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.
I survived SXSW.
And all I got from learning things the hard way was this lousy t-shirt.
If you’re not up to speed, I just got back from four wild ragtag days in Austin, Texas, where I was supposedly attending that one internet conference.
I have a conflict here. On the one hand, I have a vested interest in not boring the hell out of you. Which means I probably shouldn’t keep talking about SXSW.
On the other hand, you know I always tell you what’s on my mind … and what’s on tap at the moment is about a hundred ideas, thoughts, wonderings and insights. All of which (sorry!) have to do with the crazy four days I spent in Austin.
So here’s what I’m going to do. Quick verbal snapshots of some of the stuff that’s percolating in my brain right now, and we’ll see how it goes from there.
People are intimidated by my duck.
This was definitely news to me. I tend to think of us as being fairly approachable.
One of the things I learned on this trip, though, is that there are a number of people whose fear of meeting me actually outweighed (or nearly outweighed) their desire to meet me.
Nothing could be more surprising to me than hearing from one friend or another, “hey, I just ran into a huge fan of yours and said you were right over here — and then they freaked out and ran away“. Weird, right?
I get how awkward and potentially uncomfortable it is to march up and introduce yourself to a semi-stranger, especially one you madly admire.
I mean, I’m the one who spilled water all over Derek Sivers.
It’s just that … I’m really, really nice. My niceness is not even “oh, that’s my brand” or anything creepy like that. It’s really me. And my duck is even nicer.
No kidding. Everybody loves Selma.
So I had a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this. That there were people excited/terrified to meet me — people I was totally cool about meeting and talking to — who ran away.
I have no idea what I’m going to do differently now that I know this — but this was definitely the big surprise of the whole trip.
Fear: it lives in televisions.
In Austin I was mostly hanging out with my friends and colleagues who, like me, are fortunate enough to (knock on keyboard) not be affected much by the current state of the economy.
And at the same time, I had a number of conversations with other people about to launch a new business or break out on their own, people who are so capable, talented, and inspirational that their chance of success seems — if not inevitable — then at least a pretty safe bet.
But their anxiety about the economy is keeping them absolutely paralyzed.
There is an economic crisis. Obviously. But some of us are are soaking in this atmosphere of crisis, and the rest seem to be immune to its effects on our mood and well-being.
So I was puzzling over this, and then I was sitting in the Dallas airport and I felt myself also sinking into that awful, dark “everything sucks” depression. And then I noticed that there were television screens everywhere.
All you could see and all you could hear in all directions was doom doom doom.*
*Like the dodos in “Ice Age”. Doom on you, doom on you!
Oh.
I don’t have a television. So I’m not breathing daily infusions of hyped-up horribleness.
No wonder everyone’s scared. Of course they are.
Television* is a 24-hour fear generating machine.
*By “television” I’m referring specifically to the genre of “news infotainment”, yes?
I’m not saying stuff isn’t going seriously off-track in the world these days, because it is.
It’s just that it’s not always the economy. It’s just that fear is the greatest cause of stuck. It’s just that the people who could totally be doing amazing things and making money right now are just kind of treading water.
Kill Maim your television.
Next year in Greece.
I need to make a confession. I just spent four days at an internet conference and didn’t actually go to it.
Well, I was there. But I didn’t attend a single panel. Not one discussion, not one keynote.
Not just me. Naomi, too. That might have been my fault. Possibly.
At first it was just because I was having too much fun. And then it was because I was meeting people and making useful connections.
And by the end, it was kind of “well, I’ve come this far”. Like, attending an actual event would be over the top.
I talked to so many people who did a. pretty much the same thing, b. almost the same thing, or c. wished they’d done the same thing.
So I’m thinking … these completely fascinating conversations with like-minded thinkers, helper-mice and fellow goofball entrepreneurs were so valuable and so inspiring that I can’t wait to do it again.
Just maybe not at a convention.
What I really want to do is hang out more with Naomi and Pam and Chris and Nathan and Sonia and Colleen. So now I’m thinking Greece.
I hear you don’t need to wear a lanyard with a nametag to get in.
But if I were going back and I didn’t already have people to hang out with? I would plan plan plan. I’d figure out exactly what needed to happen to hook up with my people from Twitter. I’d be Karl, who made it really easy to say yes to having lunch with him. I’d be Sarah, who went out of her way to make me want to meet her.
Which reminds me: we need to talk about how to stalk people in style without being creepy.
How to stalk people in style without being creepy.
I actually have quite a rant on this, but I know Naomi will be covering that subject this week.
I will say this, though:
Imagine that you are me, and there are a hundred people who want to meet you.
Or, better, imagine that you are Chris Brogan and there are a thousand people who want to meet you.
Now imagine that you’ve received — for the purposes of this experiment — ten text messages. Nine of them go like this: “Hey, are you around? I’d really like to meet you. Where are you?”
The tenth one says “I’m at _____________ at the corner of X and Y from 2 to 4 today. Amazing people here. Would love it if you dropped by.”
Which one are you answering?
There you go … free business advice. 🙂
That’s where I’m at.
No brilliant conclusions or anything. I’m just sitting with all of this, and watching it sift through my sleep-deprived brain. Getting excited about where I might take these ideas, without having to take them anywhere just yet.
I can definitely say that I’m happy to be home. And even happier to be here. I missed you guys.
Havi’s Insecurities: blogging live from SXSW
And other stories…
Thought bubbles.
Havi and her insecurities are sitting together on the plane. Selma the duck is hiding in the red bag, uncomfortably nestled against a paper bag of cashews and his moments hazelnuts.*
*Yes, Stu. “And his moments” was pretty funny. As was “and his laments”. Next time, please just say hazelnuts.
And Stu — because, how could I forget him? — was folded up neatly in the suitcase. Well, his microphone was.
Interesting philosophical question there. If Stu lives inside of my computer but I only see him when the microphone is plugged in, who is Stu really?
Yes, I’m trying to distract you from my insecurities, except that I promised to let them guest post today.
Alright then.
Thoughts bubbles part 2.
Havi: “Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Going to Austin to meet all of my friends!”
Havi’s Insecurities: “Are you really ready for this?”
Havi: “What are you talking about?”
Havi’s Insecurities: “Don’t you know about the thought bubbles?”
Havi:???
I didn’t know about the thought bubbles, but as soon as this idea was introduced into my consciousness, I saw them everywhere.
Havi’s Insecurities: “You know. You meet someone that you know only by picture or voice and then you’re thinking “Wow. They’re so much taller than I thought they’d be.” But you don’t say it. It’s just in the thought bubble.”
Havi: Okay. So what?
Havi’s Insecurities: So you know what they’re going to be saying about you in their thought bubbles?”
Havi:???
Havi’s Insecurities: “What they’re really thinking is, ‘Oh my god, I thought you to be Lisa Kinnear.’
Havi:???
Havi’s Insecurities: “Sorry. That was Stu. What I meant to say was that everybody will be thinking about how they thought you would be way skinnier.”
Havi: “Oh.”
Meeting people.
I’ve met so many people here since Friday evening.
And so far four of them have said “Oh my god, You’re so much taller than I thought you’d be. I thought you’d be way shorter.”
Which my insecurities instantly translated to “skinnier”. Until we had a little talk.
Meeting people part two.
Unsurprisingly, I spent most of my time with Naomi. Glued to the hip, practically. Harder than it sounds.
Also: surprisingly useful when your arms don’t work and you can’t text anybody. If I’ve said anything untoward to you on Twitter or via SMS in the past couple days, it was probably her.
Here’s who I’ve been hanging out I with (aside from Naomi):
- Pam.
- Sonia.
- Colleen.
- Nathan.
- Jeff.
- Marie from distinct charmers. Cut it out, Stu. You know she’s from Snakecharmers. They’re practically my favorite band.
- Charlie.
- Steve.
I also got to meet Derek Sivers from CDBaby — someone I wanted to meet for years and years — if by “meet” you mean “interrogate, harass, spill water on, belatedly identify as the person you’ve wanted to meet for years and then be reduced to a gushing, water spilling pile of googly-eyed fan girl”.
That is what you meant, right?
Realizations.
Of course any “venturing out from the place you think of as home” is fraught with all sorts of things.
Yes, I have problems with the word journey — Juana make something of it? That was “wanna”. I hate Steve. But I love how Stu won’t let me disparage him, and calls himself Steve instead when I say something unflattering. Can’t imagine why that would happen.
You take yourself somewhere new and you watch yourself interact with ideas, people and your own perceptions. And I got slammed with a huge epiphany this morning.
Realizations, part two.
I’m not sure if I’m ready to talk about it, yet. But I’ll plant some seeds.
This whole time that I’ve been dealing with the pain in my arms, I’ve known that there was a significant emotional component to it as well as the physical.
A huge part of my healing process thingy has been focusing on those angles as well. Given the timing and some of the stuff that was going on right before it started — and my body’s being very clear about stuff he wants me to change in my life — this is not exactly news to me.
But this morning I realized EXACTLY what’s going on here. What the root of it is. And what the next steps are.
So I need to do some more work with this before I’ll be ready to talk about what I’ve learned and where I’m going with it, but this is the most optimistic I’ve felt so far.
Totally worth it.
This uncomfortable flash of insight — this astonishing (to me, at least) realization — is so useful to me and so powerful, that the whole trip to SXSW was worth it.
Even if I hadn’t gotten to see all my friends.
Even if I haven’t gotten to go to a bunch of panels (wait, I still haven’t gone to any panels!).
Even if I hadn’t gotten to spill water everywhere in my excitement over meeting Derek.
All in all, a pretty great trip. I’m here until Tuesday, so we’ll see what else shows up. I’m going to go get Naomi or someone to post this for me.
*blows kiss*
Friday Check-in #32: “take that!” 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.
I’m kind of running around like a headless chicken, which is oddly appropriate, given that this is the Friday Chicken.
Because I’m on my way to Austin for SXSW, dragging my gentleman friend with me. And Selma too, of course.
And some Selma decoys, bodyguards and such, to thwart any attempts at a celebrity ducknapping. Take that!
And in case you’re not one of those people who has an overly obsessive relationship with my duck, but you are my twitter stalker burglar, my brother is going to be home all weekend. Take that!
On to this week.
The hard stuff
Still the arms.
Still in pain. Still trying to find solutions to the “I can’t do my work” thing — preferably ones that don’t drive me crazy.
The good part of that is that Ez and my gentleman friend are slaves to my will donating a lot of time and energy to helping me in my business.
But that’s hard too, because I hate receiving help almost as much as I dread asking for it.
Working on that. Yuck.
Snow!
Seriously, Portland. It’s practically the middle of March. I can handle frost and stuff, but full-on snow? Don’t make me move back to the Middle East.
It was freezing this week. And since I regularly have to stick my arms in either hot or cold baths, I can’t even bundle up properly.
Grumble, grumble, grumble. Grumble.
Not being able to write.
Dictating posts, or talking them out with Stu (my arch-nemesis in software form), is just not the same as sitting down to write.
The whole meditative process has become something else for me. It feels sluggish and awkward. My words don’t come as fast. The writing process is less playful and more labored.
It’s a lot of hard for right now.
If I didn’t have Stu’s Bolsheviks for comic relief, I don’t know what I’d do. He’s an acetyl, but he’s a funny acetyl.
The good stuff
Getting help.
Aside from all the time, love and energy that members of Hoppy House are donating to the “Keeping Havi From Falling Apart” fund, lots of other help is showing up, too.
Of course, there is the fabulous Marissa, my kooky and marvelous personal assistant and can-do-ologist. And Peggy, who does all the behind-the-scenes magic. And Denise, my new project manager.
And then, as if that weren’t enough, so many of my friends, clients and students have been asking if they can help, or volunteering an hour or two to type while I dictate (so much faster than Stu!).
I’m in awe. It’s really amazing. And I am so grateful.
Purim!
I already wrote about baking cookies, screaming madly and all that. But it was definitely a highlight of the week, and worth mentioning twice.
This actually belongs in the “hard” section, too, because we had a completely miserable time at this insane synagogue that we wound up at accidentally.
It was super noisy. Selma hated it. They skipped most of the parts we had actually come for. And they — I’m not even making this up — had a song called “I Love My Big Jew Frog.”
I love my big jew frog. What?!?
This exceptional phrase, despite making no sense in any context whatsoever, has ended up providing hours of entertainment for me, my brother and my gentleman friend.
We’ve been coming up with absurd rhyming couplets featuring this line, which still is completely incomprehensible to me. Or to anybody, really.
Buenos Dias, Guten Tag! Oh how I love my Big Jew Frog!
I avoid LA because of all the smog! Tell me, are you my Big Jew Frog?
And so on.
Yes, we have fun at Hoppy House.
I was curious enough about this hysterical, yet completely inappropriate song title, and so I did a little creative googling. But the only search result for “big jew frog” is my post from Tuesday.
You know the XKCD list of phrases that return no Google results? And the resulting paradox that as soon as you post a phrase that is not Google-able, it suddenly is, because your result has made it so?
Right. I can’t believe no one else got “big jew frog” first. That’s totally going on a t-shirt. Except it’s not.
Birthday!
I don’t have much to say about it, but yay! Birthday!
Lots of contemplation, reflection, thinking about stuff. And, as threatened, yoga and meditation, and some time in the sauna.
I also got an astonishing assortment of cards, and odd/ wonderful little gifts from various friends and readers around the world.
Thanks especially to Lori, Janet, Fabeku and our very dear Wormy.
My gentleman friend surprised me with an enormous box of Fansocks from the best sock store in the entire world. I’m sure there are many women who would rather not get socks for their birthday, but clearly I am not one of them because I am overjoyed. Socks!
Wooly ones and stripey ones and stripey wooly ones . . . best birthday ever.
Ooh! And the best birthday greeting ever:
Happy Birthday Oh Shiva One, Selma’s Pimp-In-Chief, Supreme Yogawhore and Creator Of The Best Wacky Hippy Crap Ever!
I love my students and clients so much.
Just saying.
Helper mice.
Chris is my massage therapist, and I’d link to him except that he has issues with biggification to the point that there isn’t even a website to link to.
But aside from that, he’s just the loveliest person, and I’m so lucky to have him on my team of people who are doing stuff to make me get better.
I also got an astonishingly great session from Hiro, that gave me considerable insight into some of the deeper stuff happening around my pain, and a new hope for improvement.
Between the two of them, I’m feeling a lot more optimistic, just in general. It’s about time.
Ez lives here! And I’m still happy about it!
So if you’re sick of hearing about it, too bad. Take that!
Actually, we have a little “take that!” dance that we made up. If you’re nice to me, maybe I’ll show you sometime.
He also made the most amazing cauliflower-paneer-lentil spicy something-or-other (homemade paneer!) and I could not be happier.
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.
Making your idea matter.
So I managed to piss some people off during the “Havi and Naomi talk about sidestepping the tight economy” call.
Here’s what I said:
The implementation of an idea is more important than the idea itself.
The funny thing is that if you hate this concept, I agree — yeah, this is depressing and annoying. And I don’t want it to be true either.
I mean, come on. I’m an ideas person. It’s what I do all day: have ideas. That, and talk to myself my duck.
I wish the ideas were what counted most too.
And I dearly wish that those of us who had smart techniques and powerful concepts for changing the world could have an easier time of it.
That we could get the support and recognition we deserve, while putting those techniques and concepts out into the world. So our ideas can get to the people we want to help — the people who really need them.
But since that isn’t necessarily going to automatically just happen, we have to deal with how things actually work in real life.
And how we can use real-life to our advantage. That’s where implementation comes in.
Bad news and good news
The bad news: your idea doesn’t matter.
The good news: your idea can succeed; so it actually will matter to those who need it.
Okay, so I like a good idea as much as the next person — in fact, considerably more — and it’s still all about implementation.
You can succeed wildly with a sucky idea. You can fail miserably with a great idea.
Clients and friends are always coming to me with their ideas, and wanting to know if I think these are “good” ones.
Is it a good idea? Sure, I think it’s a terrific idea. But so what?
What people really want to know is whether or not I think their idea can succeed. And (insert some legitimate wailing about the unfairness of life here), whether or not an idea is good has very little to do with that.
An example.
If you’ve ever heard super legendary copywriter guy Joe Sugarman talk about his “Blublocker” sunglasses story, maybe you know what I mean.
Joe Sugarman sold millions and millions of dollars worth of those things not because they were the best idea in the world, but because he used the magic of words to convince people that these sunglasses were going to make their life better.
It wasn’t about the sunglasses.
Back to the question.
Is your idea good? Maybe.
Could your idea succeed?
Joe Sugarman could make it work. I could do it too. So could Naomi or Mark or Molly.
I won’t speak for Mr. Sugarman, but the rest of us definitely wouldn’t be able to work on making an idea successful unless we believed in it wholeheartedly. Unless we were passionate about it.
But we know how to implement ideas — how to take a concept and figure out how to get our right people to agree to it.
Yay, you have a good idea. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do about it.
The point.
The point is not the idea itself. The point is: what are you going to do to help your Right People understand what this idea could mean for them? That’s the thing that’s going to matter them the most.
A good idea is a great start. A less than good idea can still fly.
Either way, you’re going to need to use the stuff on this list:
- Non-sleazy copywriting (FYI: I’ll also be teaching a class on this).
- Doing one thing each day to move it forward even if it’s just working on fear and stucknesses.
- Unearthing the benefits of your idea so your Right People can say hooray!
- Personality.
- Vision. Thinking big but not scary-big.
- Having techniques to destuckify as stuff comes up along the way.
Notice I didn’t mention the M-word.
Obviously there’s a lot to work on here, and it will take more than just one post to talk about what the next steps are. This is just to give you a sense of what the elements are of biggifying any idea (whether it’s a good one or just okay).
I know your idea is brilliant.
Actually, I love that your idea is brilliant. It deserves to be fabulously successful, if only because it wouldn’t be fair to your Right People for them not to be able to enjoy the good stuff that would result.
But the part that interests me is figuring out how we’re going to make your ideas work — so we can get them out in front of the people who need them.
I can’t tell you how much I’d love it if one of my clients said, “I have this idea. How are we going to make it work?”
You can pretty much stop worrying if your idea is a good one. What I care about is the answer to the question “do you have a good heart?” And I think you do.
Because then we can start applying the stuff that makes ideas sticky, exciting, and accessible.
Assume your idea can succeed, and let’s go from there. It’s only half as crazy as it sounds.
Item! I can’t stop reading things!
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.
I haven’t been reading as much online as I usually do because of my hurt-ey arms.
And all the time I’m spending with Stu, my voice-to-text software.
But I still have some gems and thoughts about stuff. Because, c’mon, I can’t stay offline as hard as I try. Though I’m getting better at making my brother and Selma navigate for me.
Okay. Let’s do this thing.
Item! Post No. 14 in a series that allows me to surreptitiously biggify some seriously smart, talented people (in a sneaky behind-the-scenes kind of way).
Item! Why retreating is a big deal!
Ironically, I tend to tense up when I think about going on a retreat. What will I eat? Will I hate everyone? Will I be bored and lonely? Not to mention resentful about having spent money on myself, and then not being sure about the investment.
So whenever I read about retreats, I get too distracted by my own stucknesses to really tune in to my memory of what it’s like to really rest and heal and work on my stuff.
Luckily, Jen Louden (and yes, I still have the world’s biggest crush on her) gets this, and she’s so reassuringly human that I can read about the amazing work she does and not get all freaked out.
Or maybe only slightly freaked out.
Your should read her delightfully reassuring sweet, funny piece about retreating with her.
Personally, I think you should also retreat with her if you can. She’s a hell of a teacher. But I also think you should read this if you offer programs or packages and people don’t necessarily get how great they are.
Item! Selma got hit on by some creepy dude on an ironing board.
Also we got interviewed by the charming Sarah J. Bray who runs Ma Tweeps.
You should read the interview just for the incredibly bizarre questions she asks. Highly entertaining, as is the whole site.
Item! You need to read this post!
It’s that good.
My therapist often reminds me that silence is not empty and now I need to add the corollary that inaction is a choice.
It’s really powerful. And thoughtful. And someone needs to send this person some recognition for how beautiful her thoughts are.
You really need to read this.
Item! This is one of the funniest things I heard this week.
So, you know, I sell stuff online. Which means I have one of those “shopping cart” thingies. And it has a little “how did you hear about us?” box. And a “leave a comment” box.
The “how did you hear about us” box often gives the answer “Twitter“, which is one of the many, many reasons I’m constantly urging you guys to a. get on there and b. stop feeling guilty about time you’re “wasting by just hanging out.”
But it’s the comment box that provides many delightful moments in my day, when Marissa passes them on.
This is from the class that Naomi and I taught about dealing with the recession. And yeah, you can still get the recording. For now.
Anyway, take a look at this:
I’d like you both to come to my house, dress up in period costumes from the 17th century, and act out the entire thing.
I love my life.
Item! Sometimes we don’t write. Because we can’t.
This post from Kimberlee Ferrell describes it perfectly.
I could not hear the inner voice that compelled me to write. I couldn’t even hear my own thoughts.
I was empty inside, and had no words.
Really powerful.
We all go through blocks. And times when it cannot happen or does not happen. But we don’t lose our identities. We are still allowed to be writers when we are not writing.
And painters when we are not painting. And teachers when we are not teaching.
Item! This is the most beautiful thing you’ll read all week.
This is actually something I’ve been wanting to write about myself. Maybe someday.
“Sometimes something reaches back and edits entire stories.”
BEAUTIFUL.
Item! Revel in your total lack of coordination!
Actually I wrote this post. But you should still read it.
It’s something I wrote over at the Shiva Nata (wacky yoga brain training) blog — and if you’re not a Shivanaut yet, you no longer get to use the excuse that you lack the coordination. 🙂
And even if you have no interest whatsover in joining the wackiness, everyone can use a little permission to screw up and be incompetent.
Fabulously incompetent!
That is all.
That’s enough for now…
Happy, happy reading. Happy Blustery Windsday. See you tomorrow.