About Deborah Fike

Deborah Fike is a full-time mom and founder of Avalon Labs, which provides consultations and writing services for start-ups and online businesses. She believes in the power of self-reflection and positive change.

Author Archive | Deborah Fike

How to Help Others Cope with Change

By Deborah Fike 15

When I moved away to college, I had the trunk space of a Dodge Colt to hold all of my worldly possessions. I took a few suitcases of clothes, a box of childhood stuffed animals, and a hand-me-down TV. Both of my older sisters had lugged that ancient 13″ TV to their college dorm rooms, and they were passing it on to me. I remember staring down unconvinced at that beaten up black box and saying, “Do I really need this?”

“Yes, you need it,” my sister told me, shutting the trunk of the car. “Trust me.”

Turns out she was right. That TV became a focal point of how I dealt with living on my own for the first time. I watched the same news my mom watched every morning, which staved off homesickness. My room became a hub for Friday night movie parties on my dorm floor. When my college boyfriend broke up with me, I bought an old video game system and whiled away many lonely hours as I got over him. My sisters had not just given me a TV, they had given me a coping mechanism for a transitional period in my life.

Getting Loved Ones to Understand Your Decisions

By Deborah Fike 9

When my husband (then-boyfriend) and I first started dating, we really hit it off. It took less than a month for us to spend all of our time together. Before long, we had two sets of everything : one for his apartment and one for mine. Then his apartment lease came up, and we decided to move in together. We were eager to take this next step in our relationship.

Having grown up in a conservative household, my boyfriend knew his parents would not approve. He decided to write an email to his folks explaining his decision to move in with me. He took an afternoon off to write it down and didn’t show it to me until after he sent it. When I did read it, I nearly fell out of my chair. It started, “Mom, Dad, I love Deborah, and I don’t care what you think. We’ve moved in together.” The email continued to get more aggressive in tone, ending in the ultimatum, “You will respect her when you meet her next month.”

That’s right. Worse than the email itself, I had never met his parents. Needless to say, when I shook their hands at the airport, I felt like the harlot who had stolen their little boy’s innocence.

How to Explore New Careers (Without Quitting Your Day Job)

Ever wonder what it would be like to spend your 40+ hours a week working somewhere else? If so, you’re in good company. In the US alone, 55% of people aren’t happy with their current job. We’ve heard the success stories of people who quit their day job and found something better. Maybe they went back to school, moved to another location, or even started their own business. We admire their tenacity because we too would love to drop our lives and start afresh.

Then reality kicks in. Many of us can’t take the financial risk of quitting our jobs. Our children need a roof over their heads, our house payments keep coming, and our obligations keep us rooted in our current communities. We dream about changing jobs, but looking at our lives, it appears impossible to follow in our career heroes’ footsteps.

Fortunately for us, exploring new career opportunities doesn’t mean you have quit your day job tomorrow. There are more subtle ways of getting where you want to be. Consider these simple ways to start pursuing a new career:

Forgiving Yourself

By Deborah Fike 15

I am a critic. To some degree, we all are. We criticize our co-workers when they do a bad job. We get upset when our friends don’t come to our aid. We lament that our family doesn’t understand who we have become. It can be particularly hard to forgive someone else if they have done a terrible wrong against you. Relationships suffer, loneliness ensues, and it takes a lot of time to heal these wounds.

But even harder than forgiving someone else, we struggle to forgive ourselves.

How to Build a Real Network (Not a List of Strangers)

By Deborah Fike 9

In this digital age, we are obsessed with networks. We want to keep in touch with our 3rd grade friends, so we check their Facebook profiles. When we meet new people, we greedily gather their contact information and store them at LinkedIn. Even our mothers love networks, if the sheer amount of forwarded spam email is any indication. Information hording makes us feel like we are part of something bigger, that we have a network of support we can leverage at any time.

Unfortunately, that might not be true. You could have 1,000 friends and not have even a mediocre network. Like all relationships, you need to work at maintaining them in order to get anything from them. If you decide to friend everyone you know and never talk to them, you don’t have a network. You have a list of strangers.

Networks rely on real communication, the kind of bonds that keep us interested in each others’ lives. It may seem like a daunting task, but you can engage in real communication every day with your network. Doing so not only makes you part of the network, but builds relationships over time you can turn to in times of need.

5 Ways to Remove Negativity From Your Life

By Deborah Fike 22

If there was one word on this planet that killed more change, it would be the word ‘No.’ No, I don’t have the energy to launch a new business. No, I don’t have time to write a novel. No, I’m not smart enough to learn Chinese.

It can be hard to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes,’ especially if we ourselves are the sources of our own negativity. It’s possible, though, if we work to eliminate the sources of our self-doubt and indecision.

Throw Away Your Labels and Accept Change in Others

By Deborah Fike 25

The hardest part about change isn’t that it happens to you. Of course it happens to you. You remember how breaking up with that guy made you see life from a different perspective. How quitting your job made you learn a new skill. You are a constantly evolving person and, for better or worse, you have learned to cope with change all throughout your life.

But do you realize change happens to those around you too?

Before you say “yes,” consider this anecdote from my childhood. I grew up in a family with six children. Separated from oldest to youngest by 13 years, you can imagine that we had a wide variety of personalities amongst the siblings. My oldest sister was the Care Giver. My brother, the Logical Scientist. Me, the Dreamer. My younger sister, the Lazy Genius. My youngest sister, the Hard Worker.