Resources for small business websites
getting unbogged
Thankful for the things that never were
Sep 23rd
I frequently have run-ins with things-that-never-were.
These are the things I briefly flirt with, as ideas or as paths, but I eventually abandon them.
In college, it was the whole pre-med-or-not-pre-med question. Thankfully, I was able to avoid that through my complete inability to do college-level math.
Oh well.
In my 20s, it was investment banking. I had lots of friends who went to work in investment banking after college. Sure, they worked long hours, but they had m-o-n-e-y. Having money was cool, particularly as I realized that after graduation my only marketable skill was my ability to alphabetize and answer the phone — and there was this thing called rent that needed to get paid.
That also was in the 80′s. By now, most of those firms my friends worked for are now bankrupt.
So let’s just say I’m thankful that my  interviews with Drexel Burnham and Lehman Brothers didn’t go too well.
Then there’s the pull from others. The oh-you-could-be-so-much-more-if-you’d-only-get-a-real-job.
Yeah? So much more of what?
A lady who drops her kids off before 7 am and is lucky if she gets them picked up by 6 pm?
A cog-in-the-wheel boss within a bureaucracy, who has to make sure all her employees take their ethics exams while the Feds wiretap the Governor because he’s allegedly trying to sell a Senate seat?
Nope. Don’t think so. I’m thankful that I left that behind in my rear view mirror.
Then there’s the pull on the internet. Do this, and make millions. Tweet everybody about tweeting. Figure out a better niche.
Yep. Been there done that. I’m thankful to have left that behind as well.
Yet every so often, one of these things resurfaces. I have a moment, like this morning, in which I need to realize all over again why I do what I do. Why I don’t do other things.
You name it, I’ve probably considered it. I’ve done my share of “seo prospecting”, and found it to be an excellent diversion.
But I always end up coming back here, to this or to something extremely similar before this existed.
In the past, these moments have thrown me off track for months at a time. It got really discouraging and yucky.
Recently, I feel like I’m getting better at staying on track. I think the fact that there is a tiny little community building around here is a huge part of that. The fact that the messages seem to be clearer and that people are actually reading and interacting also plays an enormous role.
But the pull, for me and probably for you, is sometimes strong. I just wanted to say that I totally understand the whole “what would happen if…” thinking about business, life, and helping others.
And I’m extremely thankful for one thing that happened: Â You being here right now.
Oh, so hard, the not having a thing
Sep 22nd
I was recently thinking about having a thing.
Or not having a thing.
Oh, so hard. The not having a thing. Or the having a thing that’s not quite right.
The difficult thing about a thing is that it is like a perfect little present, that only you can find.
Your thing might be in business. It might be purely personal.
So how, oh how, do you get the thing to come out? How do you get it to find you?
Many people try to force it. “If you sit down and think about your thing, and plan it, and do x and y and z, then it will come out” they say.
Egads. It’s not labor, people.
Your thing doesn’t need to come out within a specific time frame. It doesn’t have a formula.
Many people tend to scold others whose thing is not yet perfected. “You should have done z. Definitely, more z. I did z. Why didn’t you do more z?”
Well, maybe if you knew what z was, you would have… or maybe z just isn’t you, so you need something else.
I’ve found that finding a thing that is really and truly perfect requires no magic formula. It does, however, require the ability to look inside and see what’s there. To accept what is there.
And there is a huge amount of trust that goes with this.
There are certain things that, in my belief, have been a tremendous help in finding my thing. I thought I’d set these out there, as kind of a Having-A-Thing-Help or something.
(Pssst: Â Just between us, all of these people have lots of free stuff on their sites. Loads and loads of awesome free stuff. So if you’re sitting there thinking, “but I have to pay the [insert expensive thing here] so I have no monies for these things”, read on, my friend. Read on. You can still buy stuff from them, but you can start with the free until the monies are better.)
I limited this post to only these four, because these are the people who have rocked my world over and over again. There are tons of other people I pay attention to, but these are the core. I hope you’ll find this helpful, too.
Without Havi and Selma, where would I be?
Probably selling monogrammed marbles online or something.
Havi routinely gives me a dose of sanity, the ability to be in a space that is expressive but not oooh-lets-all-look-at-the-stars-and-just-hope kinds of things.
Let me tell you, this woman (and her duck) work their fingers (and wings?) to the bone every single day. I have no idea how she does it, but she does. And she is amazing. So go read what she has, and buy everything you can afford.
I also have become addicted to the Dance of Shiva, flailing about wildly in my living room at about 6 am most days. I truly love this practice, brought to me by Havi, and it has added so much to my life. It’s hard to explain, but once the process starts to work it’s like magic.
Mark, who shares many of the same characteristics of Havi, is brilliant. His book is one that I highly recommend. It is worth every single penny, and it is filled with bright shiny goodness.
Buy it, and then take little chunks of it and implement them into your business. It will blow you away.
How could I manage without Naomi?
I couldn’t.
One day, actually not long ago, I actually got to talk to her and I felt about a thousand percent better. She’s so wonderful I could just keep gushing all day about her wonderfulness.
Go to her blog. Read it. Buy what she has. I’ve purchased as many of her courses and books as I could, and each one has been amazing. There. I’m finished gushing.
When it comes to writing anything – emails, writing copy, or whatever — Sonia is the woman to go to. She has a free email course on how to work with your email list that is, hands down, the best thing out there. It gets you thinking about market-ey stuff from a whole new perspective.
Go over and drink in what she has to offer.
Now, it’s your turn. Is there a resource you really need?
If so, let’s get you what you need. Put it out there in your comment, and I’ll try to give you my input and I’ll tweet out things, too.
Okay?
Here we go!
Expand your power to do good
Sep 1st
Today I’m announcing a slight expansion of my coaching services.
Up to this point I have only taken a very small number of people as coaching clients — because that’s what I felt like doing.
I’ve decided to expand to a few more coaching clients. This is for three reasons:
First, my passion is working with people who want to make the world a better place. Our world needs you, and if I can help you do a better job of being-as-you-as-you-can-be, then we both win.
Second, I have an amazing group of people  in my network — hey, that’s you! — and I truly enjoy all of you. Whether we communicate on the blog, on twitter, via email, or in some other way, you rock. I get so much and learn so much from our interactions. I want that to expand and I want to see where it goes.
Third, my kids are older now, and it’s either this or start spending more time mowing the lawn — and will the world really benefit from my lawn being well manicured? I don’t think so!
I’m not sure how long I’ll have this offer out there, but if you’re interested in working with me, now’s the time. Â Visit the “Hire Me” page now.
Bring it on!
Meeting my Zax
Aug 30th
There’s a very short story by Dr. Seuss called “The Zax.”
One is a North-Bound Zax and one is a South-Bound Zax.
The two meet, face-to-face. Because neither of them is willing to take a step to the side, each stands angrily and waits for the other Zax to move.
Eventually, a freeway is built around them as they stand, waiting.
I read this story last night to my four-year-old, and wondered how many times I refuse to get out of the way of my own Zax.
It feels so good, sometimes, to be on a path. It feels sure. I’m headed in a direction, and I can point it out to anyone who asks.
One of my own patterns is my hesitancy to step aside, to alter my path, even when it would be ever-so-easy. I cling to that path.
I’ve always wondered what would have happened had either of the Zaxes moved. Would the one who moved have gone back on the exact same path, or would he have found a slightly different route?
Would moving aside allowed the other Zax to accomplish something great? Was his path the crucial one?
What did the world miss because the two of them were stuck?
What would you do, if your Zax met you?
Are you adding fuel to your fire?
Aug 27th
About two weeks ago, I needed an intervention.
No, not the kind you see on reality shows where an alcoholic or drug user is confronted and hauled into rehab.
I mean an intervention to get me to do what I am supposed to be doing. Where Mother Nature or God or the Fates or someone to come in and say, “Hey, you’re supposed to be an amazing [insert cool thing here]. You keep saying that’s what you are going to do when [insert life event here]. What’s up with that? Why aren’t we doing anything to get it going?”
With three kids, a husband , a home to run and a business to nurture, I spend a lot of my time doing.
I get up and immediately begin doing. There’s a never ending list of doing required to make even the most insignificant activity happen.
If one of the links in the chain doesn’t happen, the whole thing breaks down. There are no socks. There is no jam for toast. The dog doesn’t get walked. People get grumpy. We are late for stuff.
Things deteriorate quickly.
But what if you are supposed to be [insert cool thing here] and you’re not working on that at all?
What if, in all the doing of the day, your [insert cool thing here] gets lost?
What if it gets pushed to the end of the list repeatedly because it’s also part of the hard or the that’s-too-big or the I-don’t-know-how-to-get-started?
Or what if it keeps getting pushed aside because you are, maybe deep down inside, just a little bit afraid of what might happen if you did do something?
I don’t really have any answers right now. I can just tell you how I’m starting to tackle this. Some things are easy, and can go on autopilot. But some are hard, and require introspection and commitment. They might require me to take a long look at who I think I am meant to be and then figure out what has brought me to this point — rather than where I want to be.
It’s like a lot of career hats we try on when we are young — the ones we sometimes feel inexplicably drawn to. The comedian. The teacher. The artist.
And then there’s the person in our life who says something like, “That’s a terrific idea, dear, but how will you make m-o-n-e-y?”
Next thing you know, we’re signed up for freshman biology and declaring a pre-med major. Or slogging through grad school. Or a bureaucrat with an incredibly complex benefits package and a job that drains every ounce of self out of us.
Hmm. That last one sounds vaguely familiar.
The question becomes this: Â why am I waiting to be creative, like I need a special outlet that only exists at a specified point in my life? When will I begin to add fuel to the fire of me?
I’ve seen the downside of that kind of waiting so many times — with my mom, who finally retired only to succumb to health issues in what seemed like a matter of months. My dad, who then couldn’t cope and spent his remaining years in a fog. With friends who were so gifted and full of dreams, but who were taken from this earth long before anyone expected.
I know it is a lot. With all the doing there seems to be no time to do for ourselves and for our dreams. But I, for one, decided to get the fire going.
Being Less
Aug 24th
The other day, I was reading something by Mark Silver of Heart of Business. He’s brilliant, and has a ton of wisdom available on his site.
The thing that hit me like a ton of bricks was the idea of trying to “be less”.
As someone whose baby formula was probably infused with some sort of protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism ingredients, this turns my life on its head.
Be less?
I’ve always been told to be more.
Hmmm.
I started thinking about it, and thought about how to apply this. It’s a little scary, so perhaps there’s some sort of “secret” way I could test it — very gently and quietly — and see whether it is something I could do.
So I thought of one of my big issues. My house.
Four years ago, my husband and I realized we needed to find a house. We have three girls, and the idea of continuing to live on the second floor of an old house was, um, exhausting. Doing the laundry and getting the groceries inside were like aerobics training. It was a hard decision, because our landlord and his wife were the nicest people ever, like grandparents to our kids. It was like leaving part of our family.
But it was time.
We found a little tiny house in a nice neighborhood. The reason we could get it:Â The whole house smelled like Vegas. Seriously, that’s what one of our friends said when he walked in for the first time. It was owned by two retired people who smoked multiple packs a day. Even today, after four years of no smoking, the walls in the bathroom still bleed nicotine and need to be washed down every so often.
We got it for a good price, and started decontaminating. But the problem was — is — that we never really had time to do the rennovations we originally planned. Sure, I put up a few shelves in places that desperately needed them. We took out carpets and did our best with rugs here and there.
But that’s about as far as it got.
Life, and things like working and getting kids to school, always got in the way.
Everything we want to do seems like such a big thing. Painting everything. Dealing with floors. Redoing the kitchen. That mysterious thing on the kitchen ceiling. Making the basement usable.
All together there are just too many things.
It stops me dead in my tracks when I start thinking of the time and money involved.
Resulting in:Â nothing. No forward motion.
Overwhelm leading to complete shut-down.
So I’ve decided to follow Mark’s advice and see if I can do less. Take one little, tiny thing that I can change, cut it in half a couple of times (I tend to be a bit too overachieve-y), and do it. Followed by another little tiny thing.
Baby steps.
Before I go: Â Let’s have a word of the day.
Todays word: Â ”Poppener”. As in “bottle poppener”. Opener of the cans and bottles, as created by my 4-year-old this morning.
Have a great day.
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If you enjoyed this, you might also like:
Rules and problems, which talks about my many issues with housekeeping!
The beauty of kindergarten, about having a problem and moving on
Unbogged
Aug 12th
I’ve gotten bogged.
As in bogged-down. Stuck. Spinning my wheels.
So now, the challenge is to get un-bogged.
Recombobulated.
All the pieces matching up again and moving forward without horrible squeaks and crashes.
This is something that is one of my patterns. I fall into the doing of everything and wake up one day amid the toast crumbs of what I’ve created. I reach that point like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, where everything just freezes.
The trick, at least for me, is not to fall into one of two traps. I know these traps very well from past experience.
The first trap is that of not changing. Of going along in that same pattern, amid the same crumbs but maybe with a little something to get moving again, with a determination that I must keep going along the same path. It’s the old “winners never quit” kind of thing my 8th grade P.E. teacher told me.
The second trap is that of trying to follow someone else. Of desperately wanting a plan that will lead me to that golden something I’ve always wanted.
I’ve followed, and followed, like a good little foot soldier. And I’ve found something interesting. No plan laid out by someone else works for me. I’m sure other people are fabulously served by these plans, but the best I can do is to piece together things from here and there. A pretty raggedy plan, but one that sometimes comes together.
So, to un-bog myself, I need to return to the things that work for me. The writing that works. The kind of work that works. For me.