Welcome to Unlock Your  Personal PR,

Years ago I attended a meeting of the California Writers Club, just south of the  San Francisco airport. While waiting to hear the speaker, who later became one of my closest friends, I listened to a writer presenting a short story about her ritual of going away by herself once a year for an entire month. “I could never do that,” I spilled. She said, “Sure you can.” Fast forward to now, seven years later. I’ve trekked quite a bit, and in excess of a month several times, but never “by myself.” This vignette planted the seed, and since then having my own space marinated my imagination, as chocolate sauce on a Sundae. My own space…

           Your own space… Can you imagine that? As a business owner, can you carve out personal space — to shape a business plan, to contemplate expansion, or to take a walk in the middle of the day? Can you take small steps to say, “’ I need my space,” without standing on ceremony, without devising “reasons,” or excuses. Can you, perhaps literally, stake out a few square feet of space that’s your own — where someone’s cell phone isn’t ringing at the next table, or the person you share an office with isn’t asking your opinion, or your husband isn’t walking into your home office to send a fax, or you receive a hour’s worth of emails without the red READ ME stamp.

           The upcoming book, Unlock Your Personal PR, How to Say “I Need My Space Without alienating Those Around You, examines personal space, how we lose it, and how you can reclaim it without sacrificing the camaraderie you’ve carefully built with the very people who now crave your presence, your counsel, and your attention.

Experts talk about time management. I’m talking about something more basic, more organic. I’m talking literally about losing your space, like losing your wallet, and then reclaiming it through aesthetic communication, without alienating your fans.   In this book, we’ll explore how we as women business owners waste space, like money, and how to collect it, again, as money, until its there, waiting for you, working for you, through messages, until you have an abundance of it and you can spend it as you wish.

           Recently, at lunch a colleague said to me and another woman business owner, “You women have the networking all figured out.” True, yet some of us have networked ourselves into over commitments, resulting in debt — debt to ourselves.

           Before we get further into debt, let’s take a look at where we are. Would you participate in a simple survey to identify where personal space fits into your life and your ability to express the need for it?

Please click here.