In which I answer a fairly impressive variety of questions about At The Kitchen Table With Havi & Selma while simultaneously modeling the art of “meeting objections without trying to convince anyone of anything” while trying to practice brevity, which, as you know, is not my friend.

If that’s not annoying enough for you, please note that when I discuss the ahem, forum environment, I go out of my way to avoid ever using the plural of the word “forum”,

Only because I know you will laugh at me if I say fora … and I can’t say the other thing. Sorry. Blame the fact that I minored in classical culture at Tel Aviv University.

So … prepare yourself for some horribly awkward work-arounds.

Also, you may notice that hardly any of these are actually questions. For some reason, people seem to like to ask things in the form of statements. No, I don’t know why either.

Second-to-last hedge before I start.

I’m also not going to answer (today, at least) the “what about the money” and “what about the time” questions … because those are complicated, multi-layered, problematic emotional/philosophical ones and they deserve more love and attention than I can give them here.

Okay, one last pre-emptive hedge and I’m done, I swear. If you’re not at all interested in the Kitchen Table, this might bore you senseless. On the other hand, I can be pretty entertaining sometimes, so what the hell.

Okay. Questions.

“My concern is that I am going to be very excited and then drop off the face of the earth and forget that I paid a lot of to do this.”

Oh yeah. That is a completely reasonable thing to feel concerned about.

I’ve totally signed up for various online programs and then repressed the fact that I paid insane amounts of money to do them, even though that seemed impossible at the time of signing up, and yes, it is a horrible feeling.

Two things to consider:

1. Even in those programs I always ended up getting more than my money’s worth anyway. Here’s why.

I realized that even if I were to wait until the last week of my membership and then asked say, three or four pressing questions* … and then the super biggified person running the program answered them really lovingly and thoroughly, that’s basically like getting coaching from them.

And it always costs more to hire someone like that for a couple hours.

*Especially if one of those questions is “Should I do THIS or is it better to do THAT?” Because otherwise you can spend months agonizing over stuff like that. I have.

If all that happens this year is that you get a bunch of big questions answered by me, some loving feedback from the other member mice and you listen to a few of the call recordings … still a great deal.

But the truth is that it won’t be like that at all … because of point #2.

2. Because of my own sometimes frustrating experiences in those other programs I’ve been in, I intentionally set up At The Kitchen Table to have a ton of internal structure and accountability-mechanisms for people who need stuff like that.

In fact, I created this space with the aim to solve that particular challenge as well as some other semi-annoying aspects of online study. Like the fact that they don’t give you STRUCTURE!

But wait — someone else is about to ask about that.

“I’m feeling anxious. It would help if I knew more about the structure. Do you hate me for overloading you with questions?.”

Oh boy. I’m all about having a solid structure. Stability and support are what this space is for.

So …

Everyone gets a small learning group of 7-8 people and a group leader. They arrange to meet and do check-in phone calls with each other to talk about the material and get each other unstuck. Your group will also have its own private forum.

And if you don’t show up for a while, the group leader will — in a completely sweet, understanding and non-guiltified way — check in with you and make sure that you’re doing okay.

You can subscribe to a daily digest of all the forum stuff so that you don’t have to remember to log-in.

And you’ll have a chance to hook up with a study partner for one-on-one accountability.

There’s also a special forum — CrankyPants McGrumblebug’s Kvetchtastic Whine Bar — to go to when you just want to complain about things but don’t actually want any help.

And other designated places for when you do feel like getting help, support and guilt-free accountability.

We’ll be recording all the teaching calls we do so that you can listen to them whenever. We mostly do stuff early enough in the day that our friends in Europe can make it to the calls.

And I’ll also be doing some stuff on weekends for people who have (the horror!) office jobs. I could go on but let’s just say that we’ve got support and structure in spades.

And no I don’t hate you for overloading me with questions! These are all perfectly good questions!

“How come you’re not doing a two month freebie trial thing? Everyone else does a two-month freebie trial thing.”

Sounds like you’re feeling a bit anxious because you need to know that this is the right place for you. Of course I would like to be able to help you feel reassured. It’s just that I’m not doing it through a two-month trial thing.

For a lot of reasons. For one thing, I want active participants. Or, at least, people who are overjoyed to be a part of this safe, cozy “working on our stuff” space.

If people are just coming in to test the waters, the energy is different. The commitment isn’t as high.

Another thing: with people coming and going, the space isn’t as safe for people to share what they’re working on.

It’s transient. It’s rocky. No good. I’m looking for something solid. A sanctuary. A place to check in to feel safe, supported and loved.

And this: this space is for people who already know they want to spend an entire year getting help and support from me and my duck and my people. If you’re not one of those people yet (or ever), that’s fine.

You can hang out here on the blog. Or you can buy useful stuff for working on your patterns. It’s just that if you’re not tingly excited about the work I do yet, this particular program just isn’t going to be a good fit.

Also, I don’t want to be like everyone. If I did, all my posts would have titles like Seven Ways To Do This and Eight Ways To Stop Screwing Up That.

One of the things I’m teaching at the Kitchen Table is exactly what things I have learned, internalized, implemented or done to become successful, and trust me, being like everyone else is definitely not one of them.

“In general, I don’t enjoy participating in online programs because having to visit a website bugs me.”

I hear ya. You feel frustrated when you have to keep coming back to the site because you need to know that information is going to come to you in a way that’s actually convenient for you.

Reassurance? You definitely don’t actually have to visit the Kitchen Table website after you set up your profile if you don’t feel like it.

Well, you might want to go there to peek at the profiles of the other participants. Or to comment on things they say.

But you can subscribe to each and every individual forum and then set up a group email digest.

That way you get one email at the end of each day with all of the updates. Should you want to reply to a thread, you click reply within the email and it will take you to the site.

So I’m thinking that you won’t need to hang out at the site any more than you want to.

And you don’t have to log-in to read people’s answers to your questions. I definitely know how annoying that is from a thousand other forum-ey things I’ve been in.

“I am severely hearing impaired and unable to use the phone.”

Hmmm. I am a horrible person for not having thought of that. Let me tell you what the options we have right now are, and then you can figure out if it’s something you can work with or not.

And if not we will brainstorm more ways to meet you halfway.

Let’s see. There will be live chat going on during all the calls, and someone will also be taking notes each time and turning them into a PDF to post on the forum. We’ll make sure your learning group does the same with their calls too.

So … if you participate in the chats and are talking it up with us on the different … forum areas, I’m fairly certain you won’t miss out on too much.

And if it starts to feel as though you’re missing out on stuff that’s important, we can arrange for transcripts as well. I don’t know if that’s a useful answer … you can sit with that for now and see if it feels okay. 🙂

“I want to pay by Paypal and you don’t have that option in your shopping cart.”

I know this is frustrating. I’m sorry.

Here’s the thing with Paypal. Our shopping cart does have a Paypal option — as you already know if you’ve bought products that way.

However, it doesn’t let us do multiple payments with Paypal. And we really don’t want to start doing stuff outside of the shopping cart because it’s a crazy amount of administrative tracking work.

I already have two assistants putting in overtime, and more chaos/confusion just doesn’t feel like something I can hold right now.

Of course we’ve already made one exception to this, for a woman in Australia who earns in US dollars and would lose all kinds of money if she had to change them into Australian currency and then change them back.

So I can imagine that there might be other scenarios, possibly. If there’s a way you could pay the whole year’s tuition upfront to cut down on our administrative headaches, that would certainly make the whole thing less complicated.

And if there’s really, truly no other way you can do things other than Paypal and you think the Kitchen Table is the exact perfect thing for you … we’ll find a way. Send a note to Marissa via the contact form and she’ll do that wonderful helpful thing that she does.

“Is the kitchen table full? I can’t apply right now, but it’s an option I would love to explore in the (near?) future….”

You can apply to join whenever you like. It’s an ongoing thing and there’s room for as many Right People as need to be there.

I did plan the 2009 schedule to all fit together, but you don’t have to jump on at the beginning.

We’re documenting everything we do so you can always go back and cover material that you missed if it appeals to you.

The first quarter is all about MONEY, second SPACE, third TIME and fourth LOVE. Well, patterns, habits and stucknesses related to these bigger themes, yes?

We’ll be working these things on each call and also … inside the place where each and every individual forum is found.

Anyway, show up whenever you’re ready. We’ll be happy to see you when it’s time!

“I can’t find the sign-up page!”

Whoah. I’m so obsessed with hard-to-get marketing that I actually hid the page? That sucks. Sorry about that!

It’s at FluentSelf.com/kitchen

That is all.

I think I’m questioned out for a couple of days. Back to regular posting schedule tomorrow. Unless something comes up.

And I know I’ve said this already a bunch, but for the record.

I will like you just as much if you’re hanging out with me here and not in the Kitchen.

Unless you try to get me to pluralize “forum”, in which case there’s going to be trouble.