Are you an aspiring business owner? New York City provides an incredible array of free business resources to help you get your business off the ground. There are so many in fact, it can be hard to know where to focus your time.

These are my top 3 resources that I constantly direct people toward:

1) SCORE

SCORE is an amazing organization of retired executives that provides free one on one business mentoring. Mentors come from a wide variety of fields and provide expert guidance on topics ranging from business planning to marketing, ecommerce, accounting, legal and more. I met with an incredibly helpful marketing expert when I was first getting started. You can find a mentor here  or reach out to me if you’d like the name of the woman I worked with.

2) POWERUP!

The NYC and Brooklyn Public libraries run an annual business planning competition with cash prizes for the winners. This is a great way to build in motivation, accountability, and structure to finish your business plan. The program provide classes, templates, mentoring, and acccess to a number of other free resources available at the business libraries, not to mention the opportunity to network with other new business owners. Past winners include GreenLight Bookstore and a local business in my neighborhood, Prospect Gymnastics. Did I mention the first place winner gets a $15,000 cash price to start their business? Applications open in March and you can find out more about it here.

3) NYC Department of Small Business Services

NYC Department of Small Business Services runs free workshops almost every day on topics such as Business Planning Basics, SEO, Funding (crowdfunding, how to get a loan), Small Business Accounting, How to Sell to Government, the list goes on and on.

You can find out how to register as a Woman or Minority Owned Business and take advantage of great resources to help you scale. Did you know that SBS will help you recruit employees for your business (you know, that arduous task of screening resumes and send you a list of their top picks) AND reimburse you for a percentage of training costs for new employees. Check out their list of workshops here.

If you don't live in NYC, check out your local SBS and SCORE chapters and find out what resources are available at your own public library.

Do you have a resource you like? Let me know about it!

Below are 4 communication strategies that I wish were in every employee handbook.

1. ACKNOWLEDGE AND VALIDATE

Imagine this scene:

Your Account Manager comes to your desk (or messages you on Slack) at 12:30pm to check on the deck that was due at noon. It’s not done and it’s pretty clear that you’re going to miss the 3pm client deadline.

Account Manager says: “It’s late. This was supposed to be finished at noon.”

You answer: “We didn’t have enough time and we can’t show it because it’s not approved.”

Things go downhill from there.

Sound familiar? I’ve been in this exact situation dozens of times.

Imagine if you instead answered: “It makes sense you’re nervous because clients look to you when things are late.”

2. PREPARE FOR THE TOUGH QUESTIONS IN ADVANCE

If you anticipate that your teammates or your boss are going to ask tough questions, prep for them ahead of time.

Here are few questions that often come up at the end of a presentation:

• How are you going to build that?

• We love it, can we see the next round tomorrow?

• It’s not quite what we’re looking for, can we see 6 more options tomorrow?

• How much will it cost?

Plan out your answers ahead of time.

If the project is going to cost 5 million dollars and the budget is 2 million you might want to have a few speaking points prepared about why it’s worth the extra investment.

3. REFRAME THE SITUATION

If you go into a presentation or a meeting thinking it’s going to be terrible, chances are good that it will be a waste of time.

If you think of those meetings as an opportunity to show off your best skills, get creative, and collectively brainstorm, it will probably be more fun (and make your whole team look good).

Designers, your account or project manager is not asking you how it’s going because they want to drive you nuts. There’s a lot of business on the line and they have clients breathing down their neck. Think about how you can help them do their job better and the information you would want in their shoes.

And project managers, your designers aren’t ignoring you because they are ignoring your project. They’re working on it, along with the 10 other projects on their list. How can you help them prioritize?

4. USE I STATEMENTS

When you feel yourself getting defensive, try to steer clear of accusations like “You’re stressing me out" and use this formula:

I feel ________________(emotion) when you __________________ (do this action).

Going back to the example presented in Tip #1, this might sound like:

"I feel nervous when the deck is only 30% done and it’s due tomorrow."

It removes some of the finger pointing and allows all parties to take responsibility for how they’re feeling.

Want more help navigating the murky waters of difficult conversations? Download 4 Skills to Master Tricky Conversations.

Thanksgiving is supposed to be about gratitude but for many people seeing family can heighten tension and nerves (and seeing them on Zoom doesn’t necessarily make it any easier).

It’s easy to fall back into the patterns of your childhood and find yourself arguing with siblings or parents.

Here are a few helpful tips to respond thoughtfully, ease stress, and deescalate arguments.

1. ACKNOWLEDGE AND VALIDATE

When you feel your blood pressure rising and your voice getting louder, try this technique:

Stop the conversation and say:

“I want to take a moment and acknowledge we have different viewpoints. It makes sense you feel that way.”  

Acknowledging other people's reality is the quickest way to end an argument.

Note, this doesn’t mean you agree, but it does give each person permission to feel the way they feel.

Mastering this technique can be the difference between a holiday meal filled with arguing and virtual food fights, or friendly dinner conversation.

2. ADVANCE PREPARE FOR THE DREADED QUESTION

Your mother, aunt, grandparent is not asking you those questions to torture you, despite what it might feel like. They care about you, and are interested in what you’re doing, and unfortunately that sometimes shows up in the form of interrogating questions.

How’s your job search?

How’s business?

How’s single life?

Answer with something simple like “It continues” and pivot by asking them a question.

3. REFRAME THE SITUATION

If you go in planning to have a bad time, chances are you’ll have a bad time. So if you’re feeling uneasy about Thanksgiving dinner, how can you reframe the situation?

Is it an exercise to practice tolerance, use your best listening skills, fancy dinner and drinks?

4. USE I STATEMENTS:

When you feel yourself getting defensive, try to steer clear of “You’re stressing me out" or  "You’re pissing me off” and use this formula:

I feel ________________(emotion) when you __________________ (do this action).

It removes some of the finger pointing and allows everyone to take responsibility for how they’re feeling.

Want more tips on how to stop arguing with your family and work team? Grab 4 Skills to Master Tricky Conversations.

Public speaking is scary and even the most experienced speakers get nervous. The good news is public speaking is not a god-given talent.

It’s a skill that can be learned, just like softball or knitting.

The good news is you don't have to be a natural performer BUT you do have to practice.

The best way to get comfortable speaking in front of a group is to practice in front of a group. If that's more terrifying than you can imagine, here are a few easy tips to practice at home.

 

1. PRACTICE YOUR PRESENTATION IN THE MIRROR.

This is a great way to get immediate feedback and get used to seeing yourself speak. That might feel awkward but that's the point because once you get comfortable watching yourself, it will feel less scary when you stand up in front of other people.

 

2. PRACTICE YOUR PRESENTATION FOR A DOG.

Dogs make very understanding audiences. Check out this New York Times article: How to Give a Better Speech: Talk to a Dog

 

3. PRACTICE STANDING AND SPEAKING IN OPEN, POWERFUL POSTURES.

Watch Amy Cuddy's TED talk on presence Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are and try out power poses.

Want more tips? Download 7 Practice Strategies to Rock Your Presentation. They’re free!

My parents divorced when I was young and my sister and I spent our summers and school vacations in West Virginia at what I affectionately call Camp Dad, compulsory cooking and sports camp.

In the evenings, we walked to the public tennis courts a few clocks away. After tennis, we came home and played Boggle.

Boggle with Bob Schwarz was no ordinary game of Boggle.

We were allowed to use words we couldn’t define with one caveat – we had to look them up in the big blue Webster dictionary (yes, there were once printed dictionaries in a land far, far away).

My dad would take notes and quiz us at the next day’s Boggle game, not my favorite part of the game but it built character as he would say. And he credits our high SAT verbal scores to years of playing Boggle.

Starting at age 8, as part of the custody agreement, my sister and I had to write weekly letters to my dad and send school assignments from our classes.

We would send graded papers and he would send them back, with comments.

More than once, an A+ paper from a teacher returned from dad with a mess of red ink.

My dad was a journalist at the Charleston Gazette for 25 years and I credit him with my writing skills, love of language, and zealous proofreading tendencies.

I recently read Brené Brown's books Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection and was struck by her writing on perfectionism. She defines perfectionism as:

“A self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: “If I look perfect, live perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

That hit me like a ton of bricks. While I identified as being a perfectionist, I never identified perfectionism as being so debilitating.

Stepping back from perfectionist tendencies after a lifetime of practicing them is hard.

Sharing my imperfect self in a very public way is scary. So as I hit publish on this blog post with some trepidation, I am reminding myself (and Dad if you’re reading), there are worse things than typos.