Naomi Dathan's Blog, page 5

Your #Filemaker Developer should taking

Your #Filemaker Developer should taking planning VERY SERIOUSLY. Anticipate the eventual size, potential complications, reports.

Ask your #Filemaker Dev if she takes adv

Ask your #Filemaker Dev if she takes advantage of ExecuteSQL for reports. Improved performance & flexibility.

Garbage in, garbage out. Control #filema

Garbage in, garbage out. Control #filemaker fields with dropdowns, popup, radio, checkboxes, dropdown calendars & 7 types validation.

Make sure your #Filemaker developer is v

Make sure your #Filemaker developer is versed in Apple design principles. User interface should be intuitive.

Clap your Hands and Freaking Believe

In a recent blog, I said we don’t need to discuss my ghostwriting history.  But we do, because it’s 11:43 pm and I still have four more blogs to write.

So while I was a care-giver to a terminally ill family member, I earned money however I could.  I wrote web-content, painted and sold pottery and was a blog ghost-writer for several reknown life-coaches.

I had to write more or less in the style of the life-coach, include advice that sounded like them and make sure to use the appropriate catch phrases.  Universe.  Law of Attraction.  Universe.  Low Hanging Fruit.  Universe.  Positivity.  Power.  Openness. Energy.  Universe.  Motivations.

Sorry if this offends, but it was so easy.   Tell an antecdote, give some kind of principle, explain it using the jargon, and end with a call to action.   Two calls to action, actually:   (1) Do this thing better, (2) Buy the product I’m currently selling.

I’d read my share of Sunday School lessons and devotionals. The blogs followed the same format, but the proverbs tended to be in modern English.

In order to live with myself, I tried to make sure that each of those blogs had sound advice in them, even though they were couched in L of A jargon.  I started to consider myself bi-lingual:  Saying words like “blessed” and “purposeful” and “humble” and writing words like “centered” and “energized” and “open.”

The businesses of Law of Attraction life-coaching and fundamentalist religion are very similar.  People who get the hang of it charge others to help them.  The ones who pay for long enough eventually learn the ways of the business and can charge others.  They succeed by tapping into people’s desperate need for simple, memorable answers to the dark complexities of life.

And they are both utterly unproven.   In fact, key tenets of both can be disproven by science.  The earth is, in fact, more than 5,000 years old.  And the Universe it swims around in doesn’t give a crap whether your job interview goes well.

To be clear, as cynical as this blog sounds, I’m not talking about God or faith or karma.  I’m talking about leaders who seek to exploit or control — and make money doing it.

Life is complicated, messy, and often unfair.  Sometimes the person who deserves the job and prays/taps into the power of the Universe still won’t get it.  Sometimes we don’t know reasons why.  Sometimes the good guy loses.

If you want to change your life, you need true wisdom — not the myths of people lining their pockets.   Some answers are prettier than others, but that doesn’t mean they’re true.  Be skeptical of zealots.  Demand answers.  Read reviews.  Seek scientific methods.

You don’t have to believe the unbelievable.  Truth can be tested.  Leaders can be questioned.  Answers can be challenged.  Reality can withstand your doubt.

Don’t pay people to explain your life to you, because they can’t.  Life is too complex to be explained like that.  Stay centered in yourself — yourself — and keep growing.

 

How to Keep Women in Poverty

This is from a blog that I’m not going to link to.  The writer pretends to honor women (it’s beneath their dignity to work) while taking satisfaction in the pain of childbirth.  Because having babies is so dignified.  Trust me on this:  I’ve had two.  I’ve never felt more dignified than when I had my feet in stirrups with four strangers hunkered down peering at my crotch.

More importantly, this writer’s advice would basically guarantee that if something unexpected happens that requires the woman to leave her home, she’ll have no plan, no preparation or training of any kind, and no prospect of actually succeeding.

But that’s only if something unexpected happens.  Like divorce or death or the spouse becoming injured or incapacitated or a life-changing event occurs that requires a second income.  And how often does that happen?

Stop being so fierce and powerful, and get back to being that delicate, helpless little flower that God requires you to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surround Yourself With Power

I’m a member of a private online group made up of several thousand women — all ages, races, origins, and birth-genders.   The women are powerful and independent and supportive of each other.

Tonight a woman in the group posted a cry for help.  For her privacy, I’m paraphrasing:  “You are all fierce women, and I’m not okay tonight.  I’m not suicidal, but my thoughts are out of control. I need help.”

If your reaction to this was embarrassment or contempt, turn your attention to yourself.  Could you have made that cry for help?  Work on you, pal.

Diagnosable mental illness comes with a stigma. So does any mental weakness that might be mental illness or hints at mental illness.  We are taught to put our chins up, smile, and power through.

I’ve done it; we all have.  I spent years pretending to be okay while I struggled to be a care-giver and survive the associated poverty.  Pretending to be okay served no purpose whatsoever.  It didn’t make me feel better.  It didn’t inspire me to change my circumstances.  It didn’t inspire anyone else.  It didn’t serve God (people kept telling me that).  It didn’t come with a paycheck or even a gift card.

 

The woman tonight was braver than I was in those hard days.  Braver than many people in the same situation.  And being brave does come with a purpose.  The responses came in immediately: “Where should we meet?”   “I’m in the same boat — let’s meet regularly to help each other.”  The brave woman isn’t alone anymore.

A couple of months back, a similar situation arose, where the woman was suicidal.  Somehow, in the midst of her mental anguish, she found the courage and clarity, to make a post asking for help.  Then she disappeared off line.  No one knew her address, and only knew where she worked sometimes.  Based on that, the very good humans in that group united to investigate, call the police in her town, and eventually get her help.  The word came down that she’d been found, and everyone drew a deep breath.  Weeks later, the woman in question posted with gratitude. She’d been treated and helped, and was doing okay.  She had to re-evaluate her value — she was so precious to the world that hundreds of women had joined forces to save her life.

Screw pretending to be okay.  When you’re not okay, scream it out.  Send out the distress call, human to other humans.

Some people will disapprove or be uncomfortable.  Some people will ignore you.  The best humans will respond.  Those are the ones you want anyway, so screw those other people too.  Surround yourself with the best humans.  Lean on them and let them lean on you.  Surround yourself with the power of united humans.

Surround yourself with Power

 

 

We Defy Expectation

We watch American Ninja Warrior in our house, religiously, but this is still my favorite routine.  We defy expectations.

Gratitude

I try to loosely focus blog on business topics — Filemaker, women in business, success — along those lines.  But I do take detours — the occasional movie review or a really flawed prediction of the next twist in the Walking Dead series.

So this might look like a detour, but I’m not sure it qualifies, because Gratitude is critical.

Expressing Gratitude

Visible gratitude is social lubricant.  I’m a feminist (so I’m all attached to the idea that women are, like, human), but I’m perfectly content to have a guy open a door for me or help me out.  I’m actually perfectly happy to receive little courtesies from anyone, and I try to offer them to others.  So if someone opens a door for you, say thanks.  If they help you out at work, say thanks.   If they helpfully mansplain something to you, say thanks.  (that’s not about gratitude; it’s just a fumbling effort to make it stop so you can get back to work).

Embracing Gratitude

Embracing gratitude is not the same as expressing it.  It has nothing to do with social lubricant or satisfying others’ expectations.

Embracing gratitude is private, and it’s critical to success in every arena of your life.  How you do this will depend on your belief system and whatever satisfies your needs.  Create or adopt the ritual that works for you — prayer, meditation, connecting with nature, painting, chanting, swimming, writing, whatever.  As you change and your life changes, your ritual may evolve, or be completely transformed.  It doesn’t matter.  What matters is that you form an intentional connection between yourself and the beauty and abundance in your life.

Of course, your brain will insist on reminding you, your life isn’t not perfect.  You’ve been the target of human animosity and bad luck, and you’ve done some dumb things.  The key to gratitude is to include those negative thoughts into your gratitude ritual.  Accept the hard things.  They’re part of the intricate tapestry that is your life.  So let the thoughts in, let them be washed clean by your gratitude.  Then open your hands and let the emotion attached to them wash away.

I said gratitude is the key to your success.  You may be tempted to question this; after all, this is by far the most touchy-feely-universe-is-your-friend blog you’ve ever seen me write.  (We’re not going to talk about my ghost-writer days).   I haven’t mentioned the Law of Attraction because it’s not science (don’t get me started).

But gratitude is science.  They even talk about it on many TED talks.  What’s more science-y than that?

Embracing gratitude is scientifically proven to improve your life.

Embracing gratitude is scientifically proven to improve your life.

Embracing gratitude is scientifically proven to improve your life.

Improving your life isn’t precisely the same as being successful.

But improving your life a lot is.  So be grateful a lot.

Gratitude

 

 

Working on Vacation

I just got back from seven days in Arizona.  We did a resort in Sedona, visited the Grand Canyon and the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, then connected with family in Phoenix (115 degrees!!)

It was a beautiful, relaxing time with my family, and I’m looking forward to the next time.

Through the course of the week, I also:

answered two emails
had one phone meeting
handled about 35 problems via text and pm
coached a client through a process
planned the schema for a new module on my pos

This isn’t me being a workaholic.  This is me staying grounded.  I’m sure many people need to step completely away, but that’s not for me.  It’s much faster to answer an email that spend my nights worrying about whether the client had this or that problem.  The total time spent:  maybe three hours?  four?  No more than that.  I didn’t set up an office away from office and try to get a jump on any projects.

What I did do is relax and enjoy my vacation even more, because I knew everything was fine, my clients were happy, and I knew what to do next when my feet touched ground in Ohio.

That, for me, was a perfect vacation.  How about you?