5 Questions with an Inspiring Woman: Laurie Palau
Laurie Palau is a Doyelstown, PA based entrepreneur, speaker and owner of SimplyBOrganized. Like her predecessors in this series, she is a dynamic, hard working woman, with an inspiring work ethic who also happens to be a wife and mother of two teenage girls. She’s not only a friend of mine, but I am a loyal client of hers. She’s helped me organize my home by creating zones for my high traffic areas, and most importantly, helped create a process for archiving family photos and mementos. By doing something she feels passionately about, she’s created a fantastic, lucrative business that actually improves the lives of the families she works with.
I’m so fortunate to have a phenomenal network of kick a** women in my life. In fact, I’m surrounded by so many of them, I almost live in a bubble. Recently, though, I was reminded that there is still a segment of the population who will call a woman “crazy” or “unstable” if she shows a characteristic other than passiveness. I don’t know how else to to combat such a narrow world view than to continue to speak out, and this series is one of the ways I can do that. By highlighting the success of empowered woman who took a risk, didn’t take no for an answer and reap the benefits of following their instinct I hope we can inspire other woman to do the same.
If you are local to Buck County, I encourage you to check Laurie’s here services. In addition to working with private clients, she hosts regular “Clutter Clinics.” These popular workshops provide expert tips and tricks in a fun group settings, and there’s wine, so it can be a fun girls night out.
You know I LOVE what you do! I’ve been a client of yours for physical and virtual clutter and think your services are invaluable. Tell our readers exactly how you help your clients.
What is the most cluttered/problematic area in your clients homes and how do you combat it?
It really varies from client to client, but the one underlying problem that I see across the board is VOLUME. The majority of my clients have too much stuff (whether it’s clothes, kitchen gadgets, toys or paper). Most people hold onto things for the wrong reasons and the two biggest are: FEAR(what if I need it someday) and GUILT (it cost a lot of money, or my kids made it for me or so-and-so gave it to me). Once a client can learn to let go, that’s when they have their “lightbulb moment” and real progress can be made.
Since we’re in spring, share with us your top 3 tips for spring cleaning.
2. Work it into your schedule.
Just like working out, organizing isn’t going to just “happen”, you have to make time in your schedule to do it. It may be tough getting started, but you will feel so much better once it’s completed!
You have built a successful local business. I see you HUSTLE and try new things all the time, like your podcasts and workshops. When entrepreneurship gets hard, which it always does, how do you stay motivated and keep moving forward?
We have many new and aspiring entrepreneurs in our readership. What’s been your biggest lesson as a small business owner?