Sometimes falling on your face is the best way to grow as a person.  One of the things you may have noticed is that I haven’t been posting here regularly for quite some time.  The reason for this is that this site was my first attempt to create a blog.  Soon after launching it, I realized I had made a lot of mistakes in how I set it up…

My first mistake was buying a .com through WordPress.  This in itself isn’t the biggest mistake a person can ever make but it did limit my ability to add plugins.  Rather, in a very smart business move, WordPress requires you to purchase template upgrades for your website.  The online business podcasts that I listen to, however, have particular plug-ins that they recommend so I wanted to follow their directions in using the tools they recommend.  In particular, I wanted to install an email subscriber plugin so I could collect email addresses from people who are interested in the content for my site.

This mistake isn’t fatal because I soon realized I could migrate the URL to a separate server using a webhosting service.  So I signed up for a BlueHost account.  As I was searching for social media handles for this site, I came across mistake #2.

My second mistake was not searching for the social media handles first.  This lead to my third mistake, not searching for trademark usage.  When I searched for available social media handles, I found that a comedian named Kirsten Mc(something) had trademarked “Kirsten MC.” Immediately, I realized that I had to choose a different URL or potentially be faced with a lawsuit at some point.  So not only were the social media handles not available I didn’t want to break the law in continuing blogging on this kirstenmc.com site.  I guess this comedian hasn’t chosen to register the .com so maybe isn’t planning to launch a website but regardless I could be infringing her trademark.  As I lawyer, I know it isn’t worth dealing with that legal headache so I put on my thinking cap about possible alternative URLs.

Now you might be thinking: “Why don’t you just use your first and last name like so many other people?”  Good question…I could absolutely do that but as you may have noticed I have a very long name.  Since many social media handles don’t allow for so many characters, I would again be faced with figuring how to identify myself shorthand just to sign up for those.

This brings me to my fourth and final mistake…overcommitting myself to my many simultaneous side projects.  In committing to a weekly blog, I realized that although I am absolutely confident that I can produce a weekly blog on the side of my full time job, I also realized that there are a number of other projects that I want to make progress on that require tons of my time.  These various side projects include: revising my dissertation into an academic book manuscript, writing and publishing academic articles regularly, finishing writing my first young adult novel, and continuing to grow my little side business relating to anti-aging products.

Given the fact that my hours outside work are limited, I realized that the best way to move forward on all of these goals is to clone myself.  The thing is that’s not a realistic option (and really…it would require a lot of ethical consideration if it were) so I decided to ask my sisters to see if they would collaborate with me on my next website.  This option has several advantages: first, it would enable me to share the responsibility for creating content with both of them; and second, it provides an opportunity for each of us to offer our various perspectives on how to move from surviving to thriving.

So on to the VERY exciting announcement! 

My sisters, Rachel and Naomi, and I have been working behind the scenes on our next website: www.possibilify.com and IT IS NOW LIVE!

I’ve migrated all of these blog posts over to that site and will be releasing them weekly so some of you may see the same posts again at different points.  But already my sisters and I have created new content for that site and I’m really excited to have you check it out and let us know what you think.  We have always talked about starting a business together so this is a really exciting new project that we are working on together.

My sister Rachel is hilarious, entertaining and loves sharing her views on everything to do with health, mindset and getting through each day with laughter, creativity and, at times, clumsy awkwardness. She is a teacher, entrepreneur, mother to two amazing humans and brings just a perfect blend of wisdom and whackiness to the world.

My sister Naomi is an IT whiz, top performer and leader at a national software company.  She is a wonderful, kind sister and mother of two amazing little people.  In addition to bringing her knowledge of leadership and management, Naomi also designed a really awesome website (she even knows how to code!). So please check out version 2.0 of this blog at possibilify.com and subscribe there (yes, Naomi has even attached an email subscribe system!) for updates on our latest blogs and videos.

So even though I made a ton of mistakes in setting up this blog, it has been totally worth it. Without those mistakes, I wouldn’t have been able to learn what I needed to learn in order to launch the new website.

P.S. I won’t be adding to the content on this website anymore so I invite you to join our community at possibilify.com.  As someone who has seen version 1.0 here, I would love to hear your thoughts about the new website.