The other night I was throwing a little pity party for myself.  Some friends who have “regular” jobs were all heading to Cork & Olive for the monthly Sip and Dip.  It’s such an awesome event; you try wines, eat some food from a local restaurant and mingle with neighbors and friends – and I wanted to go!

What was I doing, though?  You know it: working.  More specifically, I was reconciling my business bank account and sending out invoices.  I caught myself saying, “I don’t get to have any fun anymore!”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to eat them right back up.  Who was I kidding?  I couldn’t go to one Sip and Dip.  Big deal.  Not only will there be another one next month, there will most certainly be some sort of networking event within a couple days when food, wine and friendship will be part of the mix; and you know I’ll be there.  Our jobs as entrepreneurs are pretty great.  We get to have mingling, eating and drinking as an entry on our job description.

Plus, frankly (and weirdly), I love accounting.  I actually enjoy balancing the books and distributing bills.  In order to do those things, I must have some money coming in and what’s not to like about that?

This all leads me to believe that my definition of fun has changed.  Well, maybe the way I define fun hasn’t changed, because I still like to do the same things, but the way in which I go about having that fun is different.  And, I’m OK with that.  So bring on the calculator, the spreadsheet, and, okay, a glass of wine – what are you going to do tell my boss? – and let the fun begin!

I tried out for “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” recently, as did fellow biz-e-chick Jenni McKay.  (See Jenni’s blog entry about it here.)  It’s funny how an audition for a game show can be a lot like daily life.  Here are a few little life lessons that were reinforced at the try-outs:

1.  Go with your gut.  We had 10 minutes to complete a 30-question multiple choice test.  This seems like plenty of time until you get stuck on a question like “The term ‘embouchure’ refers to the position of one’s mouth when doing what?”  Right off the bat, I had a feeling it was “playing a wind instrument.”  Why did I know this?  I have no idea.  All I know is that answer felt right … and it was.

To me, this is like going with your gut when meeting with a client.  There have been a couple times when I’ve met with someone and known right away that things would not work out between us.  The first time this happened, I didn’t trust my gut and ended up doing work for which I was not paid.  The second time, I passed on the suspect client and found out later from the girl who was hired that working with the person was a complete nightmare.

2.  First impressions are everything.  Once you’ve passed the written test at the audition, you have a quick one- to two-minute interview with a Millionaire producer.  At the end of that time, the producer decides whether or not to put you through for an on-camera interview.  One to two minutes: that’s it to prove yourself worthy of Millionaire status.

This made me think about doing presentations for prospective clients.  You usually have more than one minute to present yourself in a situations like that, but not always.  There’s a very good chance that the possible client has started judging you from the minute you walked in the door.  Your appearance, your attitude, your preparedness – they can all be sensed within seconds, so you need to be “on” immediately.

3.  Give it all you got.  For most people, trying out for “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” is going to be a one-time thing.  (This does not apply, though, to the sweet old man standing next to us in line – Mr. Fourth Time’s a Charm*.)  So, I was bound and determined to put everything I had into the process.  I treated that test like my life depended on it and acted like the producers were the gateway to my dreams.  There was nothing to lose and $1 million to gain!

With every project I work on, I treat it like it’s the last thing I may do for that client because, really, that could be the case.  If I don’t do my best and something slips past me, it could mean the end of my relationship with that client and the end of a steady stream of income.

It occurred to me that all of these are things we learn when we’re little kids.  Isn’t it funny how they still apply to us 20-, 30- , 40-, 50-something women now just as much as they did when we were five?  I guess that guy was onto something when he wrote “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”

*Four-timer didn’t make the show again:(.

We talk a lot about business goals at our biz-e-chicks meetings.  We spend time making lists of our goals for the next week, the next few months, even the next year.  What we don’t do at our meetings is concentrate on our personal goals.  I think this is something we should do in the future, as I believe some of us might be in for an awakening of sorts.

The other day, I decided to do some thinking about my big personal goals – I mean the really big ones, not the everyday “do something sweet for my husband,” “call my parents,” etc. And, guess what I realized?  I don’t have any.  Well, no, I take that back.  I had many, and I’ve reached all but one of them (living on the beach, that one I’m still working on).

This was a very jarring realization.  Could I really be 31 years old and have accomplished nearly all of my goals?  The answer for me, and I bet for a lot of you (based on a few discussions I’ve had), is – incredibly! – yes!

We are some smart, mainly type ‘A,’ overachieving, goal-oriented girls who know what we want and go after it with a keen focus that allows not much to get in our way.  So, it should come as no surprise that we meet and even exceed our personal goals … but it still does.

What’s next, then?  A sense of content, satisfaction and pride at being done early?  A new list of personal goals?  Maybe our goals will change as we move to different phases in our lives, i.e., I’ve accomplished the goals of my 20s and need to set new ones for the next decade.  I’m not sure.  Perhaps a biz-e-chicks meeting on personal goals would help.  What do you think, peeps?

We are one well-connected town!  Apparently gone are the days of one networking event a week.  This past week alone, we biz-e-chicks attended not one, not two, but three of them!  The first was on Tuesday, After Five Networking, sponsored by Tampa Bay CEO magazine.  (How fun is it that we women entrepreneurs are CEOs?!)  The next was on Thursday afternoon – coolTECH, put on by TBTF (Tampa Bay Technology Forum), where we saw not just how well-connected this town is on a personal level, but on a technological plain, as well.  Then, immediately after coolTECH, we were off to Conversations & Cocktails, presented by the Ekhos.  This month’s speaker talked about girls getaways and the importance of making time for friends … which we’ve been neglecting because we’re too busy networking!

The events were fantastic; we were able to make some great contacts for both biz-e-chicks and our businesses.  And, next week is bringing on more meetings and events, including the best one of all – biz-e-chicks.

Really, though, as much as we love going to these events, sometimes it’s hard to pull ourselves away from actual paying projects to attend these meetings where we may or may not meet a potential client.  We’ve talked about this at biz-e meetings in the past, i.e., how to figure out which networking groups are worth the time and investment.  Unfortunately – and, sadly, typically –  we’ve obviously forgotten the suggestions on how to decide which ones to attend, and then end up being overscheduled and exhausted by the end of the week.

We know many of you are just as biz-e with networking because we see you at these events.  How about the After Five event, by the way, where every place we looked we saw a fellow chick?  How are you deciding which events to attend and which ones to leave out of your biz-e summer schedule?  Until we get some good suggestions, we’ll see you soon … at least once or twice this coming week!

Most, if not all of us biz-e-chicks are on Facebook.  We love to see and hear what our fellow peeps are doing, even if we only have a couple minutes to check our favorite social networking site.  Status updates are the best at keeping us connected to one another.  We may not have time to visit your page, check out your Wall and leave you a message; but, chances are we have time to glance at your status and leave a quick comment about it.

So, how do you decide what to post as your status?  Do you post only business-related updates?  Only personal updates?  Do you only write only about things that are funny or happy? (By the way, do you notice that “bad” things rarely happen in a status?  You usually don’t see “XXX had a huge fight with her husband today.  Or, “XXX overdrew her bank account today … again.”)

I usually write about the fun or interesting things that have happened that day.  I posted recently about how I was still cracking up about a conversation I heard on the elevator between two women who were discussing what a third, not-present woman needed to do to keep her man.  Their solution was for her to keep her legs closed.  Within seconds of writing that, the notifications that “so-and-so has made a comment about your status” were flooding in.  It’s funny how the silliest, most random things get the most attention.  But, I guess since that’s true in real life, it would be true on Facebook, too.

So, what about you chicks?  How do you choose what your status update will be?  Is it really what you’re doing “right now”?  Which of your updates have attracted the most attention?  And, why do you think that is?