Stop Showing Your Butt

As a child, some of my strongest memories are the times when my mother would tell me to quit showing my butt.  I say memories, plural, for there were quite a number of them. I was a willful, stubborn, smart-ass, and bossy kid who was determined to have my own way. As I write this list, I realize that those traits still apply….;)

At any rate, for those of you uninitiated into southern culture,  this phrase is a nice way to tell your child to stop being a little sh*t in public, or to stop being a little sh*t in general.

Despite the fact that I’m in my mid-50s, my mother could have easily chastised me again with her sage advice again last week. I showed my butt to a client big-time because I didn’t stick to the standards I set for my business.

Long story short, I was trying to be accommodating to a former client and chose to work with him in a way that had stopped working for me years ago. When the usual squirreliness arose that is typical for this kind of work arrangement, I lashed out big-time at the client.  It wasn’t so much the client’s fault as it was frustration and anger at myself for choosing to agree to work in a way that was known to frustrate and irritate me beyond belief.

I felt it necessary to offer a major mea culpa to said client, and apologized for my rudeness and snarkiness. Furthermore, I told him that rather than trying to be accommodating, which is my nature, I should have simply said, “No thank you, but I appreciate the opportunity.”

I’ve been self-employed 20 years as of this year, and even though experience has taught me to know better, it’s easy to slip back into bad habits. Fortunately, I was able to course-correct pretty quickly and get to the root of the problem I was having,

Sometimes, however, if you haven’t had that breadth of experience and you simply need someone to talk to and test an idea or do a sanity check to determine if you’re the crazy one <g>, having a coachsultor on call can help.  A coachsultor is a title I created to describe my unique blending of coaching, consulting, and mentoring.

If you’re frustrated that your business is not where you hoped it would be, your marketing is no longer working, you hate all of your clients, you’re tired of living hand-to-mouth, or something else, perhaps you need your own coachsultor.

If you think this might be right for you, I invite you to apply to be a coachsultoring client at http://bizsmartmedia.com/get-it-done-now-coachsultoring-program/