No Archives - Ra'Co Life

Making mistakes is part of the journey of life and in some way is the more educational route. Often you will learn a new life lesson along the way. But so many of us get caught up in the concept of perfection forgetting that perfection doesn’t lead to a rounded experience overall and that allowing mistakes to happen via risk is often the most important hidden reward.

Remember to be conscious as your mistake is made, or to reflect on it after the fact if you are not aware during. Be thoughtful about honoring your time and energy required to figure out how you got there and how you will get out of it. Often your intentional path will be adjusted based on your new found learnings.

An act or thought that unintentionally deviates from what is correct, right, or true.

I left Hospitality Services, Inc work full time for myself building a design studio and to give it a try with a business partner and best friend. We had dreams of building a product line in her namesake and creating a sustainable business. She had no business experience or investment capital and she was weary about getting involved. I pushed her to do something out of her comfort zone and to focus on sweat equity instead of HEARING her say, “No.” The end result was what you would expect; a loss of a 12 year old friendship and a product line in her name that she had no desire to do anything with. We parted ways.

Learning: What I learned from this was to listen better and to really HEAR people. I get it now when someone says, “No” and I back away willingly.

My new path due to my mistake: I realized my friend and I had co-dependent friendship that wouldn’t stand the test of time, and letting it go enabled me to walk away and build a new set of healthy friendships. One of those relationships was Kurt. Another piece of this was realizing that I didn’t want to have a lifestyle product line or to invest in building a brick n’ mortar operation. I wanted to be free from all boundaries to travel and explore. I moved to London right after the end of our business, then onto Ithaca, Beacon, New York City and finally Guatemala.

My first word was “ball” or “no” I can’t remember. Either way, I know that I was a NO person from the start. It was my main vocabulary and I think to this day I have always enjoyed the slow and pronounced way that the word rolls off my tongue, “Nnnnnnnnoooooooo”. It is very flavorful and entertaining to say. I think it is also a little bit of an instant reaction. Someone says they like something and negative nelly me, says, “No” in a very satisfactory and matter of fact way. I mean business by saying “No.”

But what I am finding is that in my professional and adult world I have learned to say “Yes” more often than not. I think that this started working for my first big girl job with a man named Allan because he was a “Yes-Man.” Although, even beyond Allan, I have carried the tradition over of wanting to help and do good by all people… clients included. So, my “No” has become a very distinct, “Yes!” in almost all circumstances (really its just that I don’t want to miss out on any potential experience).

Two things have happened as a result from this: The first is that I am exhausted from all the things that I do now on a daily basis… again, I never want to say, “No” to an opportunity, so I am constantly scrambling around trying to make it work for my schedule and I have become a bit of a push over… a little too accommodating. The second thing that has happened, which is key, is that I have forgotten who I am and I am now having to real learn my life as a person from the “Yes” culture.

Now, thinking back as a child, I asked my parents if they can remember a time that I used the word “Yes” in any sentence? I feel as though I need to retrace my history and try to relearn the magical world of where I came from so I can rediscover my purpose in life. It was always to be a “No” person, I thought and to be self-directed and very conscious about my choices. But now in this new “Yes” culture I am finding that it is boundary-less and the possibilities are endless and undirected. I am just a feather blowing in the wind; sometimes it is a stronger wind I guess, but mostly I just float around.

And so I encourage each of you to join the pledge along with me to say, “Yes” to life and join into something new and bizarre that you never thought you would venture into.

You might have noticed that this post really doesn’t have a particular purpose, so like my new undirected lifestyle of the word, “Yes” this post is quite similar. No direction, no result, just the experience.

Tag: No

Ra’Co Tip: Mistakes

In the end the word is “Yes!”