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.
For Artists. (And anyone else who sells stuff online).
Six things I’ve learned while buying your art. Or trying to.
I’ve been realizing lately that our magical Hoppy House needs some Beautiful Things on its empty, empty walls.
And since I know my “extended network” (ew ew ew, I just said extended network) includes about a gazillion talented, creative people who live to make such things, I set out on a grand adventure across the internet.
Well, not really a grand one, but it has been pretty entertaining.
I’ve gotten some gorgeous pieces. Met some interesting people. Plus I have the joy of supporting people who create. Which I LOVE.
But the interesting part — to me at least — was observing the process.
I am completely fascinated with figuring out what makes me buy one thing as opposed to another. What makes me want to buy from you instead of from somebody else.
And I have thoughts. Oh, the understatement. It hurts.
So if you’re an artist or an Etsy person, take notes. And if you’re not, believe me — most of this is applicable in some form or another anyway.
Six important [substitute a word for “marketing” that doesn’t make you want to throw up] lessons.
And three tiny little bonus points. Let’s go.
Be around. Hang out online. Talk to people. Write stuff.
This one is not exactly news. Every marketing book/class/blog on the planet will force-feed you the whole “people buy from people they like, know and trust” thing until you can’t stand it anymore.
But ohmygod it is so true. Everyone I bought from? Either people I know on Twitter or people I heard about while I was on Twitter.
It was so much easier to fall in love with something, after having been guided there by someone I like. Does this make me a horribly shallow person? Possibly. But really, it’s just proof that I’m a human being.
If you’re an artist or you’re craft-ey or even if you’re a service professional, you might as well take advantage of this.
People who come to you through friends and connections are going to be more likely to feel comfortable throwing money at you. So be around. Be visible, so that people I know can mention you.
It’s the only way I’m going to find you.
Tell me stories.
I must have gone to dozens of sites and looked at paintings.
And all the paintings that spoke to me had stories attached to them. Leah Piken Kolidas has a lovely way of telling you about the elements of her work as well as sharing bits of her own creative process. Totally not preachy or over-intellectualized — it just gives you a sense of who she is.
Some artists tell stories about some of their pieces and not about others. Everything I bought except for one piece had some sort of story attached to it.
It doesn’t even have to be a painting. My wonderful friend Miya (whose Etsy store is down right now, argh) names all of her gorgeous little plates and bowls and tells you these hilarious stories about them and the goofy things they do or think.
Your story can be funny or serious. It can be about you or about the thing you’ve created. But let me in on the inner life of your art. Or at least let me peek.
It’s sexy. It makes me want to know more about what you do. And it makes what you do seem both more real and more valuable.
Make it easy.
I bought a painting that I love. But I almost didn’t get it.
Because the artist didn’t have a shopping cart or any way that I could buy online.
So we had to arrange for me to send a check and give her my address. And I had to get her address to send the check. And find the checkbook. Which meant all this back and forth.
Meanwhile, she sent the information as a Direct Message on Twitter. I get about a thousand of those a minute, so it got buried and lost for quite a while.
At least a dozen things had to accidentally go right just for me to end up with the painting.
If I hadn’t loved it and I hadn’t remembered and I hadn’t double-checked my buried messages and all these other things, she wouldn’t have sold the painting.
One PayPal button could have fixed that. And you might as well make it easier for people who kind of want your art and mostly want your art and want it right now but might forget later to buy it too.
I know those aren’t necessarily your all-time ideal Right People, but at this point? You might as well be selling your stuff so that you can keep making more of it.
Have stuff that I can’t buy.
You want at least a couple things that have already sold.
Whenever I’m on Sarah Marie Lacy’s site, there are always a couple of things I love that I can’t get. Because someone else has already bought them. I can’t even tell you how hot this is. HOT!
If you’ve sold stuff*, keep it up there — with the price — so that I’ll know that I was too late. That other people want this too. Give me a little urgency.
You don’t have to shout “Buy now!” or anything because you know, ick. Just remind me that people buy stuff.
*Even if it was just to your mother’s best friend or something. Even if you bartered it for something. I don’t care. Stick a big SOLD tag underneath it.
Surprise me.
I have to mention Leah Piken Kolidas (who also has a terrific About Page, by the way) again because she did something super smart.
She sent a lovely thank-you note on a card. A “this card is so pretty that I need more of them” kind of card, a card that just so happened to feature one of her paintings.
It wasn’t an upsell (because it was just her being sweet and wonderful), but it totally worked as one in the most subtle way ever.
Uh huh. I’d been on her site and hadn’t noticed that you could get gift card versions of her paintings. Now I know.
And the next time I need a birthday present for someone, that’s where I’ll be getting it.
Be human.
Man, I talk about this so much. Really mostly just so I can keep linking to that one Betty Boop video with the cow-punching episode, but I cannot overemphasize how important this is.
Okay. So I bought five small pieces of art last month.
Four of them came with warm, friendly, personal little handwritten notes. And the other one had “We appreciate your business” written on the invoice.
Seriously? We appreciate your business?
You’re not — gott sei dank — BlandCorp USA or anything. You’re an artist. In a basement. In Eugene. Which is great. That’s why I’m buying from you. So what’s the deal?
It is so easy when you’re an itty biz to take the extra effort to connect. It can be a hand-drawn smiley face. A warm email (or just a template that sounds like you’re really nice). SOMETHING.
Make it easy for me to think of you as a person (you in all of your quirky fabulousness!) and not as some faceless website, and I’ll tell the whole world about you.
Bonus advice. I’ll make this fast.
1. Tell me what’s going to happen next.
It’s easier for me to press the buy button if I know what’s going to happen. You’re going to mail it to me? It already includes shipping? It doesn’t? Your prices are in Canadian so this is going to SAVE ME MONEY?
Let me know.
2. Don’t price by size.
I know galleries do this. But that doesn’t make it not stupid. Plus, the internet is not a gallery. You have space.
If you set things up so that big paintings cost more and small paintings cost less, you are educating me as a consumer to believe that the value of what you create has to do with how big it is or how long it takes to make it. Which is Bolsheviks.*
*That’s Stu, my voice-to-text software, who refuses to say “bullshit”.
3. Blog about your process.
I love reading Barbara J. Carter’s blog. She’s a painter who also has a PhD in astrophysics. So she does cool geometric science-inspired wackiness and tells you about it.
Which is so, so great. She blogs about the process of creating and then you can buy what she’s just made. Smart smart smart.
I’m done.
Not buying art. But I’m getting off my soapbox now.
It’s not that I want to rant all day about business-related stuff. It’s more that I want to give you money. I want your art. I want to be a part of your business.
And it’s not just me. Honest. There are plenty of us out there who want your paintings and your crafted bits of genius and your whatever-it-is you have for us. We think about you. A lot.
And then something happens that keeps us from remembering why it is that we need your stuff right this second.
So everything you can do to remove those somethings makes us happier.
And it makes it easier for you to keep on doing your art and sharing it with the rest of us. Please?
Ask Havi #20: Am I just giving in?
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.
Thanks to the lovely and thoughtful Maryann Devine for today’s Ask Havi. With permission, as always.
The question.
Hi Havi
I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped me between the insights you provide daily in your blog, and the techniques and concepts you put together in your ebooks and audio. Seriously, thank you.
Here’s my question:
I think there are just some things that are not in one’s nature, and there’s no reason to force yourself.
But how can you tell if you are being true to yourself, or just giving in to what feels safe?
Here is a concrete example from my life: I’m an introverted person. That doesn’t mean I don’t like people, or don’t enjoy being with them, or even meeting new people, but it takes a *lot* out of me.
I’m not afraid to stand up and talk in front of people, but it is completely draining for me.
I hear a lot of advice about the importance of face-to-face, and even get great opportunities to do in-person stuff like this.
Part of me says, you should do this, everyone says it will help, and another part says, you just don’t have this in you, and it doesn’t make sense to force it.
p.s. I also think I’m procrastinating about _________.
And an answer.
Ohmygod. This is a really, really rich question that pretty much deserves an entire book to be written about it.
Here’s my off-the-top-of-my-head answer, though:
Assume for now that you can’t tell if you’re being true to yourself or just giving in. Have that be your starting point.
And then give yourself permission — temporary permission, if that feels better — to not do the thing you don’t want to do.
In fact, let’s make it easier. Selma and I will give you permission to Not Do The Thing, and that way if you have resistance to giving yourself permission, we can sneak around it.
This is how the experiment works.
If you consciously and actively allow yourself to Not Do The Thing, and you consciously and actively observe your reactions, then you’re not “just giving in”.
You’re experimenting.
You’re experimenting with being kind to yourself. You’re finding out what happens when you do things without guilt. When you — whoah — make a love-based decision instead of a fear-based decision.
And then you pay attention to what comes up.
Removing guilt from the equation makes everything clearer. If you’re not doing the thing just because you think you should, and you’re not beating yourself up for giving in, then you just happen to be Not Doing The Thing.
And then you can find out whether that feels okay or not.
As long as you’re doing it (or not doing it) mindfully and without guilt, you’ll get the right result.
The right result? What does that even mean?
I don’t know. But you will. For example …
Maybe you’ll discover that when you allow yourself to Not Do The Thing instead of guilting yourself into it, that you’re not as scared of it as you thought you were. Could be that you were just stuck in resistance mode.
Maybe now you will want to do it, but your own way. And you’ll get some insights into what that way is.
Or maybe you’ll discover that Not Doing The Thing is not giving in at all, but just gathering the information that will help you find a different way to achieve what you want.
Or maybe you’ll discover that you really, truly, 100% don’t want to Do The Thing, in which case, good for you. Now you know for sure. Don’t do it!
In this specific case …
Okay, I totally identify with this one because I’m also an extremely introverted person.
Not only that, but I’m also a Highly Sensitive Person in the Elaine Aron sense of the word, which I suspect you are too. This means, among other things, that we take a lot longer to recover from social interactions than “normal” people.
Anyway, you have my permission to deshouldify!
Did you know …
In 2007 I was teaching live events twice a month and in 2008 I only taught a couple live events?
And I made way more money. And had more time. And taught a lot online which was really fun because you can have 100+ people on a phone call while you’re snuggling in bed with your duck …
So let me ask you a question …
What would happen if you made a commitment to yourself to help yourself feel SAFE AND SUPPORTED this year in whatever form that took? So you could give yourself permission to just not teach live for a while.
And then you can work on figuring out which patterns are the important ones. Maybe feeling safe and supported will mean that you’ll start taking steps to make live teaching easier for you.
Or maybe it will mean that you’ll want to build in more recovery time. Or maybe it will mean that you’ll want to experiment with teleclasses.
I would never say “Oh, you just don’t have this in you.”
Because you don’t know that yet for sure. You still don’t even know what you’re like when you’re not swimming in shoulds and guilt. Which means that you can’t know what you want or need yet.
But maybe you’re allowed to not know.
This is what I would practice saying to myself in your case:
“I don’t have to force it right now. Right now I don’t feel comfortable with this, and this is where I am right now. Maybe it will change. In the meantime, I’m going to go back to this conscious, intentional, being-kind-and-patient-with-myself thing.”
That’s what I think.
p.s. About _________. No, it’s not procrastination! Absolutely not.You’re obviously thinking about it and processing with it and interacting with it. You’re fine!
And her response …
Havi, your advice is, as usual, comforting and thought-provoking at
the same time — thank you!Hearing your recommendations makes me realize that I attach a lot of
“shoulds” to issues around face-to-face networking/workshop-giving/teaching, etc. — “Important People think I should do these things! So, I should, right?”And I feel guilty when people are generous with opportunities like that — I feel obliged to do whatever I’m offered.
It sounds obvious now, but I really didn’t realize all that, in working it out on my own. Thank you!
And now the part that’s for you.
I know the thing you’re working on isn’t exactly the thing that Maryann is working on, but I also know that you’re smart enough to start applying the principles to your own thing.
So I’ll just say: there is power in consciously, actively and intentionally Not Doing The Thing and seeing what happens.
And there is also power in consciously, actively and intentionally trying The Thing. But either way, at least we’re shifting the focus away from the guilt and towards the “what am I learning about myself here” part.
This is not a book review.
There’s this site I love.
I’ve been kind of avoiding it lately, but that’s my stuff. It’s called Mini Book Expo for Bloggers, and they give you books. To review. If you’re a blogger.
It’s cool because you get a book for free, and then you get to talk up the book to people who might fall in love with it, and everybody wins. And by everybody I mean book people — readers, authors, publishers, and, of course, those bloggers who either a. like to read or b. are stuckified about what to write about.
I always have stuff to write about (usually too much stuff to write about), but I also really love to read. And I thought this site was genius.
But I screwed up.
Okay, here’s what happened. I chose two books. I got them for free, yay. And I hated them.
Well, not so much hated them as that I wasn’t meant to read them. I’m just not one of their Right People.
But now I have these books. And I want to review them. But I have only negative things to say about them, which isn’t really fair because these books need to find their right people, not for me to scare everyone away from them.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch …
So I’m taking this course with the magical Jen Hofmann (for the second time!) and it’s supposedly about space and clearing and organizing, but — like all good things — it’s actually about your relationship with yourself.
Jen is amazing, and one of the things that she makes so clear is that in order for your workspace to support you and nourish you, you have to remove the things that don’t belong there.
So I’ve been in this pretty deep process of internal and external clearing, as I work on my poor, hurt arms and my office and everything else that’s going on right now.
Yesterday it occurred to me that my “guilt shelf” of books that I know I’m not going to review here does not belong in my office. I don’t need a guilt shelf.
Yes, that’s probably embarrassingly obvious, but it took me awhile to figure that out. So it’s time for these books to find their way out of my space and into a place that will be better for them.
My plan! It is …. a plan!
Right. So I’ll tell you what these books are, and if you think you might like to read one and review it (and then tell the Mini Book Expo people that you’re doing it), I will send it to you.
You can volunteer yourself in the comments, or send an email to Marissa (support at fluentself dot com). And if no one volunteers, I’ll mail them back to the Mini Book Expo people.
The first book: “Where’s your WOW?”
The first book is called “Where’s your WOW? 16 Ways to make your competitors wish they were you!” It’s by Robyn Spitzman and Rick Frishman and it comes highly recommended by Jay Conrad Levinson, if that does it for you.
I read business and marketing books all the time, albeit with a certain degree of internal resistance. Over time I’ve gotten pretty good at just gleaning the bits I like, but this time just wasn’t able to stomach it.
Just looking at chapter titles like “You Gotta Have a ‘Brand Slam’!” provokes awful revenge fantasies towards the authors for perpetrating that much violence and stupidity against both the English language and my consciousness.
Take this book. Please.
The second book: “Your Perfect Fit”
The second book is called “Your Perfect Fit” and I completely misunderstood what this was about. Somehow, from the description I gathered that it was about interacting with body criticism and self-image.
Since I used to teach a workshop at yoga studios called “learning to love your body”, and since the theme of working on your relationship with yourself is so relevant to the stuff I teach now about patterns and habits, it seemed like this would be — dare I say — a perfect fit.
This is not that book at all.
This is a book about how to choose the right strappy sandals so you won’t look fat, how to do exercises so you won’t look fat, and how to snack healthily … so you won’t look fat.
To which all I can say is: ?!?!?!
But of course I am a woman who doesn’t wear heels. Okay, let’s be honest. I own two pairs of shoes. Both of which were chosen for comfort and not for whether or not they make my legs look good.
And I can’t even begin to imagine having interest in or patience for advice like “wear jeans that fit” or “vacation is not an excuse to eat everything in sight”.
But again, I’m not their Right People. If you’d like to learn a bunch of exercises and/or uh, find out what type of sleeves flatter your body type or something, I would be more than happy to mail this to you.
Speaking of Right People …
This is barely even slightly relevant, but what the hell.
Last night I had a fairly insane dream that I was back at SXSW and I was headed to some cafe with someone.
And then it turned out that Tim Ferris was going to be there to and I was all “Really? Do we have to?” because I am so not one of his Right People. And the friend I was with said we couldn’t get out of it and I was going blech blech blech because I am not very nice.
But then Tim-in-my-dream was very nice. And he asked me, “Given where your business is at right now, what do you think you and your duck need the most and is there any way that I could help you get it?”
So I said, “That’s a terrific question.” Because it was. And he said, ” Yeah, I know.”
And I said that I had to think about it. Because I had to think about it. And then I thought about it.
And then something really cool happened.
While I was thinking about it, I had this humming sensation around my heart. It was a very pleasant sort of feeling, and I knew my heart was telling me that my business wants to be peaceful and full of love.
And I was all, there’s no way I’m going to say this out loud because these are marketing people and they so won’t get it, and I’ll come across as the world’s cheesiest businessperson.
But I didn’t have anything else to say, so I just didn’t say anything. And then Tim-in-my-dream said, “I think your business needs to be peaceful and full of love.” And I said, “You’re pretty insightful for a guy who cheats in kickboxing tournaments.” And he said, “Yeah, I know.”
And I thought, man, I’m glad I’m not his Right People, but it must be really great for them to be his Right People.
And the point is …
No idea.
But seriously, take one of these books off my hands. Or both of them.
And hand them over to someone who would enjoy them. So that I can go back to talking up the fabulous work they do at Mini Book Expo and get rid of my a guilt shelf.
The more space I free up — in my heart and on my bookshelf — the more peaceful and loving my business will become. That may make me the world’s cheesiest businessperson — but I can also feel the truth if it.
Just because I don’t like something, doesn’t necessarily mean that it doesn’t have value. It just doesn’t have value for me.
So I’m going to sit with that for a while and enjoy all this new space.
Friday Check-in #33: “out of town” 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.
Oh, yet again one of those weeks when the hard is the good and the good is the hard.
The four days I spent in Austin at SXSW were the most fun ever. Delicious, heartwarming, insanely goofy fun. And also gah! Challenging and super-hard.
Not to mention that I’ve spent every minute since then in full-on recovery mode. But I don’t want to talk about that.
Actually, it’s quite possible that all sorts of things happened this week, but they were all zapped out of my brain as a result of the crazed revelry boring conference. This is going to be the most boring Friday Chicken that ever was.
The hard stuff
SXSW.
I’d been kind of worried about getting roped into a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t want to do. You know, what with a gazillion people being there, and everyone wanting to meet up.
So I was all ready to say no when necessary and generally do what I needed to do to take care of myself.
But of course I totally didn’t count on the fact that there would be all sorts of tempting and wonderful things that I would want to do.
Turns out it’s way harder to say no when it’s stuff you really do want to do.
So it was exhausting and hectic and crazy … and I didn’t get to do things like sleep. Or yoga. Or sleep. Yes, sleep deserves to be mentioned twice.
Speaking of conferences…
I don’t like them.
Yes, I may be to pass as an adult — but am still not enough of one to ever want to hang out in a convention center again. Just not cut out for wearing badges, riding escalators, or shaking hands with people.
Blechh.
Also, Selma doesn’t like crowds. Or duck fetishists, of which there are an astonishing number.
Routines interrupted.
What with all the staying up until dark-thirty every night of the conference, and the general decadence and carousing, all my normal little structured, ritualized routine-ey things got thrown out of whack.
Very distressing.
And then you have to do that much more work to reinstate the structures that are supposed to support you.
Grumble grumble.
Piles of work!
The behind-ness: it is not pretty.
Doing my best to take it in stride and not get too overwhelmed, but definitely feeling the urge to crawl into bed and ignore it all.
The good stuff
SXSW!!!!!
I really can’t do justice to how epic it was. No amount of exclamation points can do that.
Getting to hang out with all of my favorite people — in “real life” — is absolutely the best thing that’s happened to me all year.
There was much collapsing in giggles, generating of goofy business propositions, and eating of melted cheese. Sometimes all three at the same time.
It turns out that my friends really are that great. Getting them all together in one room? Could not be more perfect.
Selma had a blast. As did my gentleman friend. And, amazingly, nothing in my business went kablooey while I was gone.
Friends: I like them.
Breaking bread with people you like … pretty darn great.
So having everyone I like all appear at the same random, spontaneous party (thanks, Sarah!) was the happiest of happy accidents.
Yes, we did all converge on the same city at the same time, but to have it all come together like that — so perfectly — was like a big crazy happiness infusion.
It takes a village.
So I still don’t have the use of my hands. And I can’t even tell you how many kindhearted people came together to make that not be an issue.
Most of the time I was glued to Naomi at the hip. So that was handy.
Though the rest of the time, I had friends (and the occasional total stranger) write text-messages, send Twitter updates, and look up phone numbers for me. It was brilliant. I barely felt incompetent at all.
Back in Portland!
People in Austin will go out of their way to tell you how much Austin is supposedly like Portland. It’s not.
Not that Austin wasn’t lovely, because it was. But getting back home was the best.
Ez lives here!
My not-a-kid-anymore brother is still living with us. And I’m still overjoyed about it. Especially now that’s he’s learned to make pasta from scratch.
Also he cooked and cleaned and kept house while Selma, Stu, my gentleman friend and I were in Austin.
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.
Three words to drive your Right People away
Seriously. Don’t say this.
I have one point today. And I’m going to hammer it in until you’re sick of it. And until you never say these three words again. Because this is so incredibly important.
Shameless. Self. Promotion.
Every single time I interrupt what I’m talking about to parenthetically insert the words “shameless self-promotion”, I’m making it all about me when it’s really about you.
Which is so not fair to you.
The world’s worst doctor.
Pretend for a minute that your friend just found out she has skin cancer. Tfu tfu tfu, god forbid, may it never happen, etc. But let’s pretend.
You go with her to the doctor’s office, because you’re a really great friend. Your friend is feeling distraught, and is desperate to know how quickly she can take care of this thing. You squeeze her hand.
Your friend: “I’m kind of freaking out here. What are our options?”
The doctor: “Well, there is a procedure, but — oh god, this is so embarrassing, I’m such a whore for even mentioning this — we do a thing here at the hospital that has a — total shameless self-promotion here — 99% success rate. You probably don’t want to hear about it.”
Your friend: “No, tell me! I want to live! It’s cancer!”
The doctor: “Okay, well, it’s this thing we do that — shameless plug for my own services — takes three hours and then you’re fine. It — I’m sorry — can be kind of expensive sometimes though. So you’re probably not interested and I totally understand.”
Your friend: “No, I am!”
The doctor: “You know, if it were up to me, I’d never take money for this because really I just want to help people. But you know how it is, I have to make rent and stuff. I shouldn’t even have brought it up.”
THE POINT: Don’t be this guy.
Whatever it is that you do, it helps someone.
Your art or your music or your life coaching may not cure cancer, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not vital and necessary to the people who really need it.
Your Right People.
You make something beautiful that eases someone’s pain. Or reminds them who they really are.
You listen to their hurts and witness their experiences. You give them what they need in the moment that they need it most.
You make them laugh.
The specifics don’t matter. Your Right People need whatever it is you have in whatever form you give it. It’s not fair to them when you shift the attention from their pain to your discomfort around mentioning the fact that you can help.
THE POINT: It’s not fair to make it about your discomfort when they’re the ones who need you to help them with their discomfort.
What’s really going on here.
I get that you don’t want to be all “me me me”.
I get the embarrassment and the “What if they think I’m an ass?”-ness of it all. So yeah, of course we have make an awkward joke about how embarrassing it is.
Problem is, now the focus is on us and not them. The irony is that it’s actually more “me me me” to ramble on about how shameless it is than it is to just tell them what you do that might help.
Your intention? Completely honorable. You want to make it clear that you’re not an ass, and you aren’t.
But in practice… I don’t know how to say this in a way that’s not obnoxious, so I’ll just say it.
You just (accidentally) came across as a total ass.
Yes, it’s unfair. I know. It’s just that we all need a better way to not come across as an ass.
And the way to do that is to focus on the other person’s pain and the other person’s problems, and not on how awkward we feel about the fact that we might have a possible solution.
THE POINT: When you mention the thing you do, it’s not talking about the thing, it’s brainstorming solutions.
Stop implying that telling me how you can help is shameful.
Someone who’s a total ass is going to be a total ass, regardless of whether or not he apologizes for it.
It’s not like you’re going around yelling “buy, buy, buy!” or telling me in the middle of a chatty conversation that prices go up on Tuesday and I should “act now — before it’s too late to save 50% off!”
All you’re doing is telling me more about the thing that can help me. Putting a link in your sidebar to a product I might find useful — especially if it’s yours — is just a nice, considerate thing to do. That way I don’t have to look for it.
But when you insert the requisite “look how obnoxious I am” bit, you’re making everybody uncomfortable. And every time you imply that helping me is something to be embarrassed about, we all lose.
THE POINT: There is nothing to be ashamed of but shame itself. And even that? Completely unnecessary.
Always on my mind.
I just spent four days talking to some of the most smart, interesting, creative and reassuringly wacky people ever. Entrepreneurs, writers, musicians, and helper mice.
People with good hearts. People with something important to share with the world. Sometimes with something important to share with me.
And instead of just sharing it, we all manage to screw it up. Not by being embarrassed, but by making that the focus.
When our discomfort comes up, it’s there for a reason. We can talk to it. We can acknowledge it. We can do stuff to work with it and destuckify it.
But it’s not fair to pass it on — even unintentionally — to the people we’re trying to help.
Sneezing shame and embarrassment and self-loathing … I know it sounds very sexy, but it’s not.
So I’d love it if we could take the “shameless” out of shameless self-promotion. And the “self”. And the “promotion”.