Nail Polish

The use of nail polish is seen as a way of beautifying one’s hands.  The styles and colors adorning many fingernails are admired by people across the world.  Often painted to match outfits, seasons, and holidays, decorated nails are trends universally appreciated by many aesthetically driven folks.  It is an outward symbol of an internal value as it takes time, effort, and money to keep up groomed hands, even those that aren’t professionally maintained and are upkept at home.

Beyond prettiness, another benefit of manicures is that nail polish reduces the likelihood of getting chipped, broken, or snagged fingernails.  It acts as a buffer from elements that otherwise weaken the nail.  Some people can’t grow long fingernails without the aid of nail polish (I am one of those unfortunate souls).  That’s why polish can be clear without color and still play an important part of a grooming regiment. 

Because my natural nails are tragic at best, I was intrigued by the gel nail polish trend.  It requires an LED lamp to set the specialized nail polish to the fingernail.  What results is a longer lasting and more durable paint.  As someone who previously couldn’t grow their fingernails, this has been an astonishing and fun discovery.  The UV light essentially cures the paint and provides my nails with strength not found alone.

Nail polish reflects a lot about how life can work.  Sometimes a clear coat is what is needed to provide a transparent and thinner buffer.  It also acts as a method of highlighting what is naturally there.  Other times, colored paint helps augment the mood, message, or tone.  And still other times, gel polish that is cured, strengthened, and set through light helps deliver the best results.  It might all fall under the category of nail polish, but the form and function vary considerably.  Light, color, and transparency all help aid at different points with the message and strength of what lies beneath. 

Maybe we need to be nail polish to someone in our life, or maybe we need to receive the gift of nail polish.  It can take what is already there and augment it to what it isn’t on its own.

Changepoints:

Look around you and see the varying types of nail polishes around you:

·      What subtle and bold messages are conveyed by what you see?

·      How does nail polish act to improve the fingernail and in what ways could this be translated into your own life?

·      What assumptions do you make about the fingernails you see around you, both good and bad?  Where do those assumptions stem from and how can you learn from these thoughts?

·      In what ways can you act as polish, or a support, to those around you?

o   What areas in your life could use a transparent coat to boost what is naturally there?

o   How can you work on strengthening what you already are at your core? 

Nail polish is a simple metaphor that can be used to teach us how to look at the mundane in a new way, and how to bolster what we might take for granted on its own.  We just might have the ability to be the light, strength, and transparency for the world around us.

outSIGHTin, LLC: Creating awareness as a changepoint for improved organizational results.

Budgets

When people think of budgets, this often brings to mind their finances.  The concept of a financial budget is to use funds within whatever means or goals the person has set forth.  Presumably it is to avoid unwanted debt, although it can also be used as a tool to reach milestones.  While many people think of their financial budget as a negative constraint, the purpose of a budget can also bring forth a lot of freedom through the disciplined process.  People pay down their mortgages faster, enter retirement sooner, purchase luxury items, and embark on adventures through the process of financial budgeting. 

By shifting the perspective to a positive lens, a monetary budget can be an empowering and educational resource.  We know that if we need or want to spend more money than we make, thought needs to be given to reducing spending, absorbing the debt, or establishing plans to earn more income.  A budget doesn’t have to be fixed and concrete as it can evolve with strategic efforts.  The key is to act within self-determined factors.

Applying these same principles, other areas in our lives could also benefit from the concept of budgeting.  For instance, a health journey can be budgeted where food consumption and exercise are pared to determine the weight, energy, and wellness we wish to establish.  Each one of us, just like a financial budget, has a unique set of contributors that determines our health factors, like metabolism and physical exercise thresholds.  Together these can create a health budget to reduce issues, much like reducing financial debt, or improving areas, similar to achieving financial benchmarks.  Our BMI-weight scores, blood pressure, and physical flexibility are examples of long-gauges on our short-term budgeting decisions surrounding our calorie intake, types of body movement through exercise, and genetic disposition.

Time and relationships can also be considered from the lens of a budget.  The allotment of 24 hours in a day exists for everyone, and how that time is spent is something to assess.  Sleep, work, parenting, recreation, exercise, and hobbies are just a few of the things where our time needs to be managed.  With relationships, our personality and temperament, along with external demands on our time or energy, can impact how we wish to budget our interpersonal associations.  We may wish to have a few quality relationships with selected individuals, whereas others use this budget to have many large social circles.

Knowing the criteria that impacts each of our designated budgets helps us analyze gaps, create goals, and maintain the homeostasis we individually identify.  No two people will have the same life budget, so our job isn’t to determine how others should act in accordance with their established budget.  Instead, our task is to self-reflect and intentionally behave in such a way that is consistent with the life budgets that mirror our internal values and beliefs.  Then, we can rest easy knowing we are consuming or saving well within our own set living budgets.

Changepoints:

Think through a specific time where you wisely calculated your spending, eating, or ability to juggle time or relationships:

·      How did this proper gauging affect you in other areas outside this specific parameter?

·      How has this successful achievement benefited you and what long-term pitfalls did you avoid?

·      Who in your life has shown an ability to shift a budget in their life – health, time, money, relationships – where you could see growth?

·      How can this person serve as a mentor or guide for you as you select areas for improving your life budgets?

o   What are the detailed, specific benefits of achieving these goals?

o   Who will reap the rewards of these efforts? 

Living budgets are a way to shape our world in a way that reflects our inner compass.  They need not be viewed as a punitive, restrictive tool.  Instead, they can be seen as a daily choice we are given to demonstrate a life that is controlled, empowered, and measured by our own hand.

outSIGHTin, LLC: Creating awareness as a changepoint for improved organizational results.

Brown Noise

While trying to get my technology to produce background noise to help with sleep, I asked the device to play “white noise”.  When my kids heard me instructing it to create this particular sound, they asked me why that was the type of noise selected.  I must have looked baffled because they proceeded to shed light on my ignorance surrounding the topic.  There are lots of “colored” noise, I was soon enlightened.  Conversation unfolded about why each person liked a particular noise color.  I proceeded to scroll through a list of options and found that I like brown noise.  Here I thought white noise was the only choice.

During this investigation process, I discovered sound engineers initially named the noise frequency with the color which loosely captured the light frequency that would correlate if the sound were a color.  The first sound that was defined this way was white noise, hence why it is the one most referred to when people seek soothing background noise.

I have since discovered at least 11 sound colors, some technical and others informal.  All seek to capture the relationship between the sound wave output and the light color frequency.  Pink, green, and blue noise are just three of the colored noises to which a person can sleep or meditate to.  Interestingly, brown noise is actually named after Brownian Motion and is also known by the name “random walk” noise.  It seems like a fitting name for how I often live my life, so perhaps this is why it resonates with me as I sleep.

Our words are also sounds, and they carry vibrations and light.  Whether it is a positive, bright light largely rests upon us.  We can’t necessarily control how our words are received, but to a high degree we can use intention to shape our words in such a way that the energy, speed, and frequency spread the message how we desire, both to help or to harm.

Next time we speak, let’s truly pause to contemplate the words and the intended vibrations to help us with the delivery.  If we wish for our language to carry positivity, we must study the energy we are infusing with it.  Sound and light go together.  We can decide if we want to be violet light or noisy black light.  If we prefer to shine through our communication, it starts with a partnership between the literal words and energy behind them.

Changepoints:

Play through the list of available background noise colors and listen to the nuisances of the options:

·      How do the differences among the background noise choices translate to the way you think about communication in your own life?

·      How can you shift the way you hear others to capture the vibration they intend to convey?

·      Who in your life demonstrates the ability to balance their words, beliefs, and energy together?

·      What facets of your life could be improved by paying attention to the energy you place into your communication?

o   What relationships or tasks will be augmented by doing so?

o   How will you chart a path to match your “noise” with your “light”? 

Color is a beautiful way to capture the spectrum between intent and impact as it pertains to the bridging of our noise and our light.  May our energy authentically align with the image we hold out to the universe.

outSIGHTin, LLC: Creating awareness as a changepoint for improved organizational results.

Loss Leader

Any title that has the word “loss” in it might resonate as negative.  “Loss leader”, however, is an intentional decision to do something at a cost with the long-term perspective of reaping a gain.  Some companies sell a specific product at a deficit to get people through their doors, whereby hopefully increasing other sales.  Other organizations give away products to create marketing connections.  Where I am employed, we have chip clips, lip balm, stress balls, pens, and notepads with the logo affixed on each item.  There is never the assumption the recipient would pay a dime for these products.  We shoulder the cost with the aim of increasing brand recognition.  Therefore, these pieces of swag serve as a loss leader because we use the upfront sacrifice to create paths for greater things in the future.

Look around and you will see this approach is taken a lot using reduced-price products, coupons or discounts, and free items.  The idea of these things being loss leaders doesn’t drum up a negative connotation to those deciding to supply them.  The managers and sales staff do it willingly because their perspective is shaped toward long-term relationships and business cultivation through an upfront decision to sacrifice for enduring connections.

Wouldn’t it be a major shift in our personal lives if we decided to intentionally make initial sacrifices for the sake of longer goals?  Perhaps not eating that extra piece of birthday cake because bathing suit season is approaching in several months.  Or paying the important bills before dipping into the checkbook to go on a shopping spree so there isn’t stress at the end of the month.  Or turning off the television before the show ends for the sake of grabbing a few more minutes of needed shut eye due to an important morning meeting. 

Let’s take it a bit deeper.  Like deciding to offer an apology even if we feel our accountability to the situation is less than the other person so that an enduring relationship can be maintained.  Or offering to work longer hours when we’d rather be doing something else to help an overwhelmed coworker so that the working environment remains relaxed.  Maybe lending a neighbor a tool they need even though you aren’t sure it will be returned in pristine condition because the collective upkeep of the community matters.

Keeping tallies is a recipe for feeling disadvantaged because the scope is fixed on the immediate.  Instead, remember that a temporary or short loss can be eternally impactful.  By deciding where to focus our energy - in long-term dividends – we enhance the quality of living not only of those around us.  We, ourselves, benefit from all that flows as well.  The loss leader becomes a living model for others to see.  It helps in goal achievement, buoying relationships, and value enhancement.  Whether it is to meet a weight-loss objective, save for a vacation, or enrich the lives we are surrounded by, demonstrating a loss leader approach serves to make the world a more meaningful, productive, and wonderful place.

Changepoints:

Consider a time where you made a choice to intentionally set short-term gains aside to reach a long-term plan:

·      How did the process of deciding to sacrifice feel initially and then how did it evolve down the line?

·      Who were the people in your life who knew about your plan to make a deliberate sacrifice for the greater good?

·      If there was push-back in creating this boundary, how did you address or remedy it?

·      What are specific areas where the loss leader perspective could now be applied to your life?

o   What changes in behaviors are required to plan for success?

o   How will you and others benefit from decisions that might initially appear unfun or sacrificing?

 

Each one of us has the capacity to become a leader in our respective worlds by choosing things that might appear to have an outside cost.  Instead of feeling diminished, think like a person who generously gives out swag into the universe for the sake of infusing good energy.  Your logo, or legacy, will be branded every time you do so.

outSIGHTin, LLC: Creating awareness as a changepoint for improved organizational results.