When I was in middle school, I had a friendship journal that I’d pass around to my friends and they’d write a message in it to me. They could write about anything that they wanted to, but mostly it was about school, friends, and various crushes on boys. At the end of each message, I asked each of my friends to write their “Happy Song.”

happy song | ˈhapē sô ng | noun

A song that whenever you hear it, your not-so-good mood gets lifted. You start feeling all happy and hyper, and just for that moment when the song is played, you feel as if nothing can arm you in any way.

– as defined by thirteen-year-old Laura

Ever since then, I’ve been mildly obsessed with having a “happy song” or a personal theme song. Usually it’s in the form of whatever song I’m currently obsessed with that’s on constant rotation inside my head. That one that I can queue at any given moment and all the sudden I’m ready to rock, roll, and conquer the world.

Happy songs can also be theme songs to help you start your day. It’s also been said that if you’re a freelancer, self-employed, or work from home, it’s a good idea to have a theme song that you listen to help cue the beginning to your day. Pick a song, blast the music, and rock out for three-and-a-half to five minutes solid, then start your day.

Poll: What’s your theme song?

Which brings me to the point of this curiosity and a quick poll:

And if you do, what is your theme song? Leave the name of it and/or a link in the comments below.

What’s mine? Currently it’s Flo Rida’s Good Feeling.

Photo credit: sicoactiva

In the spirit of all things Sunday, here’s a list of some of the best I read this past week. Enjoy!

The Bookstore’s Last Stand: Barnes & Noble, Taking on Amazon in the Fight of Its Life by Julie Bosman in The New York Times

Read this because: If you’re an indie lover like me, you never thought that you’d vote for the “big box” bookstore, ever. Except for the very brutal fact that these big box stores determine things like the very existence of printed books, as we know it. Indies rock, have way better service than the larger guys, but all the indies combined don’t have the buying power of Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and the distant memory that was once Borders.

This is not the time or place to go into an endless saga about the world that could be if we only had one channel to receive our books from, but let’s imagine that, for a split second. What if one company was in charge of telling publishers which authors needed publishing and which didn’t? What if there was one retailer who said – um, yeah, I don’t think we’ll be selling that one?

9 Ways that You Can Build a Blog that Matters by Benny Hsu on Get Busy Living

Read this because: You’re a blogger, a blogger-in-training, or just curious. Benny does a wonderful job of sharing what he learned building Get Busy Living in a way that anyone can adapt to their own blogging venture.

Bonus reading material: Matt Cheuvront over at Life Without Pants wrote a response to Benny’s post on his blog (with additional tips, too!): The Friday Response: How to Build a Badass Blog.

Innovating the Library Way by Grant McCracken on Harvard Business Review Blog Network

Read this because: Libraries have been around since the fourth century BC, and therefore, librarians can teach us businesses people a thing or two about acquiring new customers because, let’s face it, they’ve lasted the test of time.

This article is a great case study about how one library looked beyond the usual promise of adventure within its products (books), and found a way to renew the value proposition of what is and what could be found within a library.

Read it. And let me know this library’s marketing campaign would have worked on you.

Why Some Startups Succeed And Others Fail: 10 Fascinating Harvard Findings by Alyson Sontell on Business Insider

Read this because: It has a damn good title, and you’re as curious as I am about finding out the scientific, secret sauce between success and failure.

Best Business Books of 2011: For every entrepreneur and intra-praneur by Sarah Peck on It Starts With

Read this because: You’re an entrepreneur-in-training like me. Or you’re not, and you’re just looking for the next book to add to your nightstand. The best part is Sarah breaks up her recommendations in categories like: Marketing & Advertising, Design, Business & Entrepreneurship, organization, and psychology. It’s like your own bookshelf, curated by Sarah.

What did you read this week?

Photo Credit: Hamad Saber

In college, my screenwriting professor said that down in LA, every other person has a screen play in their back pocket. In these days of the hipster generation, I’d say that every other person has a startup, a side-project, or even a business that they’re working on in their spare time. And in tech communities like Seattle, I’d say that’s every person.

Ideas are everywhere. And the Internet makes it so easy to turn a ‘hobby’ into a business.

Are you a habitual side project starter?

You are full of ideas. You look at the world and problems that need fixing. And you know exactly how to do it.

You think up new projects and jump on them.  When you start, it’s like you’ve caught a fever — you brainstorm, purchase the domain name, snag the Twitter handle, and tell everyone you know about what you’re working on. You can’t be stopped.

But then it happens again. You get a new idea and it’s better than the one before.  You place your current project on hold or abandon it entirely.

The cycle repeats itself.

Question, are you jumping from project to project, because:

1. You haven’t found that ‘one’ project that you really, really, really want to focus on?
2. You believe that you can work on every single project at the same time (or switch as you follow your folly)?
3. You don’t have the confidence that any of your ideas are ‘good enough’ to succeed?

Stop juggling side projects. Commit.

Projects, like goals, are most successful when you focus on one or two at a time. That way you can make an honest, full-blown effort at seeing one of those ideas through before choosing to go all the way or jump ship.

You need to specialize and focus on one project at a time. It’s why top companies focus their entire business on one thing, either having the best price, the best quality product, or the best service than anyone else in their industry. It’s why Zappos is known for great customer service, Southwest Airlines for price, and Apple for product (though the fan boys do help).

If you juggle too many projects at one time, you’re bound to drop one or keep them in the air at half mast. And multitasking may be bad for your brain.

If you’re constantly starting new projects, stop. Pick one and start working on it. Follow your curiosity and see where it goes. It might be everything you hoped it would be or it might be an utter failure. If it’s the latter, then scrap it and move on to the next one.

You may be surprised by what happens when you focus.

Photo credit: ryantron.

If you’re reading this, then that means you made it through the first week of 2012 – congratulations! Now, let’s get over setting goals, making plans, and get some real shit done. Who’s with me?

But before we go out and conquer the world, here are four blog posts that left the most impressions on me recently.

Day 100: The Top Ten Things I Learned In the Last 100 Days by Harmony Hasbrook on 100 Days or More

Read this because: In October, my friend Harmony quit her job to take a break of at least 100 days from the work force. And the best part is she blogged during her entire journey and this weekend she reached day 100 and shared the top ten things she learned along the way. And it’s good.

20 Bloggers to Watch in 2012 by Jade Craven on ProBlogger

Read this because: Even though we all know that I’m the best blogger in the world (wait a minute…), here’s a list of 20 bloggers who are going somewhere and the best place to keep track is on their blogs.

My top picks:

1. Stratejoy
2. Life After College
3. It Starts With

The Five Must-Dos for CEOs in Social Media by Chris Perry on Forbes

Read this because: Whether you’re a CEO or not, you’re the CEO of your own life. Whether or not you tweet from a profile that discloses that your tweets are your own, everything you say on social media is an extension of your life, your personal brand, your professional brand, and even the company who employs you. Be smart about what you say.

The Worst New Year’s Resolution: Network More by Dana Hughens on Clairemont Communications blog

Read this because: You want to know the real cost of that casual coffee date, lunch meeting, or that time when someone asked to ‘pick’ your brain.

You will benefit from reading this article because: You are a service provider or are job hunting and want to contact some people for ‘informational’ interviews.

Additional reading material: No You Can’t Pick My Brain. It Costs Too Much by Adrienne Graham on Forbes

What did you read this week?

Photo Credit: Brendan Lynch

Today was New Year’s Day observed, which meant I had the day off work and since Johnny was working from home, that meant the day was all for me.

I slept in (yay!), had a home cooked breakfast with the man, ran off to meet another friend for coffee and to talk about our year ahead, had lunch with one of my truest, most amazing friends, made it to CrossFit (deadlifts, hang snatches, and overhead squats, oh my!), and am now enjoying some writing time. This year rocks already.

Put Your Goals Somewhere That You Can See Them

In following my track record of making goals and achieving them, the sure-fire way for me to fall flat on my face and not get something done is to write out a set of goals and then hide them. Sure, this works really well when cleaning my desk and I find my goals stacked between that book I didn’t finish and that notebook that has pages left unfilled (surprise!). And even though when it happens, I’m usually surprised by how many of those goals I actually accomplished. And while it’s been proven that the very act of writing down goals increases your likelihood of achieving them, it’s hard to be unintentionally intentional.

So this afternoon I went through my goals for the year and picked three things that I want to make sure I carry with me through the year. They are my goals, mantras, and things that could be roadblocks between achieving my goals this year.

From there, I wrote down five or six things for each category on index cards and literally pasted them to the wall of my office.

I used the red light/green light approach to organizing these three categories:

• Goals on green cards, as that’s where I want to go.
• Mantras on yellow cards, as I’ll probably be stalled when I need to remember them.
• Roadblocks go on pink cards, as those are things I need to stop doing.

Test the Red Light/Green Light Approach to Goals

Green Light Goals

I have three main goals for the year and two things that I need to do more of.

Goals:

1. Give 100% to building my day job (kick ass in my position at a startup)
2. CrossFit three times a week (build strength)
3. Write every day (blog)

Do more of:

1. Get a full night’s sleep
2. See friends and family (socially)

Yellow Light Mantras

Mantras, sayings, and expressions to keep you centered. These are my favorite and I’m putting them on my wall to keep myself accountable and remember what’s important to me. I’ll probably add more as the year goes on (or not).

Mantras or things to help ground me throughout the year:

1. Value myself, my time, my skills
2. Kick ass every day
3. Trust my gut
4. If things aren’t right, change it
5. Speak less of my plans – do more
6. Do one thing every day that scares me

I’ve actually started writing down the thing I do each day that scares me as another way to keep myself accountable, and because I’m curious to see what that says about me a year later. Doing one thing that scares me every day is not about going skydiving, but something like going to a networking event, alone, where I don’t know anyone and introducing myself. Would you do that on a normal day? If the answer is, “no,” then that could be your one-thing.

Red Light Potential Roadblocks

These are things that I recognize might prevent me from meeting my goals. Since I’ll be looking at these cards every single day, I didn’t want to write, “Don’t say yes” or “don’t be fearless” when I need to have a list of things that I should do to prevent the roadblocks. If that doesn’t make sense, read this blog post by Jeff Baumgarten, 30 Things…To Do (Riff).

Potential Roadblocks:

1. Say, “No.”
2. Don’t make excuses
3. Don’t commit to projects that aren’t my own
4. Be fearless
5. The Mayans are wrong

Fearing the end of the world is no reason to keep me from meeting my goals.

Will this work?

To be honest, I don’t know. But I’m going to try it. I also have some friends who have signed up to help me stay accountable.

How do you make sure you meet your New Year goals?

There are two kinds of end of the year/New Year blog posts to write. The first is a reflection of the previous year – everything you did, everything you didn’t, what you’re proud of, and what you’re not. And the second is a laundry list of “do’s” and “don’ts” for how to make the next year rock much harder than the last.

And then there’s a third, which doesn’t reveal anything about the writer but gives you, the reader, a map of how you can stick to your resolutions for the first time ever.

Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work Out

New Year’s Resolutions are like plans – you write them for how you’re feeling (usually fat) at that time (post-holidays) for the future (that has yet to be written) – and they never work out. They look great on paper, but horrible in execution because they all lack one thing – foresight and the understanding that you have to sacrifice something to accomplish what you need (and the ability to adjust to continue the momentum).

Instead of resolutions or plans, I make goals. I did this unknowingly as I entered 2010 and consciously as I entered 2011. I met the three goals I set in 2010 but not all of the goals I set for myself in 2011. While all of this past year’s goals looked great in December 2010, by mid-2011, an imbalance between work and life happened and parts of those goals were prioritized while others were not. Plus I set too many goals.

I don’t feel like 2011 was a failure, but just plain weird. In the Christmas letter John and I sent to our family, I summarized the year as one of “change,” and by God, if that isn’t true.

2011 started with a lot of oomph, passion, and excitement as things were set in place that I had been working hard towards achieving in the previous year and a half. But I got burnt out early, outgrew that opportunity faster than I imagined, and a new opportunity revealed itself and I jumped on it. If 2011 was a shape it would look like a giant “U” with a big, deep dip in the middle.

A New Template for Plotting World Domination in 2012

Earlier this week, my husband and I spent the evening working through Benny Hsu of Get Busy Living’s 2011 Year in Review Worksheet. What I like about his template is it focuses on how the previous year ended so you can reflect on what you’re proud of, what you accomplished, what you learned, what didn’t work, and where you’d like to see yourself in the future.

Benny’s worksheet helps you see where you want to go by reviewing where you came. It’s similar to racing a car – they say that you should look at where you want the car to go, not at the wall that you don’t want to run into.

Goals, plans, and strategies are the same way – look at where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go.

2011 was the U-shaped Year of Imbalance, Burnout & Change

And because I am who I am, there are many times where I bent the template and added a few extra items.

10 greatest things that happened in the past year:

1. Getting a new job (Jolkona) and off unemployment
2. Attending SXSW
3. Investing in my blog, especially during November
4. Quitting my job, getting a new one (Scrappy Face)
5. Finding a treatment that worked on my shoulder (I’ve been trying to rehab bursitis and tendonitis in my right shoulder since injuring it in July 2010)
6. Vacation to Iowa to visit extended family and anniversary trip to Victoria, B.C.
7. Publishing my first article on Mashable
8. Big, awesome, amazing year for networking
9. Building an incredible, strong team while at Jolkona (and kicked ass at that job)
10. Date night with John every Friday night
11. Seeing how happy my husband is since he started drawing again 

I am most proud of these three accomplishments last year:

1. My writing and my blog
2. Getting recruited out of my last job to join my current one
3. Making a name for myself
4. Reluctant patience with my shoulder (it’s really hard to treat an injury when you don’t know what really went wrong…)

Three great lessons I learned from last year are:

Listen to my gut, because:

1. If something is wrong, change it – don’t wait for it to fix itself; it won’t
2. Do what’s best for me and my family
3. If I can’t make it through a CrossFit workout due to lack of focus, than something is probably wrong outside of CrossFit.

Three personal developments I have made in the past year are:

1. Knowing that I’m really a writer
2. Trusting that my background, experience, and skills are valuable
3. Learning how to manage people and a team

If I could do things again last year, I would do these three things differently:

1. Quit my previous job sooner
2. Prioritize my writing earlier in the year (and continuously throughout the year)
3. Be more aggressive about finding the right treatment for my shoulder

Three things I need to do less of next year are:

1. Making excuses for what I really want (or don’t want) to do
2. Saying “yes”
3. Committing, volunteering, and helping out with too many projects that aren’t my own

Three things I need to do more of in the next year are:

1. Get a full night’s sleep
2. Write!
3. Go to CrossFit
4. See my friends and family

Three things I need to stop doing completely next year are:

1. Making excuses
2. Volunteering for projects that aren’t my own
3. Under-valuing myself

Three reasons I didn’t achieve my goals in the past year are:

1. I set too many goals
2. Life happened, priorities changed
3. I didn’t have as much control over my schedule as I thought I did due to work and not setting boundaries

Three goals I want to achieve next year are:

1. I want my blog (or my writing) to be a destination
2. I want to have a national speaking engagement
3. I want to lead the Scrappy Face movement
4. I want to be able to do a strict pull-up

Three reasons why I want to achieve these goals are:

1. I’ve been writing since I was 8 and I’m damn good at it
2. I want to achieve these goals and I know I can
3. I’ve been wanting to lead a movement since winter of 2009, before I worked in social media
4. It’s time to be strong again

Smartest decision I made last year:

I quit my last job.

Biggest risk I took last year:

I accepted a new job and a new startup.

One sentence that sums up this past year:

2011 was harder than it should have been.

One year from right now, I want my ideal day to look like this:

Wake up with John and have a home-cooked breakfast (meaning not eating on the bus or on-the-go). Head to the park and ride and take the bus downtown. The first half of my day will be dedicated to writing, blogging, working on the movement or other marketing projects for the Scrappy Face brand. I will never eat alone. Afternoon will be dedicated to client work. After work, I’ll head to CrossFit then head home to have dinner with John at the table and not in front of the TV. After dinner I’ll write for an hour or two before heading to bed.

The weekends will be mine. I will not work on the weekends but play. Sundays I’ll write.

2012 is the Year of Kicking Ass, Writing & Building Strength

And there you have it, my year in review. That last question was so hard for me to write because it asked me to look so far into the future (a year, I know!) and imagine what might be. Up until that question, this template was my best friend.

2011 had a few themes: work, burnout, and battling an injury. 2012 will have three themes as well: kicking ass at my current job (I am helping build this company and studying for how I will build my own), writing, and getting stronger at CrossFit.

That’s it.

There will be awesome details that will create an amazing rollercoaster across the year, but those three things are what I’m focusing on: my work, my passion, and my body.

That’s it.

Hey, 2012, I’m ready to kick ass with you.

Two questions for you:

1. Fill out Get Busy Living’s Year In Review template. Did it reveal anything to you?
2. If you didn’t, what’s one goal that you’re planning to achieve in 2012? What are you planning to make happen?

Thank you, Benny Hsu, for this awesome worksheet, and Alexander the Great for introducing me to it.

Photo Credit: ayeshamus

Much love,
Laura, John, and Strong Santa

Original artwork illustrated by John Kimball

Last week marked my 5-week anniversary since joining the Scrappy Face team and a few exciting things happened: We officially launched!

What does that mean?

Well, Scrappy Face had been “stealth” until they quietly started telling people about it via Twitter in the fall and then I joined in November, but meanwhile we hadn’t really “opened our doors.” But launching a service-based company is a little tricky. There’s no big, red ribbon to cut like a brick-and-mortar store or a landing page to drop from your website if you’re a tech startup launching a product, you just do business. And that’s what we’ve been doing.

So we shouted-it-outloud via Twitter, Facebook, and our blog last week and speciflcally through the first blog post I wrote for Scrappy Face: The Unofficial Official Launch of Scrappy Face.

I’m really proud of that post; you should read it.

Have a happy weekend!

It takes thirty days to form a habit and three days to break it. In other words, life happened, so get over it.

And even though my week was sans blogging, it doesn’t mean that others were not. So here you are four articles of substance and two that are (mostly) just for laughs.

Princesses, Courage, more Hipster Entrepreneurs, and Highly Connected People

Totally Stupid Shit I learned from Disney Princesses by Therese Schwenkler on the Unlost

Read this because: You grew up watching Disney movies and devouring teen magazines to tell you that you were normal and not a unique freak.

Spoiler alert: It’s okay. But Ms. Schwenkler is here to help you unlearn all that (and still appreciate the beauty within the beast).

Courage isn’t always glamorous. Actually, it almost never is. by Jenny Blake on Life After College

Read this because: You live in a world where you are required to embrace what you’re passionate about, give your finger to ‘the man,’ and make your dreams real. You are supposed to push your own envelope, do one thing every day that scares the shit out of you, and come out on the other side smiling. Right?

Wrong.

And Ms. Jenny is here to set the record straight: “Courage is earned . . . through tears, fears, heartbreak, and failure. It’s messy. Ugly. Rocky. And you find your courage when you have no choice BUT to trust it.”

Bonus: Jenny’s blog is jam-packed with advice on how to keep the post-college journey on the right track. And the best part? This advice comes from a person who’s in the thick-of-it herself.

Millennials are Born Entrepreneurs. Wait, Really? Commentators are claiming that Gen Y-ers and Millennials are start-up naturals, and great salespeople. Or are they just victims of circumstance? by Jessica Stillman on Inc.com

Read this because: The hipster entrepreneur conversation keeps going and each writer is going one step further. Instead of exploring what they are and if they are entrepreneurs or not, this article is starting the obvious – what if there isn’t anything special about millennials, but they’re just victims of a shitty economy and the end of the traditional job market that our baby boomer parents knew and thrived in?

My question to the writer: Aren’t all generations victims of the circumstances that are happening around them?

The 12 Habits of Highly Connective People by Valeria Maltoni featuring wisdom of Anil Dash on Conversation Age

Read this because: You’re an open or a closet connector who gets giddy when you get the opportunity to introduce one person to another. Bonus if the two had no idea the other existed or why they needed to know each other (but thank you profusely for the connection after).

May the 90s Rest in Peace and White Girls on Facebook

10 Things 90s Kids Will Have To Explain To Their Children by Chelsea Fagan on Thought Catalog

Read this because: You grew up in the 90s and you forgot about the Tamagotchi, Topanga, and how much you “wanna really really really wanna zig a zig ahh.”

Now slam your body down and rub it all around.

15 Things White Girls Love To Do on Facebook by Mary on 25 Pills a Day

Read this because: It went “viral,” is hilarious, and no, I won’t admit to which items I enjoy doing.

Warning: Mary’s a firecracker, and her rants about life may turn into your new guilty pleasure.

What did you read this week?

Photo Credit: zandwacht

Hi, my name is Laura and I have not blogged in three four days. And last night I composed this blog while sitting next to my mom – who doesn’t read my blog and completely missed NaBloPoMo this year – on the couch at my sister’s house in New Jersey, and there’s a baby coo-ing, laughing, and desperately needs his awesome auntie to play with him. Today, Sunday, is my nephew’s first birthday. Last year I spent the last half of NaBloPoMo writing blog posts on my sister’s couch while we waited for my nephew to arrive, and it’s kind of surreal that now, a year later, we’re here and our family has this amazing, gorgeous baby boy in our life. Wow.

So before I get back to some much needed and awesome family time, here are some informative and fun stuff that’s been floating around the Internet this week.

Four Blog posts about Facebook Trends, Millennials, Failing, and Whining

Some Observations About 2011′s Most Shared Articles On Facebook by Tac Anderson on NewCommBiz

Read this because: You’re dying to know which celebrity or famous cat dominated conversations on Facebook this past year.

Spoiler Alert: It’s neither, but you’ll feel better about visiting this website every single day.

Understanding What It Means to Be a Millennial by Mike Krass

Read this because: You can’t get enough of the conversation about how the millennials are all hipsters who dream of entrepreneurship. Mike does a great job of taking the conversation one-step further and throwing the responsibility back on us – now that we want to be entrepreneurial, what steps are we doing to make that happen?

When Death Feels Like A Good Option by Ben Huh

Read this because: The best way to learn about success is through failure, and, as Ben Huh, the founder and CEO of Cheezburger Network, says, “Failure is an option, and a real risk. Failure and risk something entrepreneurs understand well, and learn to manage. However, death isn’t an option, it’s an inevitability. And before I die, I want to take as many swings at the fence as I can.”

Great advice for entrepreneurs, pre-entrepreneurs, and anyone.

Startups Are Hard. So Work More, Cry Less, And Quit All The Whining by Michael Arrington on Uncrunched

Read this because: We all like to whine and be that person at the party who stayed up until dawn working on a great project, hasn’t taken a vacation in three years, and is working too much – but all while doing something we’re passionate about, something that’s great. Whining is a ‘badge of honor’ in some circles and we need to get over ourselves and just stop.

Bonus: This reality check may make you shut up and become a better person.

And Two More for Fun

Clothes for your nerd boyfriend – Because you want the man in your life to look like the men who shaped modern hipsterism – like Jim Henson, Gene Kelly, the crew from Spinal Tap, Frasier Crane, Bob Marley, and Mathew Broderick.

The 25 Funniest Autocorrects OF DYAC’s First Year – In case you haven’t seen this already.

Just shared this with my parents. My dad said, “I’m so glad I don’t have an iPhone.” And my mom said, “That’s good. Will you send that to me?”

Consider these two things my gift to you.

Photo Credit: jencu

P.S. The cute kid reading the paper isn’t my nephew.