Health & Wellness Enthusiast, Freelance Writer, Entrepreneur

January 4, 2013 Business, Life No comments

Hi! If you’re looking for Karen Friend Smith – you found me! Congratulations!

This is a quick way to access me – my latest projects, online profiles, random thoughts, sample writing and resume.

I’m a busy entrepreneur with a passion for helping people live healthier lives. Why? Because we need it! Things are moving so fast & there is some crazy stuff happening out there – food, health, stress….it’s a mess really. So many of us are struggling to ‘be healthy’ and I’ve spent the last several years becoming a master at health, nutrition, and lifestyle design.

You’ll find my most recent stuff at The Kitchen Skinny and The Kitchen Skinny Menus - where I provide inspiration, coaching, and practical tools for healthy living.

You’ll also find me working on business projects at Hatch - a company that specializes in helping businesses & organizations tackle important projects.

If I can help you or your business increase productivity with my expertise in:

  • health & wellness
  • food & nutrition
  • entrepreneurship & lifestyle design
  • content marketing
  • customer delight
  • community building

…let’s connect.

Because I’m Thankful

December 31, 2012 Home, Life No comments
iStock_000006614244XSmall

A few years back, I went to the taping of a Dr. Phil Show. (Long story) Before the show started, the guy that gets the audience all fired up before the show went around and asked people to name three things that make them happy. It was funny because I kind of panicked.

What if he sticks the microphone in my face? What will my answer be? Quick! Think of something! What three things could I throw out that would sum up my happiness?

Most people answered quickly with things like…my husband, my kids, my health, my friends, etc. My mind raced as I hoped for three things to rise to the top of my mind and the tip of my tongue.

To my surprise, I couldn’t come up with ANYthing. I was panicked. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I think of 3 things that make me happy?

Thankfully, the microphone didn’t make its way to me and I wasn’t forced to make something up, but it did make me ponder this question in the back of my mind for the next several days.

What makes you happy?

It should be easy to answer that question, right? After all, if you don’t know what makes you happy, how can you BE happy? Still, the answers just weren’t coming to me.

That’s when I remembered one of my dad’s favorite sayings… “If you don’t like the answer you’re getting, change the question!”

Maybe the reason I couldn’t name three things that make me happy is because I know it’s not things that make you happy.

I could say my kids make me happy, but they can also be the very thing that makes me feel my lowest. I could say my extended family makes me happy, but they can also be at the heart of my deepest frustrations. I can say that my health makes me happy, but I know lots of people suffering health issues. Are they not allowed to be happy? What happens if I lose my health? Will I also lose my happiness?

After further pondering the question of what makes me happy, I had a pretty profound realization.

You see, my husband doesn’t make me happy. What makes me happy is spending as much time as possible in a relationship with someone where we can both be totally 100% ourselves. My kids don’t make me happy. What makes me happy is knowing my life has meaning and that I have something to contribute. My health doesn’t make me happy. What makes me happy is the freedom to act without hesitation upon my own thoughts – to not be held back.

What makes me happy is ME! Self expression is the source of my happiness. It all comes from within me…not from outside.

It’s not those things (husband, family, health) that I can name that make me happy. In fact, I think it’s actually the opposite. Those things are not the SOURCE of my happiness, they are the RESULT of my happiness. They are the expression of my happiness.

So, the question shouldn’t be “What makes you happy?” A better question would be, “What is the manifestation of your happiness?” To which I would reply…healthy relationships, purposeful living, and internal stillness.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, it got me thinking about how the same principles apply to gratitude.

Much like my experience at the Dr. Phil show…there is always the inevitable moment at our Thanksgiving table when someone will raise the question, “What are you thankful for?”

What will my answer be? What am I thankful for this year?

Yep, you guessed it. It’s time for a different question.

Here’s my thought:

We tend to act based on our emotion. We wait for something to happen and then we are ‘thankful’ for it. But if we rely on things to make us feel thankful, we’ve just handed over one of our greatest powers…the power to generate thankfulness from within. After all, how can you be thankful that someone you know is sick? How can you be thankful that a hurricane just swept through your city? How can you be thankful that someone just cut you off on the freeway.

You can’t.

But what if you were thankful first?

What if this Thanksgiving rather than completing the sentence, “I am thankful for…” you instead finish the sentence, “Because I’m thankful, I…”

It really tweaks your thinking, doesn’t it?

Thanksgiving is a great time to practice thankfulness. It’s the time of year when we all stop to focus on what we are thankful for. But the true spirit of Thanksgiving is not in digging up things to be thankful for…it’s in looking for ways to express your thankfulness. It’s recognizing what you have and reaching out to others to give back.

Thankfulness is only as good as its expression. So, this year as you ponder what you’re thankful for…ask yourself a better question.

Ask yourself how you will muster up the spirit of thankfulness within yourself, in spite of what is going on around you.

Ask yourself what you’ll do to express thankfulness out in the world.

Find ways to finish the sentence, “Because I’m thankful, I…”

My Naked Resume

June 30, 2011 Business, Home No comments
Resume

I’m always telling people to use ‘real’ words when they write. Be real. Talk like a real person. Yes, even in business…ESPECIALLY in business! That’s what I mean by ‘naked’ writing.

Remember the story of the Emperor’s Robe?

Well, somewhere along the way, we’ve let ourselves become ‘fooled’ into thinking that we have to use certain ‘professional’ words and phrases in a certain format in order to appear ‘wise’ and that only ‘stupid’ people use small words.

Nowhere is this kind of ‘pretending’ more evident in business than in resume writing.

I have always hated resumes. I hate writing them. I hate reading them.

For me as an entrepreneur, the meaning of the resume eludes me. I mean, really, can a one-page summary capture the essence of who you are and the myriad of projects and experiences you’ve been involved with over a career? Can a list of carefully selected strong verbs really convey whether someone should take the time to interview you?

Not to mention, they are just a BORE! A bore to read and a bore to write!

As I’ve been building my freelance business writing client base, I frequently run into people and projects sites and social profiles that want you to upload your resume.

Oh, the torture!

I operated my last business for eight years before selling it, so I haven’t had any cause to put my resume out there in over a decade. Still, it had to be done. So I brushed mine off and got busy studying the latest in resume writing. (When you consider the changes that have taken place in business during this last decade, I am dumbfounded that we’re still using resumes in the same way and the same format that we’ve been using for decades! Seems really strange to me. Why haven’t we figured out a better way? But I digress. That is a topic for another day!)

It’s unavoidable. You just can’t ‘survive’ out there in the working world without a functional resume.

As I recently stared at the blank screen pulling together all of my ‘power’ words, my professional jargon and business terminology, ready to begin the dreaded writing of my resume, I had an ‘ah-ha’ moment.

What’s with all of these corporate words? Where’s my personality? Where my voice? What’s missing here?

Me! That’s what’s missing! Where’s the ‘me’ in this resume?

That’s when I decided to scrap the terminology and just talk like a real person. Suddenly, writing my resume became fun! I used real words. As you read it, you can hear my voice. You can see an image of me in your mind.

That’s what a resume should do!

The lesson? When you write, stop trying to sound like some corporate curmudgeon that sits in a cubicle and creates PowerPoint presentations if that’s not who you are. When you write for your business, be yourself! Use your own words! Stop trying to use words to influence your image. Instead, let your image influence your words.

Here’s my ‘naked resume’. Let me know what you think! Wanna work together?