What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Item! Have adventures with me!
A somewhat goofy mini-collection of stuff I’ve been reading, stuff I’ve been thinking about and oh, some completely random crap.
Basically the stuff that never gets mentioned here because I’m not the kind of person who can just make some teeny little point. Not into the whole brevity thing, as the Dude would say.
Actually, I’m under the strict compulsion to write ten pages about anything on my mind. So this is me. Practicing brevity.
They aren’t really adventures.
It’s more like stuff I want you to read.
But there are yarn adventures. And a skeleton. And many exclamation points!
Because it’s Wednesday again, which means … not a whole lot, but just that it’s about that time. For an Item! post, I mean. Shall we?
Item! Post No. 22 in a series that still doesn’t make sense and isn’t about to start making sense any time soon either.
Item! This is really quite a moving post.
From the lovely Holden aka SF Love Story:
I immediately went into my superhero mode, which is a little dance I’ve practiced since about the age of seven. It involves action. It does not involve wringing our hands, or ignoring the scene. I am the daughter of an alcoholic. This is all I know.
You can read the rest here.
She’s @sflovestory on Twitter.
Item! Yarn Adventure Club!
So I love Tara and I love everything she does. Come on, she’s the blonde chicken!
For knitters and people who are maybe thinking about becoming knitters:
You’ll get one skein of gorgeous hand-made yarn, at least a hundred yards, every month for three months! And she’ll hook you up with patterns and help. Did I mention she makes the yarn? Amazing.
If you know anyone who is into anything craft-ey, they need to hear about this.
And she’s @blondechicken on Twitter.
Item! “Swinging on the flippity flop” is the funniest thing you could possibly say, ever!
So everyone knows I love the Hater. Even though half the time I have no idea what she’s talking about.
But even someone as media-unplugged and generally pop-culturally challenged as I am can appreciate this bit called Kids Today Are Textin’ On The Flippity Flop. And really, quality hating is quality hating.
Hilarious.
But how can you know if you’re kids are sexting, or if they’re just sending random arithmetic problems back and forth to each other?
Thankfully, Fox’s Atlanta affiliate has put together a handy guide to help parents decode their children’s personal text messages: The Top 50 Text Acronyms Parents Need To Know.
And if you don’t remember the original and equally embarrassing reference — you’d better read this too.
Thanks, Amelie!
Item! The Stupid Post!
It’s actually not even slightly stupid.
Why is that? Sheer terror of course.
I’m afraid that whatever I write is just going to be impossible gibberish. I’m convinced that the entire internet will point and laugh.
So no. Not stupid.
But it’s The Stupid Post. From the Evil Genius.
Come on. How could you *not* read it?
Item! A vision of a skeleton! Plus the most beautiful letter ever.
I saw this image of a skeleton cringing as if from a blow.
It was the pattern of that familial hunch, and I knew I didn’t have to do it any more.
I stood up.
This is something I had the pleasure of putting up online over at the Shivanaut blog.
A Shivanaut, if you are not one yourself, is someone wacky daring enough to attempt the bizarre yoga-centric brain training work that I torture my clients with and teach around the world.
And, as Resident Head Shivanaut, I get to read lots of weird stories about the various hot buttered epiphanies that people get from doing Shiva Nata.
And this one — the one about the skeleton — is really, really great.
You should read it.
Item! Stuff Havi Thinks You Should Know!
So the Stuff Havi Thinks You Should Know About Testimonials & Referrals course is now available as a homestudy.
I haven’t raised the price yet, but I’m going to. A week from tomorrow.
There are recordings. There is awesomeness. There are things I didn’t promise in the class but gave anyway, like ebooklets. And worksheets. There’s even a transcript on its way.
Significant discount for regular blog readers. Take a look if you need ways to get people to talk up your cool thing without having to actually ask them to or to feel all awkward and weird about it.
Because it’s the stuff I think you should know.
That is all.
Happy reading.
And happy Blustery Windsday. See you tomorrow!
Unexpected kindness.
There’s a dry cleaning place in downtown Portland with this sign on its door:
“If you are unemployed and need an outfit cleaned, we will clean it for you for free.”
The idea isn’t unique, but that doesn’t matter. It’s still a genuinely kind offer and one that no one is expecting.
When I was at the dentist the other day, the first words she spoke were something that no dentist has ever said to me:
“Let me bring your chair up so it’s not like I’m talking down to you while I’m explaining stuff.”
I liked her instantly.
When you take one of Jen Hofmann’s Inspired Home Office organizing classes (or her delicious Spa Day for your office), she knocks you over by being astonishingly non-judgmental.
She’s an organizing expert, right?
So you think she’s going to tell you that those piles are the sign of a personality flaw, and how your life will be so much better without them.
But you know what she actually tells you? That those piles are a sign that you’re a creative, passionate person. That each piece of paper you collect represents something beautiful that you want to do in the world.
Jen loves that you collect ideas that excite you. And she believes in you too.
Unexpected kindness.
What these things all have in common:
They’re sincere.
They inspire people to talk about them. They become remarkable in the Seth Godin sense that we can’t help but remark upon them.
Speaking of useful Seth-isms, unexpected kindnesses are a lot like the “free prize inside” thing. Delivering something that no one would expect.
They create a kind of organic loyalty.
I now have fond feelings about a dry cleaning place that I’ve never been to and I don’t even have anything that needs dry cleaning.
I like my dentist because she treated me like a real live human being.
There are a million gazillion classes on organizing and decluttering, but I do Jen’s Office Spa day once a month. Because I’m hooked on her kindness.
What I’m wondering now …
I’m wondering what I could be doing to plant little unexpected kindnesses in the world.
In my business. On my blog. In my relationships. In my daily encounters and interactions.
I’m sure, of course, that some of the best little unexpected kindnesses just emerge naturally. And I can see how planning kindness could seem kind of manipulative or contrived.
But there’s also an element of mindfulness and intention to making this a practice, and that can be pretty powerful.
Because committing to unexpected kindness as a life practice is not manipulation. It’s actively cultivating a more conscious relationship with yourself and the world around you. And with your duck, if you happen to have one.
It doesn’t really matter whether you use this as a biggification or “marketing” practice … or as a “working on your stuff” practice.
Either way, you’re bringing kindness into the world, so rock on. Yay, kindness.
The part that excites me.
I want to know what would happen if I got even slightly better at noticing when I need a little kindness.
And noticing when kindness is showing up in my life.
Allowing it to be expressed in more aspects of what I do.
I have no idea which qualities will come into the world if I can pull this off, but here’s what I’m guessing:
Appreciation. Comfort. Reassurance. Serendipity. Generosity. Hope.
Good stuff. And unexpected.
Roses everywhere.
So usually when I talk to monsters or have long conversations with walls (or otherwise engage with my stucknesses in semi-wacky ways), there’s a lot of talking involved.
Words.
Because, you know, I’m that way. Verbal.
Not always necessarily all that articulate (see last sentence), but definitely word oriented as opposed to picture oriented.
You can imagine my surprise when non-visual me had a completely visual experience. An interesting and (potentially) useful one that I want to share with you.
Except that I’m used to reporting internal dialogue. Not drawing a picture with words.
So this is going to be experimental and possibly weird. Just so you know.
The rose.
The first thing I see is a rose.
It’s half open, half closed.
What do I know about this rose?
It wants open. It wants now. Because this rose is hot stuff.
Make no mistake. This rose is going to the top. This rose is Liza Minnelli in Cabaret. Unstoppable. Irrepressible.
But it can’t open more than halfway. Its energy might be unstoppable, but what do you know, something is stopping it.
What stops something from living out the thing it needs most?
I have to zoom out a bit to see what is blocking the rose from opening more fully and completely.
And it’s kind of a complicated rigged up contraption of wires and little poky bits.
Metal and sharp and rigid.
It’s not touching the rose, but if the rose tries to grow or expand, the little metal spikes contract inwards to block it.
The goal of a rose.
The goal (or maybe even the purpose) of the rose is to be glorious.
To celebrate being alive by being audaciously beautiful. By shouting from the rooftops.
“Would you look at this! I am a rose! Is that not the most fabulous thing in the entire world? Yes it is!”
That’s what the rose would say if this were not a surprisingly wordless visualization.
The goal of a barrier.
The goal (or the purpose) of the thing blocking the rose is to keep the rose from being glorious.
To prevent it from opening too wide or growing too big. To keep it where it is.
Cross-purposes
So there’s this conflict between the rose and the barrier. And negotiating internal conflict is kind of the thing I’m good at.
I go to ask the barrier what it needs.
But there are no words. Because I’m trapped in a visualization, which is the weirdest thing that ever happened to me. Well, not ever, but (ahem) at least in the last week or so.
My wordless question is wordlessly answered.
The barrier needs to protect the rose. The barrier knows that if the rose opens into its most glorious here-I-am state of fabulousness as it so desperately wants to do, things will go wrong.
Not really wrong, but it’s not good. It will just make the other flowers jealous. Also, people might come and try to pick the rose or take it away.
The barrier is the knight in shining armor. The Protector of the Rose. It’s on a mission.
And it doesn’t really care that its mission stifles the mission of the rose, because hey, it’s serving the rose in a deeper way.
Problem-solving.
We need a solution, I think to myself.
We need a way for the barrier to feel safe that it’s doing its job, while still allowing the rose to feel safe to do its glorious Liza Minnelli thing.
It’s all about safety. It’s about giving space and still having barriers. It’s about healthy boundaries.
And I’m wondering what to do, because I still don’t know how to navigate this wordless world. I don’t know how to insert myself into the picture.
But then, magically, the rose and the barrier find their own compromise.
That was unexpected.
The barrier, which had been tensing and flexing around the outside rim of the rose’s petals, began to climb down an invisible rope ladder.
It started folding in on itself until it came to rest in a circle where the stem of the rose entered the earth.
So there was still a barrier, just not to the growth of the rose.
The barrier had a new purpose, but really, it was the same purpose.
Instead of protecting the rose from growing into its glory, it was now there to protect the rose from being picked.
The rose, meanwhile, was expanding and stretching. Yawning after a deep sleep. Strutting its stuff. Taking over. Doing its sexy rose thing. Fulfilling its purpose.
And then I was done.
Stupid symbolism.
Once I could talk again, the first thing I said was this:
“The rose isn’t me, right? Because that would be so cheesy and ridiculous that I couldn’t stand it. Okay, fine. It’s me. But so is the barrier.”
Uh huh.
And so is the one who observes the rose and the barrier interacting.
And so is the one who loves them both.
And so is the one who resents them both and struggles with them.
And so is the one who thinks this is cheesy and ridiculous.
That’s just how it is.
Roses everywhere.
And then I saw that there were roses everywhere.
Inside of me. Around me. In the people I know. In the people I don’t know.
All of us going through similar internal struggles and wordless conversations. All expanding and stretching.
Everyone.
It was pretty cool, is all I’m saying.
Friday Check-in #45: Duckwarmer edition
Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
So … back from Emergency Vacation.
In a bit of a daze, still. But happy to be here.
And especially happy that it’s Friday.
The hard stuff
Recovery.
It took me (is taking me?) way longer to readjust that I’d bargained for. Ow.
Just feeling a bit shaky, I guess.
Back to work.
Piles of work. Piles.
And I’m so not in the mood.
Yesterday? I got up as usual at 5:30 a.m. Did my meditation. Did my wacky morning rituals.
Started working. For about oh, five minutes. And then straight back to bed.
Which was lovely, don’t get me wrong. But it’s so clear to me that I’m not in flow right now, and giving myself permission to not be there is taking some time.
CrankyPants McGrumbleBug strikes again.
Hmmph. Grrrrr.
Grumble.
Repeat as necessary.
Luckily though, in addition to all things grumbleworthy, there was definitely some good stuff too. Ooh. Yes. Good stuff. And some stuff that might turn out to be good stuff.
The hard that might be good
Roller Derby semifinals!
My beloved Guns ‘n’ Rollers are facing the Breakneck Betties again, this time in the semis. It didn’t end so well last time around … and I’m kind of terrified. But hopeful. But terrified.
Send our girls some love!
The good stuff
Energized.
Unbelievable. This vacation stuff works.
I’ve seen it happen to so many other people so many times but … I don’t know, I never experienced it myself so I didn’t realize how cool it is.
So, for example, my first day back at work I zapped through nineteen things on my Action Items List in two hours.
Nineteen things!
I’m used to getting through maybe two to three things in that amount of time. It was crazy. Crazy good.
Speed. Demon.
So I’m loving that. Loving how much easier it is to make decisions. How much easier it is to just not take on new stuff.
I know what I want.
Clarity. Serious freaking clarity.
Obviously the point of going on Emergency Vacation was to not have a nervous breakdown.
Well, actually it was to have it somewhere pretty. But in addition to healing all the things that were breaking, it really, truly cleared my head.
Remember when I couldn’t come up with any goals?
Okay, so now that’s not a problem anymore.
I know exactly what I want.
Now it’s just a question of figuring out the details.
Summer!
When we left Portland, there were these tiny little rosebuds everywhere.
When we came back, the entire city was in bloom. Roses. Insanely sexy roses. All over the place.
It’s the most spectacular thing in the entire world. And all of a sudden you go ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, right. So that’s why Portland is obsessed with roses.
I mean, yeah. I know they call it Rose City and everything but I never really got it.
Like the first time I visited Chicago in November and went, ah, that’s why it’s called the Windy City. Right.
Anyway, we missed it last summer because we were in Berlin. And it is nothing short of extraordinary.
Speaking of summer and being back home …
Our garden was completely transformed too.
Not only do we have roses like crazy, but all the sprout-ey things turned into foods.
We have beans and chard and beets and jerusalem artichokes and all things wonderful.
And — weirdly — since we didn’t know we had them, strawberries. Which are delicious, by the way. Thanks for asking.
Selma has a scarf!
A really beautiful one.
And since it’s not often you see a duck in a gorgeous hand-knitted scarf, I’m including a picture.
Thanks to wonderful Etsy-ite Warm Och Fuzzy (@sdsures on Twitter) who made it and sent it all the way from Scotland.
Is this not the sweetest thing ever?
That’s it for me …
And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious weekend. And a happy week to come.
Ask Havi #23: Hiring? Help?
Note: it is almost impossible to get on the Ask Havi list. This person got in by a. being one of my clients or students, b. flattering the hell out of my duck, and c. making life easy on me by being clear about what the question was and what details I could use.
“I need to become better at hiring people.
What do you do before hiring someone? Do you have a process? Do you go with your gut? What do you look out for? How do you make sure that this person will be a good fit working with you?”
Oh honey. Yes. This is probably the hardest part of being in business and biggifying what you do. Seriously.
Let’s see …
Process?
Hahahahahaha. Not really.
I write a personal ad. I think about the qualities and values that are important to me. I put a wish out there.
And then I ask everyone I know for recommendations. That’s how I’ve found most of the VAs (virtual assistants) on my pirate crew.
Go with gut?
Yes.
I really have to get a hit that I can trust this person.
Of course, I’ve worked with plenty of people who were absolutely trustworthy and it still wasn’t a good match … sigh.
What do you look for?
Responsiveness.
A sense of humor.
Someone who is at least as weird as I am.
My wonderful friend Kelly Parkinson says that you really have to “match your values”, and I think she’s right.
So what I value is kookiness, personality, passion and hard work. Maybe for you it’s something else. If you look at what isn’t working, that might give you a better idea about what could work.
How do you make sure that this person will be a good fit working with you?
Okay, this is not exactly where I excel, but I will share the absolute all-time best information I’ve ever received on this.
Story time! Plus the best advice I can give you (that’s not even mine).
Remember when I flew to Vancouver for Michael Port’s Beyond Booked Solid seminar?
(flashback to September 2008, weird scooby doo effects)
This is me in a state of complete and utter desperation because my business was turning into the world’s biggest headache.
On top of that, I couldn’t get the VA thing to work. And I was starting to think that I would never find someone who would be able to really help me in my business.
Also, I was terrified that I was turning into Aryeh, the worst boss I ever had. Seriously. Worse than the fall-down drunks who ran the bars I used to work at.
The worst boss and the person I am afraid of becoming.
Always upset with you. Always screaming at you in front of the entire company.
Oh, and he expected you to be able to do three people’s jobs cheerfully, efficiently and flawlessly. Also, without any explanation whatsoever about what those jobs entailed or how to do them.
Perspective? This guy had gone through fourteen executive assistants in the course of one year. Half had gotten canned and the other half had (understandably) run away.
I worked for him for three months, making me by far the one with the most seniority. I know.
And somehow, he managed to think that it was always “them”. Never him. He wasn’t the asshat. They were incompetent.
Now all of a sudden I was the CEO* and — even worse — I had turned into the one complaining about how it’s “impossible to find good help”.
Disaster. And embarrassing. So by the time I got to Michael’s seminar, I was really at a loss.
Luckily he was full of wisdom and smartnesses, which I will pass along to you.
*CEO = Chief Eccentricity Officer
Healthy relationships take time.
Michael reminded me that any good relationship is something that is built over time.
He reminded me that I’m not a horrible person if some of them don’t work out.
Just like with falling in love. You don’t fall in love with everyone you have a coffee with.
Same goes for finding a good therapist or the right yoga teacher. Most combinations aren’t going to work.
Anyway, I was incredibly relieved to learn that Michael had also gone through a very long period of trial and error, emphasis on error.
It gave me permission to keep trying.
Training is everything.
Michael also taught me that it’s my responsibility to train people very specifically in terms of what I want them to do and how I want them to do it.
So I had always looked for a VA who knows my shopping cart system, and then would get annoyed when she’d make ridiculous mistakes.
She said she knew the system, but then she’d get things wrong.
To me it seemed irresponsible and incompetent. But Michael helped me realize that not everyone uses the same systems in the same ways, and that it’s my job to be very clear on how I want things done and why I want them done that way.
His analogy: even Michael Phelps is screwed if he’s out alone in the middle of the ocean.
Skill sets alone are meaningless without instruction, guidance, boundaries. That was useful for me.
Also, I hired the brilliant Cairene to help me clarify and organize my systems, which has helped me enormously. Understatement. I would be lost without her.
Look for someone you like.
The other huge piece of advice I got from Michael –and this was my lightbulb thing— was this:
I should stop looking for a VA … and start looking for someone I really like who gets my business. Someone who really, really gets it.
To look for qualities over skills, personality over ability and willingness to learn and get dirty over experience.
Find the person you like and then train them to do what you want them to do.
And very, very, very soon after that, I found my dear First Mate Marissa.
I never would have approached her before because she wasn’t branded as the thing I was looking for.
But in the meantime I was filling out long and complicated forms for these fancy VA sites and they weren’t even getting back to me.
If you love them and they get it, you can figure out the rest.
All along I’d been hiring these super-fancy, super-expensive, assistant-to-the-stars, works-with-all-the-biggifiers sort of VAs, and it wasn’t working.
Yes, they were competent, but they didn’t get me or what I was trying to do.
Realizing that I need someone in my business who really and truly gets the feeling and the essence of what we do and who my Right People are … that was what changed everything for me.
And hooray for that.
Because without Marissa, I wouldn’t have been able to go on email sabbatical or to take an emergency vacation or to run my business with repetitive stress stuff that doesn’t allow me to type.
Recommendations?
Well, definitely write a personal ad.
That’s always a good thing.
- If you have a holistic good-for-the-world business, I recommend that you talk to Joy Slaughter (she’s @JoysLaughter on Twitter).
-
If you need someone who is super social-media savvy (and also a total sweetheart), I recommend that you talk to Michelle Wolverton (she’s @ChelPixie on Twitter).
- And of course I highly recommend Marissa (she’s @MarissaBracke) but just make sure to leave about 60 hours a month for me because I can’t live without her.
Hope that helps!
I’m sure there’s more, though. So … thoughts? Suggestions? Things I forgot to add?