The Fini Concierge Blog -- Revitalized!

The Fini Concierge blog has been dormant for many months but will have new life breathed into it with the help of other members of the Fini Concierge team. Now, instead of just hearing from me – Chantal, you’ll now have the opportunity to hear from other members of our team, including Allison Nadeau and Marissa Miller Bennett.

We look forward to continuing to share our experiences, tips and lessons learned with you through our blog – we hope you’ll enjoy reading it and please, we always want to hear from you, so send us your feedback!

Blending

I had the opportunity to attend the 4th Annual Pink Magazine Conference on October 14th. Panelists included Jody Adams, Rialto Restaurant and Bar, Irene Chang Britt, Campbell USA, Julie Gilbert, Best Buy and Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Carlson Cos. The panel focused on what made each of these women so successful and the lessons learned along each of their journeys. I took away many interesting lessons from the discussion, more of which I will share in future posts. I think that their wisdom is applicable to men and women and to people in all stages of their careers.

The inevitable question that always seems to be asked when professionally successful women are being interviewed is the whole issue of work life balance and how they manage to do both.

Blend and not balance was the way that Irene Chang Britt described her solution to answering the demands of work and family. Instead of trying to keep them separate, which for many of us (me included, especially when your husband is also your business partner!) is impossible. She gave examples of how she made choices to integrate the two, looking at all of it as her LIFE, not squeezing each activity into the work or personal category. She talked about how on many an occasion she took her daughter to work with her, utilizing the opportunity to talk with her about business and her role. People could view this as putting her work before her time with her daughter. But as a result her daughter has grown up with an amazing entrepreneurial spirit which has manifested itself into organizing her young peers into fundraising efforts to help the people in Darfur.

The idea of blending is in conflict with how many of us have worked and lived. There’s guilt about always “being connected” or keeping the Blackberry on the bedside table. Yet in reality the two are usually not separate. We form relationships and partnerships that transcend both the work and personal aspects of our lives, we meet business contacts at social events and through lessons learned at work become better friends, partners and parents.

Blending is a more flexible way to view life and truly more realistic. Most of us can’t turn off our thoughts about work just because we’ve left the office nor can we avoid personal aspects of our lives needing attention during our work day. Viewing life as a blend lets each of us off the hook from always worrying about which side of the scale we’re on.

Never Enough Time

It’s Sunday morning at 11:00, we have two choices – join our friends, who we haven’t seen in months, for brunch or tackle that long list of errands and huge pile of laundry that desperately needs to get done.

Its 7:30pm on a Thursday night – go to the gym for the first time this week or make it to the dry cleaner in time to pick up the clothes we need for our weekend away…and oh shoot, we’ve been so busy at work that we forgot to make that hotel reservation.

Never enough time and always an endless list of life’s details weighing on our minds.

These were the dilemmas of our everyday lives. And we knew we weren’t alone.

It was on those busy days that we would dream about how great it would be if there was a personal assistant for the ‘everyday’ person. Wasn’t there someone we could call on when we needed some help? Then we could see our friends for brunch and eat pancakes with ease because everything was being handled. Thinking about it was easy, but who was doing it?

We had a vision. We would create the solution.

Since that “A-Ha” moment, its become our life’s calling: helping others escape the torment we often felt . Our model has always been grounded in the idea that we wanted to create a choice, free from hassle or complications, for people to live with less stress and more time to do the things they wanted to be doing. These were and continue to be our motivation for Fini Concierge – a company providing personal assistance on an as-needed basis.

Today, we have three years of experience behind us and know that we’ve helped to change many people’s lives for the better.

We’re excited to share how we’ve helped our clients lead less stressful lives and gain more enjoyment out of daily living. Although we still often struggle to figure out the balance in our own lives (we thought we were busy then!), we plan to share with you what the concierge industry is all about, plus the successes and lessons we’ve encountered on our own journey of building a business.

Can you identify with the torments of busy daily life – with too much to do and never enough time? We’d love to hear your experiences and what solutions you use to minimize your stress and enjoy life more.

Chantal and Eddie