Recently things have been a bit hectic. Work has been busy, life has been busy, and everything in between has been busy.

But it felt like I was spinning my wheels.

I guess I had already forgotten to live by my New Years Resolution.
And, to be totally honest, I had to deal with a really b*tchy and unappreciative client that was taking up so much of my time and making me feel really blue about my business. I’m sure if you’ve ever had a bad boss, or co-worker, or client to deal with, you know how it can be an experience that is hard to break away from.

So, like I try to do with everything, I had to turn my negative situation into a positive one.

But this time, instead of trying to make myself better I decided to really get into what was bothering me – and WOW, what an experience!

It turns out that I was falling back into some bad patterns, trying to please people that just want to complain and be negative (i.e. my client) and focusing so much energy on trying to win her over and try to make her see that I was doing something great for her. The more I did, the more she complained. So our project that was for a few hundred dollars and should have taken 3 weeks turned into a 3 month project, where I literally spent a hundred hours (i.e. thousands of dollars of my time) offering her more training, fixing up her graphic work, making other changes that I’d already told her would look bad. And the whole experience left me deflated after I offered to help her with some free training for 30 minutes, only to have her yell at me on the phone saying that she was not going to be told she only has 30 minutes to have her questions answered!

Trying to be super professional I dealt with the whole thing without breaking my professional tone and answered all her questions.

But it didn’t feel good.

And it really made me have a “blue” weekend where I had to really think about my business and what it was doing, and what it meant to me.

Luckily, I have a super supportive husband who spent the weekend chatting with me, looking at my business model with me, figuring out why this situation had me so upset. I also decided to delve into the whole experience on a deeper level by reading “Breaking the Pattern” by Charles Stuart Platkin.
The book focuses on how to help you take action in those areas where you feel like you’re stuck, or doomed to repeat negative experiences.

In my whole dealing with this client I was re-living my experiences as a kid, desperately trying to get my parents attention, and to be appreciated, and have my efforts be rewarded. The harder I tried to win my parents attention and affection, the less they were interested.

And I was re-living this whole experience with my client.

I have loads of other great clients that pay well, really appreciate all that my company does for them, and are dying to tell everyone they know about how good we are.

But I was falling back into the pattern of spending all my energy trying to please the people that don’t want to be pleased.

The whole experience was exhausting, but looking under the covers of it was fascinating…I had so many “AHA” moments over the course of the weekend!

And I was able to come up with a plan to help build a better business and a more rewarding life:

- focus on my main clients & the ones I enjoy working with
- pay a lot of attention to what happens when clients ask for my services, ask myself if they are a fit for me…if not, pass up the business.
- focus on more corporate clients, partnerships and other “top level” clients

You know what happened? With my newfound inspiration for my business and a deeper understanding of what my business kryptonite is I had a totally refreshed mindset. And on Monday morning at 9am I had an incredible meeting with one of my biggest clients ever. The kind of client you dream working with – who has a great business, who appreciates what you do and who really values your services.

What a difference some introspection, a little shift in my plans and re-affirmation that I “got it” via an excellent client meeting made!

In March of 2007 I had some major changes in my life. I ended a 5 year relationship that really didn’t seem fit into my dream life, and there was a lot of drama and bad stuff surrounding how it ended.

For me, I was ready to move on to bigger and better things and to find out what I really wanted out of my life.

So, I went into a big self discovery phase. I really wanted to know what I liked and didn’t like and figure out how I could get my dream life. I needed to try everything! I went on dates, with pretty much every type of guy there is. I played pretty much every sport there is too. I traveled a lot, I spent time with a wide variety of people, I exposed myself to different arts, music and influences. I was really hungry to take everything in.

I drank, danced, dated and dined my way from March 07 – January 08, and I was ready for a change.

But change was slow to come, and the weather wasn’t helping my discoveries. The winter of 2008 was terrible! It snowed so much and many of my weekend plans kept on getting cancelled and I was home bound. At the time I didn’t have a tv…it was just me and my laptop. I think I viewed all 7 billion web pages…I may have even found my way to the end of the internet!

I was also in a bit of a tight spot financially – I’d bought my first apartment and spent a bit more money than I should have on things that helped me settle into my new place. That meant I didn’t have extra cash floating around to spend on entertainment. I think I may have budgeted $100 for food and entertainment per week. Even going to the movies was a stretch for me!

So, with minimal entertainment, no money, and the weather working against me I decided to start writing stories on what I discovered in the past year. And wrote I did. I had about 200 entries logged into my computer.

But I had nowhere to put them. And when I found out how much it would cost to customize a blog template it just wasn’t possible. I was quoted $5,000. And for a hobby it was way too much money!

So, I just kept on writing my stories without thinking much of it.

And then I started dating someone who had web experience. After dating a few months he offered to help make my blog dreams come true – he offered to code it all up for me, as long as I gave him all the design files to implement.

So I worked with my designer friend, Angela – whose blog is here, who did up all the photoshop design files for me (thanks darling!). Once we had something we liked I handed it over to my boyfriend.

After a few months my blog was ready to go! It was an exercise in patience that’s for sure. Since my boyfriend (now fiancé) was doing it for free, and my requirements had changed a few times I realized that I couldn’t be demanding or really even ask “When is it going to be done” more than two times a month.

But it got done in a reasonable amount of time…and I’ve changed the look a few times too, so I couldn’t really complain!

Once it was up and running I started putting stories in. It was a very interesting experience. I’m not that open of a person, and writing details about my less than happy childhood was definitely a first! It pushed me a bit out of my comfort zone, but on a positive note I feel more comfortable speaking openly with people, and it’s really helped me come out of my shell. Especially for things that are tough to talk about.

So once I got more comfortable sharing stories online I wanted to update Cashmere Clutch more and more often.

It became not only a way to update friends and family, but also a creative outlet.

Instead of it being a once in while thing, it became something I wanted to do every day.

And that’s how Cashmere Clutch got started!

Learn about me here

I’m Ingrid and this is my blog about living well. I’m a girl that loves to live a good life and I LOVE fun….all within reason.

I’ve had some pretty crazy experiences in my life. I grew up in a log house on a sheep farm on the West Coast of Canada. I moved to Vancouver for high school, and then studied at the University of Montreal, the University of Toronto, and La Sorbonne in Paris. After living in France I moved back to Toronto only to be tempted by the foreign fruits again, and move to Seoul, South Korea. While living in Asia I traveled extensively. Lucky me – I got to visit Australia, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and Germany! Actually luck has little to do with it – it’s more like I had chosen to live a certain life and I lived that choice.

And it’s not that I came from a happy and rich family and I could afford to do anything I wanted. No, I had the opposite. I grew up an unhappy family and had a lonely childhood where it was understood that my parents were no longer interested in being parents and I was more of an inconvenience than a member of the family. We had very limited resources and dreaming of living an average North American life was considered disgraceful. I’ve certainly fought my battles to get to this great point in my life, and it’s been worth it!

And that’s really what this blog is about. Living a life that you choose, and not a life that just happens to you.

I believe in living a good life, with luxuries and indulgences, but in a very smart way. I focus on being inspiring, motivational, positive, passionate, creative, humourous, goal driven, fashionable, healthy and wise with money.

Within this blog I have sections on Fashion, Finance, Life Planning, Love & Sex, Simple Things, and Travel. I share some stories on the great life that I have, and also some stories on how I left my past behind and got to this great point in my life.

I hope you enjoy the secrets to living well with cashmereclutch.com

Enjoy!

Ingrid