My new life begins today!

Yes, my new life begins today.

Not in the sense of good intentions that do not correspond to the reality of one's own life - for example "From now on, I'm only going to eat healthy!" Or "From today, I'm doing sport every day!" 

But in the sense of: This day, 1 October 2016, marks a milestone and a new direction.

Seminars on board

We were building until yesterday.

Today we are tidying up the seminar room, which was also the workshop. The picture shows the current state - 2 hours before the start of the seminar.

The seminar room is not yet finished - it is missing cork flooring, a door, the donated chairs and a fireplace that does not draw oxygen out of the room. Nevertheless, the first - very improvised - workshop will take place today in the new seminar room. What a milestone.

And two management teams have already enquired about holding a workshop with me on board in the coming weeks to find a new direction. The room is coming into its own - and so am I.

At the moment it still looks like.... .well... that will be my sports programme to make it walkable by 17.00.

Office organised

When I moved in here, I first moved everything from my old office into the new one, which was only half the size. Whenever I had time, I would shrink two folders down to one after work... a mammoth task with 40 folders from 15 years of publishing. Then last week I took part in the desk tidying challenge organised by Nicole Isenegger from Room for success took part. Actually only because I wanted to see how other coaches run their seminars.

On Friday, the task was to clear everything out of the drawers, clean and reorganise. This coincided with the day Helge wanted to insulate the office floor. This meant that I involuntarily booked the nerd option.

Clearing out the WHOLE office, including all the furniture (top picture = almost empty), before I can put it away again. But now it looks super smart. And I've treated myself to a new carpet. The old one had already had 15 years of life and a lot of tea and coffee behind it, so it can temporarily go into the entrance area of the ship before it goes off board completely as soon as warm cork has been laid there too.

In any case, it's wonderful to have a super nice, better-organised office now. That fits in with the other internal processes.

A and O - new balance

The alternation between the analytical and the original, in short the be-all and end-all of an idea, has kept me very busy, as I explained in my last Blog post have written. Then there was the economic necessity to change something - partly due to drastically increased costs in sales. When storage costs alone rise from 120 euros a month to 500 euros a month, you don't need to be a business genius to realise that you have to change something.

It's actually really bitter right now - I have that too openly described. And at the same time, I'm thrilled at how quickly some measures take effect - and what great customers I have. One idea for reducing storage costs was Special offers - not super original, but effective. The other was a Subscription for all new publications. Our print shop does this as a service. I was really pleased that people have confidence in us that we will produce good things - and have booked the subscription. That really makes our lives a lot easier.

It helps me to keep focussing on the A. To analyse: What is important now? Who exactly should know? How?

Support for

The last reason why a new life is just beginning for me is that I am getting support in areas where I am weak.

• A tax advisor and business consultant helps me to organise my structure finances in this way, that it becomes clearer which income and expenses belong to which areas of activity (publishing, coaching, seminars, online courses) in order to be able to manage them more clearly.
• A woman who is super Social Media is currently tutoring me on how to set this up in such a way that it's not just stumbling around and trying things out, but also a Clear strategy has.
• A woman who really can organise well and keep an eye on the detailswill start working four hours a week at Down to Earth in October - alongside her other job. That ends on 31 December and my dream would be to employ her for 20 hours a week from January for seminar organisation, bookkeeping, social media and other administration.

Giving her half a job would be my long-cherished dream of being relieved of some of the organisational work so that I can concentrate on writing, coaching, supervision and seminars. And I hope that the next few months will be so successful that I can manage that financially... But four hours is a start.

My previous life was good, really good. And I'm looking forward to my new life.