inspiredodyssey daily prompt, Featured, Professional Growth

The Right Environment = The Right Mindset

It is almost a no-brainer when people say, “You’ve got to have the right mindset to be successful.” But how exactly is that achieved? What do you do? Where do you start? Do you sit there with ChatGPT and have it create some elaborate 14-step plan for you?

You and I both know, through all the AI nonsense, you are absolutely NOT sticking to that plan.

I recently joined the Small Business Center at a local community college right behind my house. I went to a community college early in my career, and I absolutely loved it. Community colleges really are exactly what they advertise themselves to be: places for the community to learn and grow.

It was extremely serendipitous that I met the director of the Small Business Center while line dancing; yes, line dancing, lol, at the Continuing Education building every Tuesday night. She gave me her card, I came in and signed up, and suddenly I discovered this absolute gold mine of resources available to small businesses in the community, especially entrepreneurs.

So, what the heck does any of this have to do with having the right mindset?

Well, after being NYC-driven for so many years in my career, I am used to going to work. Getting dressed. Leaving the house. Sitting at a desk. Having somewhere I am supposed to be and something I am supposed to accomplish while I am there.

Working from home is an entirely different animal.

It requires an incredible amount of discipline because comfort can absolutely become a HUGE problem when you are trying to be productive. There’s the TV. There’s your ridiculously comfortable bed. There’s the couch calling your name. There’s the kitchen. There’s the random pile of stuff across the room that suddenly becomes incredibly important to organize the second you’re supposed to be doing actual work.

And there goes the productivity plan for the day.

What I’m starting to realize is that, for me, having the right mindset has a whole lot to do with having the right environment.

Mindset is influenced by what is around you.

It doesn’t always come from sitting at home and forcing yourself through sheer willpower to become disciplined overnight. Maybe that works for Wonder Woman and Superman. It does very little for the rest of us.

So I decided to stop fighting myself.

I have blocked out two hours a day, skipping Wednesdays because I actually want to get out and network in the community. Every other weekday morning, somewhere between 8 a.m. and noon, I find two hours to go to the Small Business Center with my laptop and work. Really work.

I bring my notebooks, pens, notepads, highlighters—the whole damn office supply aisle, basically. I even have their desktop computer at my disposal in an Executive Office designed specifically for small business owners.

And guess what?

It’s working.

I have already scheduled a meeting with my second client. I have more usability research hours blocked out. I am sitting down and actually getting things accomplished instead of spending half the morning thinking about everything I should be accomplishing.

I have been more productive than I have been in years.

And I have the miracle of community colleges to thank for part of that. I have the resources available to small businesses here in North Carolina to thank. But I also have to give myself some credit for finally having enough sense to recognize something very simple:

My home is not conducive to productive work.

I love my apartment. It is my sanctuary. It is where I relax, watch movies, write, eat, sleep, and live my life. But maybe that is precisely the problem. My brain knows that place as home.

The Small Business Center feels like work.

The moment I walk through the door with my laptop bag, sit down at a desk, pull out my notebook, and start setting everything up, something switches on in my brain.

Okay. We came here to get shit done.

And suddenly I do.

So, if you want the “right mindset” to be successful, maybe Step One isn’t changing your entire personality, buying another planner, making another vision board, or asking an AI to design the perfect life you’ll abandon by Thursday.

Maybe Step One is much simpler:

Change your environment.

Get the hell out of the house.

Get dressed. Pack your lunch. Grab your laptop. Go to the library, the community college, the Small Business Center, a quiet café, wherever you can sit down and actually feel like you came there to work.

Because sometimes half the battle isn’t convincing your brain to become productive.

Sometimes you just have to put your brain somewhere that productivity makes sense.

And for me?

Apparently, all it took was a laptop, a good ole peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an Executive Office,

and meeting the right woman at line dancing.

Lol.

Stay tuned.

inspiredodyssey Featured, Professional Growth

HOW TO MEET DEADLINES USING THE “COLUMBO” EMAIL LANGUAGE

 

There is a special kind of professional frustration that comes from watching something fall through the same crack again while you type, “Good morning! Just following up.” Sometimes that cheerful “Good morning” is doing the work of an entire anger-management program.

Early in my career, I was the Queen of the Angry Email. I loved a good zinger:

“This was supposed to get done last week.”

Accurate? Yes. Satisfying? Absolutely. Did it get the work done any faster? Usually not. Now I had an unfinished project and someone angry about my tone.

Then I found my unlikely professional role model: Lieutenant Columbo. Columbo never stormed into the room. He shuffled toward the door in that rumpled raincoat, turned around and said, “Just one more thing.” Then he came back again. And again. Always friendly. Always polite. Always right there until the killer finally confessed the whole plan, every sin ever committed and probably a few unpaid parking tickets.

That became my email strategy: “Just following up.” “One more item we need to address.” “Can we confirm the meeting date?” “What do you need from me to get this completed?”

I was born in a city where it was eat or be eaten, road rage was practically a personality trait, and the least helpful thing anyone could say to an aggravated New Yorker was, “Just have a little patience.” We will not discuss the words that usually followed. Patience was not exactly the language I grew up speaking. So, trust me, I have plenty of other words available. Learning to choose the friendly ones, especially when I am frustrated, has been growth.

Remember, Friendly does not mean passive. Professional does not mean silent. Ten polite follow-up emails will usually get you further than one furious message sent after you finally lose your patience.

The goal is not to win the email. The goal is to meet the deadline, finish the work and preserve the relationship.

These days, I am no longer the Queen of the Angry Email.

I am the Queen of “Just One More Thing.”

Somewhere, Columbo is smiling under that raincoat.

inspiredodyssey Featured, Professional Growth

NETWORKING NOTES: Show up as yourself.

I walked into a Wilson coffee shop for a professional networking event dressed like I had a meeting on Wall Street.

Most of the room was casual, although one of our hosts, was dressed sharply enough that I was not entirely alone. I had simply done what I tend to do: showed up all the way.

I am Brooklyn-born, direct, talkative and still a little rough around the edges. I am not naturally quiet; anyone who meets me figures that out quickly, but I care just as much about hearing people’s stories as I do about telling my own. I listen, ask questions and catch the little details that help me understand what someone really does and what they may need.

That morning, one conversation connected my 25+ years in HR and payroll, my experience evaluating HR technology, and the sales instinct I developed during years of New York hustle. I did not walk into that coffee shop expecting it. I walked out with an actual business idea that has already led to more connections, and a meeting over coffee tomorrow morning that has nothing to do with it but may lead to another opportunity down the road.

That is the real power of networking. It is not about proving that you are the most impressive person in the room. It is bringing what you know, staying curious about what others know, and recognizing the moment when two professional paths unexpectedly meet.

Opportunity cannot knock if it does not know your address. My favorite verse in the Bible that always stood out me is simply this: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”-Matthew 7:7. I didn’t pay attention for a while, until the same teaching appeared years later in Luke 11:9. That’s a serious answer to a knock!

But honestly, sometimes you have to put on the suit, walk into the room and introduce yourself.