Diona’s Favorites

1. My Favorite Things

 
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2. Little Christmas Tree

 
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3. Christmas Time is Here

 
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Suzanne’s Favorites:

1. Baby, It’s Cold Outside

 
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2. Sleigh Ride

 
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3. Mary’s Boy Child

 
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Jill’s Favorites:

 
1. Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel

 
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2. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

 
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3. Breath of Heaven

 
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Lipstick and Laughs, our three woman trio, raises this very question. Our “keynote concert,” which is basically a hybrid model of speaking and performing original songs, explores the idea of our life playing as a song on the radio and asks the question – how does it sound?

• Is the song confident like  ”I’m Sexy and I Know It“?
• Is it happy like “I’m Walkin’ On Sunshine?”
• Is it lonely and forlorn like “All By Myself ? “

Our songs over the years, change. In fact sometimes they can change on a dime and go from the highest highs to the lowest lows?

What do we do if we hate the song we’re hearing?

What can we do to shape the tone of these songs?

As we explore this notion, we encourage our audiences to be open to the possibility of making changes if what each of us hears doesn’t match our deepest hopes, dreams and desires.  We look at the possibility of “re-writing” our songs by letting our inspiration lead us and our creativity take control in shaping a different future; one that is perfectly aligned with our hearts and souls.

We reinforce that ALL of us are creative beings, even though at times ouar own limiting beliefs might lead us to think otherwise. And we give practical ways that we can use our creativity to solve big problems, just as we do, sometimes without our even realizing it, to solve the small ones everyday.

Lastly, we acknowledge that the greatest leaps we can make come from taking the greatest risks, and we encourage and cheer our audiences on to help change their songs for better and give life to their dreams.

For a sample of our keynote, watch the video here.

But, are you beseiged with e-mail threads and countless draft documents that you can’t keep track of ? For our trio, Lipstick and Laughs, there are some tools and technology that we can’t do without.  They unclog e-mail threads and improve work productivity overall.

Here are just a few of the ones we use all the time.

1. Skype
Every proud grandmother or parent should be aware of this one. Skype is video conferencing software which lets you conduct virtual face to face meetings. Skype, for us, has had its share of quirks and mishaps. Maybe it’s because the bandwidth isn’t quite enough yet to handle the distance between us when we Skype together. We are linking in from three cities.. Nashville, Boston and Iowa. Needless to say, that’s a lots of info going hither and thither. We’ve had many a “frozen screen” and many times we just default to good old regular voice communication because of it.

In order to get the three-way call feature, you have to upgrade to Skype premium or pay an extra $4.99 for the day, which can add up if you use it a lot.

I-Chat is another another tool, but that has had its limitations for the same reason.

2. Dropbox
This is a virtual “file folder” in the cloud. We share our endless series of draft, to-do lists, marketing plans, ideas, newsletter text, songs, charts here. I personally love DB’s simplicity and clean interface. There is no confusion and it makes it a pleasure to work. You can install the desktop app or you can use the web version of it. It also has wonderful integration with other Apple apps,  so if you want to add something to the Dropbox, you can do so from the drop down menu bars or in the print section.

3. Evernote
I’m starting to use this one a ton. It’s like Dropbox in that it’s integrated really well with other Apple software. If you want a very cool, clean and reliable way to shift from a paper notebooks to a virtual ones, you must check this app out. Here again, the interface is intuitive, clean and simple to use. There is a slightly higher learning curve, but it’s not a deal breaker. I use this for songwriting, organizing my blog content and for ideas collecting. Evernote is developing a lot of extra add-ons like Evernote clipper which can really ease workflow.

4. Google Calendars/ Google Docs
There are a plethera of free apps that Google provides when you sign up. You create an account and are given a free e-mail address to go onto their main on-line site. From your “dashboard” you can literally use their calendar, collaborate on docs. schedule meetings, go onto Google +. It goes a long way in integration and it’s free. Try it out.

These are just a few of the many tools out there to help people lead a global work life.

What are the ones you use and why do you like them?  We’d love for you to share.

Here’s a picture of my clan, along with my husband, John.  Sam is the adorable blonde, second to the left, helping celebrate his older brother, Christopher’s, 21st birthday.  John made a really good point one night a number of years back.  All four boys were still in the house and 3 of them were teenagers at the time.  He looked at me and said, “Honey, we have 4 boys and they share 1 brain……….. And we never knows who has it!”  Hilarious, but sadly true!

Right now it seems Sam is the one missing the brain, but he would argue that point with me for hours, along with the fact that the sky is not really blue (he’ll argue about pretty much anything right now!)  The truth is he will never see my point about certain things, just as I didn’t see my parents’ point when I was his age.  We have very different perspectives on life.  He’s living in the moment, and his moment in time is very different from my moment in time.  I’m worrying about things that he doesn’t give a thought to because, after all, he IS invincible and all those things I worry about will NEVER happen to him!   Hmmmm, I vaguely remember telling my mother the exact same thing many years ago.

It’s teaching me that life is about perspective.  These years that he thinks he never wants to end are ones that I can’t wait to get through!  I’m just plain tired!

Life is funny that way.  Your perspective regarding a problem or a situation in your life truly makes all the difference in the world.  One person faced with a problem dives headfirst in to try and find a way to solve it, while another person faced with the same problem quits and moves on to something else.  As Lipstick and Laughs, we’ve faced our share of obstacles and “problems” to overcome, mainly the fact that we live in three different parts of the country.  We’ve had to find creative ways to deal with that, and we’ve had to try and see it from a new perspective, find ways to make it work.  Skype has become our best friend and we love three-way calling on our cell phones.  It hasn’t been easy and we could have had the perspective that this could never work, but we decided to try to see all the ways we could make it work.  When you believe in something strongly, your perspective changes dramatically and no becomes just another obstacle to overcome.

While I know my son and I will be great friends again someday, right now I am okay with the fact that he probably isn’t going to like me a whole lot for a while.  I’m confident that his perspective will change one day, just as mine keeps evolving, and pretty soon we’ll be on the same planet again, where the sky really is blue!

Jill

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit it’s exhausting work, but I love it. Children are like sponges, and music is something they devour hungrily, all 387 of them.

Somedays, the lessons I have planned take on a life of their own and I’m just along for the ride. Sure, a perfectly executed lesson plan is a good thing, but sometimes the lessons go where they naturally want to go and I have no control over it. The kids’ inspiration are the driver of the inspiration bus, and I’m just the passenger. Most of the time the kids teach me more than I can imagine.

What they teach me is how to let my inspiration flow.

For example, one day in class we played a guessing game where the kids had to close their eyes, reach into a paper bag, touch an object and use words to describe what they were feeling with their hands. Their words were quite simple:  ”bumpy, sharp, fuzzy, smooth, squishy, soothing and cold.”

Then we sat “criss cross apple sauce” and listened to some music. They had to keep their eyes closed and describe what they heard.

One boy described Louis Armstrong’s “It’s A Wonderful World” as “springtime” and “soothing.”

A little girl described one of my original songs called “Lost in Boston”  like this: “I felt like I was driving around in circles, but then I was happy because the Red Sox won!”

Another boy heard Allison Krause’s “Down to the River to Pray” and said “I thought she was an angel.”

Every human being is “wired to be inspired,” from ones who are just turning 5 to the ones turning 95. Each one of us can tap into our own experiences and feelings and direct them to whatever we decide to do in our lives. Sometimes we “cut” these wires or forget we have them, but they’re inside of us.  Always.

I’d love to know what you think. Please feel free to comment below.

We’ll be covering (yeah, you guessed it) women’s issues. Everything from how to tap into your creative self, discovering or re-discovering the passions in your life, taking risks, facing challenges‚ anything that we think might add in helping women lead more happy, enriched lives.

We’re all in this together and we can be an invaluable asset to one another.

Welcome to our community.

Diona, Suzanne and Jill