Murphy's Laws for Moms

I have a great passion for working with women to become stronger leaders who are making differences in their communities.  It is with this in mind that I share with you an amazing opportunity for Portland women: the Junior League of Portland's inaugural Women's Empowerment & Leadership Summit. This leadership summit will be held on May 11, 2018 at the Hilton Downtown Portland and is a day-long leadership and professional development conference open to all women in the Portland and surrounding communities. The theme is Diversity and Inclusion and the Junior League is honored to feature Tarana Burke, activist and founder of the #MeToo Movement.  The Summit will offer opportunities for workshops, speakers, networking, and camaraderie among women in all stages of leadership around our community. The Summit is a major fundraiser for the Junior League of Portland and all proceeds from the event support the League's community fund, the 1910 Campaign, with 100% of the mon...

In business, leaders often analyze our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats through a SWOT analysis.  So, if we are going to look at our role as moms as being the greatest leadership opportunity to us, let's start with analyzing ourselves and our kids.  Here's the SWOT I developed for my family: Family SWOT Analysis As a doting mother, there are hundreds of strengths that I could put up here for my kids.  Their hugs, kisses, bedtime stories and prayers, the fact that they come to me when they're seeking healing from an injury (physical or emotional), the notes and drawings they make for me, their precious hearts when they try to help me or that they've learned how to use the Keurig to bring me coffee in the morning...I could go on and on. Now, here's the part where we get honest with ourselves.  Yes, we love our kids and we love our family (or, hopefully, most of the time), but we are not perfect.  Nor should we be perfect.  As we analy...

Continuing on in our Leadership Mom series... Before we begin to develop our family's Mission Statement, let's take another look at our Vision Statement: Vision Statement: Our family exists to learn, grow, and live life filled with curiosity, fun, good health, and love for God and all of His creations. As previously mentioned, this is the ideal of what we would like our family to be (future-focused).  If we were living in a perfect world, this would be us. The Mission Statement, while similar, describes the why - or purpose - of our organization/family.  It describes what we do and how we do it, as well as our values.  Therefore, the first question I have to ask is, "What does my family do?"  Let's think big picture here.  This isn't the details of daily life: driving kids to activities, going to school, making meals, doing laundry, etc.  Let's think bigger.  Here, you may want to work together with your family to write down some ideas....

Before we delve too deep into the strategies and planning on our leadership as moms, we have to first talk about what our vision is. We aren't talking about our daily mission that - if you're like me - is often just to survive the day.  Nor are we talking about the generic response, "To raise well-mannered children."  Because, really...there's a lot more to it than just having good manners when you send them out the door at 18. Our vision is our grandiose dream - the ideal - of who we are as an organization (a.k.a., family).  This is the perfect scenario - our dream - with no failures or setbacks.  When I think about my vision for my family, I think about having patience; developing deep, meaningful relationships with my kids and husband; working together as a family; making a positive impact on our extended family and the neighbors around us (maybe even around the nation and world), staying healthy and safe, and continually learning. So, perhaps I'm ask...