A lot of people seem to shoot over questions to me in the form of Direct Messages (DMs) on Twitter.

This might be because they know I don’t do email. Sneaky!

But it could totally also be because they don’t know I don’t do email.

Either way, I’ve been giving a lot of tiny little answers recently.

And it seemed like some of them might be useful for you… or at least maybe they will spark some interesting conversations or useful Things To Think About.

Also, since my daily morning practice of “learning the art of being able to eventually write a short or even medium-length post just to say that I can” isn’t going anywhere, maybe this will get me in the mood. 🙂

Tiny little questions that deserve bigger answers.

Except they got asked on Twitter.

Ooh. One more thing. Maybe a couple more things.

If you’re not on Twitter, some things to keep in mind:

1. At least some of the information in this post will be useful and relevant even if you’re not on Twitter and even if you never plan to be on Twitter. So no worries there.
2. You might want to read my post about Twitter demystified (no pressure!)

Oh, and it should go without saying — but I’m saying it anyway — that giving anyone an answer to anything (as I’m about to do!) when you’re dealing with a 140-character limit is reckless and irresponsible at best.

And that you don’t have to take my advice. And that yes, these answers are simplistic (hello, 140 characters). And each one probably deserves its own post.

And that this sort of bizarre Twitter coaching probably has some embarrassing and stupid name like “twoaching” and we will never speak of that again.

Okay. On to the questions. All under 140-characters. Except the last one where I had to write two messages to squeeze in my answer.

Random person: “You talk a lot about ‘being yourself’ online. But how do you do that?”

Me: Don’t say stuff online that you wouldn’t say in real life. Like “but wait — there’s more!” Or “check out this amazing offer!”

Random person: “You seem so wise. Way too wise for someone who looks that young. How do you do that?!”

Me: Dance of Shiva. Well, that and having had a weirdly interesting life. No, mostly Dance of Shiva. Brain restructuring! Seeing connections!

Random person: “What do you mean by ‘goofball marketing’?”

Me: Not hiding your weird bits. Your mishigas (yiddish for crazy, wacky thing). Everyone has idiosyncrasies. Let yours be the star.

Random person: “I like ‘goofball marketing’ as a concept but I don’t have a business or anything”

Me: All totally applicable to real life. It’s about your secret mission (learning to like yourself). No need to use it for anything biz-related.

Random person: “How are you surviving not being able to work? I mean, how is your business not completely dying when you have no arms?”

Me: Twitter. People on Twitter buy my stuff and talk about my stuff and generally keep the whole thing afloat.

Random person: “You said in a post that you make over a third of your income from Twitter. WTF? HOW?”

Me: Oh boy. Long, complicated answer. Too much for 140. But @pistachio and I are teaching a class about that. Short version? Don’t be strategic!

Yes, you may have noticed that I wasn’t able to fit the link into the 140. So that person got a second DM.

Random person: “Can I steal your term ‘gentleman friend’? It’s so perfect I can’t stand it and it describes my gentleman friend (see?!) exactly”

Me: Go for it. There’s a really funny story behind that. I’ll have to tell it on the blog sometime.

Random person: “Amazing people are doing my course/reading my work. Now I’m convinced I suck. Is performance anxiety a byproduct of biggification? Help?!”

Me: Perfectly normal. This is just the next layer to the pattern. It probably didn’t occur to you that people would believe in you, so that CONT

CONT belief is being challenged. Your work is not about you, it’s about THEM. It’s coming THROUGH you. So if it helps them? YAY. LOVE

Random person: “Will your duck date my duck?”

Me: Probably not. She’s quite picky.

I did it!

Sure, it’s still a long post by most people’s standards but it’s a really, really short one for me. I win.

Back to the usual stuff tomorrow. Thanks for letting me play.

p.s. Should mention, if I haven’t already, that the early bird thing-ey for the Strategy of Not Being Strategic class that I’m teaching with Pistachio ends on May 13th. Which is soon-ish. That is all. xo