation…. 2 weeks later, the days before Thanksgiving. It’s not ideal, but hey, ok. Whatever.

They don’t call to confirm or anything, but thankfully they show up the morning as planned. The installer, wanders around the house and looks at the rooms. Pulls out the instructions from one of the boxes of wood (uh oh, this guy is a professional?). Puts a moisture sensor on one of the pieces of flooring. Then proceeds to declare to me the humidity of the wood hasn’t regulated to the humidity of the house yet, so he can’t install it. He even circles the section on the instructions and hands them to me.

I’m frustrated, as I’ve moved everything but the beds from three bedrooms into my dining room in order to make way for the installation. They couldn’t have come and tested this sooner? The delivery guy from Lowe’s couldn’t have explained this possibility to me before I moved all my freaking furniture? Installer guy explains that yeah, the store should have delivered the floors inside (no shit?). We’ll have to wait to lay them, sorry. He begs and pleads for me not to be pissed at him – he’s just the messenger after all (ha, ha). I’m keep my cool. Stuff happens, after all, right? I say fine, when CAN we do this?

We reschedule for two weeks later to give the flooring time to “acclimate”. I move a bunch of stuff back into the office – myself – so that at the very least I can maneuver in my house. I was supposed to host Thanksgiving at my house later that week, but I cancel that and we move it to mom’s house instead. It’s hard to serve turkey on a coffee table.

Misfire #3

Installation day TWO arrives. Again, no confirmation call, but they show up. This time, two guys (original dude and another one). They wander around the house. Open a box of flooring and peer at it. Walk into the bedroom. Walk back out again. All of this takes about 5 minutes. Installer guy summons an assistant manager from the store, who also shows up a few minutes later. I never saw them pull out an instrument of any kind (though I admit I wasn’t watching their every move, so maybe they did when I wasn’t looking).

The verdict?

“The humidity level in your house has actually gone UP since the last time we were here. It might be some of the rain we recently had or something.” Nevermind that it’s about 35 degrees outside, frigid, and that it’s so dry in here that I swear you could cure beef jerky in my living room. “But,” he assures me, “it’s too humid. So we still can’t install the floors. See this spot in your dining room where the wood is discolored? That’s because of moisture in the substrate, and the differential between that and the flooring is critical. If we install this floor, you’re going to have the same problem.”

Me: “Uh, no. That water stain? That’s from a bucket of water that got spilled on the floor, a juice spill from my kid, and one of the dogs barfing up an entire box of dog treats that she stole from the counter. The moisture got between the seams and discolored the wood. I was there when those happened and know exactly how those stains got there. And by “substrate”, do you mean the concrete slab under my carpet that you didn’t look at? What, exactly, was the differential anyway? ”

Him: “Oh, well, uh, see this part here that’s kind of springy? That’s from moisture, too.”

Me: “Actually, no. That section there? The concrete slab underneath is a bit uneven. When I installed the floor, I didn’t bother putting leveling compound down because it was minor and would have taken a while to dry, so I elected to skip. That bounce has been there since the moment I installed the floor. There isn’t an ounce of moisture down there, and the floor isn’t warped. Plus, I have a moisture barrier down underneath the entire floor.”

Him: “…. Well. It’s still too humid to install the floors.”

What? If the humidity in the house went up and the floors were in the same house the whole time…. anyway. I was not just frustrated anymore, I was angry. So, I turned to the Lowe’s store manager guy, who hadn’t said much of anything to this point. “So, then, what’s your recommendation for how to treat this “problem” that you’ve diagnosed so that I can get the floors installed? Can I have some specifics?”

Him: “I don’t know. I’m not a home inspector.”

Good grief.

I threw them out. Not very politely, I’ll admit. On the way out, I told the store manager that I wanted a refund for the installation, immediately. All of it.

Afterward, I went into each room and pulled the carpet back all the way to the middle of the room. I taped down a section of clear plastic sheeting with duct tape (which is a common way to check for moisture seepage in concrete slabs). I waited. I waited. As of this morning (24 hours later), not a drop of anything wet was trapped in there. Not one.

Saving The Day

I really was beside myself. Here I had an entire dining room full of furniture for the second time. I had flooring, but it was still in boxes. I’d wasted nearly two months from start to finish. I was in tears, frustrated, angry.

My friend Rebecca Otto then popped to mind. Rebecca and her fab interior design firm, Plank Interiors, has been helping me select stuff like furniture and paint for my living/dining room. So in desperation, I emailed her and asked if she knew anyone that could help me get these floors installed. She called within 5 minutes, and sent me the number for her flooring guy.

I called him, and he returned my call within 10 minutes. Not only that, but he could be here at noon the next day (today). He called to confirm when he was on his way, and showed up as scheduled.

The first thing he did was take a moisture reading of the wood floors themselves (I watched him do it). Perfectly normal. Then he pulled back the carpet and looked at the concrete, which was dry as a bone. Where Lowe’s readings came from, I’ll never know. I told him the long saga of what I’d been through, and he just shook his head. He offered a few reasons why a big box store would have given me such a load of BS, and none of them were very flattering for them (I’m so naive sometimes). He measured, scribbled a few numbers, and gave me a quote…. that was $150 LESS than what Lowe’s was going to charge me, AND he would move the furniture, the carpet, and install the baseshoe. Best part? He’d call me later in the day and let me know if he could start tomorrow, but for sure, Monday at the latest.

Day. Saved.

The Lessons

1. The new guy is a younger gentleman, running a small business. He was prompt, polite, honest, friendly and responsive. You can bet that (pending the outcome of course) I’ll be recommending him all over the place. The basic stuff matters. A lot. Namely, your reputation.

2. Established retail doesn’t mean reliable. Even when you complain. Even when they screw up. Even when you start off being nice and patient. Even after you lose your temper. Sometimes, companies just don’t care, no matter how big their brand, marketing slogans, or advertising campaigns. And hey big brands? You don’t get a pass on being assholes just because you’re bigger than I am.

3. Trustworthy networks of people you know are gold. There are good people out there. Word of mouth and referrals are still everything, with or without social media. Having a handful of people that you trust to ask for help means everything, especially if they have personal experiences or references they can refer you to. Thank you, Rebecca, for being my savior, and for recommending an amazing contractor (and I’ll be stealing a pile of his business cards to hand out like crazy).

4. If you’re a business, there is nothing more valuable that you can do than deliver flawless customer service from the get go. If you screw up, the best thing you can do is own it and FIX IT. And if you contract work out to other people, their reputation and performance becomes yours, whether you like it or not.

5. Do the research about the projects you undertake, including industry terms. Sometimes they’ll throw fancy words at you, presuming you don’t know any better about what they mean (most of those conversations are designed to get you to spend more money for them to ‘fix’ a problem that may not actually exist). Get more than one opinion or estimate. If you’re not comfortable, by all means have an experienced friend join you for appointments and to oversee estimates, installations, or anything else. If they give you explanations you don’t understand, ask them to explain it differently, or tell them that you’re going to research their answers before committing to anything. The look on their face will tell you a lot. If they encourage you to get other opinions or even recommend additional experts to help, that’s a good sign.

6. Unrelated to this specific project, but never leave contractors working unsupervised in your home. I had stuff stolen this year because I made that mistake when I was having my bathroom renovated. If you can’t be home for the project, schedule it for when you can be. And do pay close attention to the work that’s being done, or have someone experienced do spot checks. Get inspections for things like electricity and plumbing. You’re paying for it, and you have to live with the results. Correcting a botched job can be incredibly expensive.

So finally, nearly two months later, I may just have new floors in my bedrooms. YAY! Break out the bubbly.

Oh, and I called Lowe’s today to confirm whether my refund was being processed. The gentlemen said – tersely – that it was in process and that the “receipt was in the mail” (and hung up). I’ll be waiting. They sure won’t be getting any money from me anymore, and I’m sure I’ll tell this story more than once. I have a lot more projects yet to do.

So onward, and caveat emptor. The dining room may be full, but dammit if I’m not going to triumph in the end. I have a 2012 to conquer.

P.S. – If you’d like the name and contact information for either Plank Interiors or my new awesome replacement floor guy, let me know. 

P.P.S. – It’s only fair for me to mention that after I called and complained after misfires 1 and 2, the store manager did attempt to reach me “if I wanted to share the story with him personally.” I’ve yet to call him back because at this moment, I’m full of curse words, most of which I left out of this post. I have sent an email to store and corporate management, and may indeed return a call when I’ve collected my calm enough to provide feedback that’s actually useful.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
Floors, Contractors, And Customer Service…Oh My.