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.
It’s not freaking easy, okay?
So stop saying it is.
I was talking with my friend Nathan Bowers (total WordPress consultant to the stars) the other day about how frustrating tech stuff can be for people.
Nathan’s pretty awesome in general but it was especially great the way he — as someone who lives in the tech world — agreed, instead of saying what most tech people say: “But it’s easy”.
Because he’s smart enough to know it isn’t. And I quote:
I wouldn’t dream of saying anybody is dumb for not being immersed in this stuff. Unlike many geeks, I know that technology is hard and most people are barely muddling through. It’s my job (and yours, and anybody who runs a web biz) to make it not hard.
Man, I love that. Because really, there’s nothing more horrible than feeling like a idiot because something is really hard and scary for you — and then having some irritating expert say “No, no, no, actually it’s super-easy”.
It’s not.
You know what else people say is easy? Spanish.
Keep in mind that I used to teach both languages and language-learning, so if I wanted to I could give you the whole “actually all languages are equally hard (or easy)” lecture and quote a bunch of linguists to back me up.
But forget about theory and statistics for a minute. Let’s just talk about me. Because if that isn’t why I have a blog … I don’t know how to finish this sentence but it feels like it should end in an exclamation point!
Here’s me. I’m fully bi-lingual in English and Hebrew. And I speak German well enough that I can deliver a three hour lecture in it without notes. That’s three languages I can read novels in without needing a dictionary. Three languages I can be funny in. Three languages I can insult your mother in.* Okay?
*Four, actually, with Yiddish. Not that I would. Good heavens, no. I’m just establishing credentials here.
But I spent two years trying desperately to learn Spanish while I was at university in Tel Aviv, and can’t remember a thing.
Two years of Spanish? I cannot. Put. Together. A. Sentence.
And it can’t even be blamed on the passage of time, because the truth is, I never got it. Sure, I memorized stuff for exams but did I ever actually understood what the hell was going on? Sadly, no.
Could I learn it now? Sure, but only because I’ve got badass techniques. I could probably learn anything now.
But that’s not the point. The point is: don’t freaking tell me that Spanish is easy. Spanish is not easy. And when you say it is I kinda want to smack you for implying that it must be me who’s a little slow.
Which brings me to the point of this whole mini-rant:
Nothing is easy when you’re the one who can’t do it.
And having someone tell you it’s easy does not make it easier.
No kidding. If anything, having some jerk tell you it’s easy actually makes it harder because now in addition to learning the thing, you’re annoyed that it’s taking so much effort to master something that someone else — usually someone who isn’t even that bright to begin with — is telling you is easy.
Okay, enough with the rant. Let’s talk applications.
So you know how to do things that other people don’t. That’s terrific. Love it. You want to help them. Even better. They want your help. Perfect. But they don’t want to know that you think it’s easy.
Here are three ways you can apply this information to make stuff easier.
Application #1: Talking to people you want to serve.
Yes, this is also known as “marketing”. I know, it needs a better word.
Here’s the thing — telling people that the thing they want and are struggling to get is easy to do or attain — just not smart.
You can promise those people (if it’s true) that your system or method or product or whatever will help make the process easier for them. You can tell them that you will show them short-cuts or tricks that will make the hard more bearable. You can show them how to navigate the hard.
Don’t say “it’s easy if you know how”. People won’t buy stuff when they think that the person selling just doesn’t understand how hard things really are. And if you do think it’s easy, you really aren’t getting what they’re going through.
Application #2: Relationships
If you madly care about someone, and that someone is struggling with something, it’s your job to be there with them in their time of stuckness.
Just show up. Not just because it’s the kind, compassionate golden-rule-ish stand-up thing to do, but because otherwise they won’t listen to you.
Don’t say that it’s easy to quit drinking coffee or to learn how to do taxes or to parallel park. Of course you want to share whatever it is that comes easily to you. You want to share your hard-won knowledge and mad ninja skills.
But if you tell them it’s easy, they won’t be able to receive it.
Acknowledging that it’s hard and that they’re dealing with something that’s a big challenge for them is the only way to go. This is what lets them open up to whatever you know that might make things easier.
This is frustrating and requires loads of patience. I know it’s hard. I love you for trying.
Application #3: Persuasion
Persuasion is a loaded word. I do not mean this in some gross, “convincing other people to do your evil bidding” sort of way.
Think of it as finding a way to help people understand that you have a tool that can actually help make their lives … well … easier.
The answer is the same as in the first two applications. Acknowledge their pain. Feel it. Recognize how big and uncomfortable it is. Meet them where they’re at — in the hard part.
Make sure they know that you know (or remember) how hard it is, and offer help only after you’ve empathized the hell out of their pain. Hmm, poor phrasing, but I think you know what I mean.
You aren’t doing this to be manipulative. You’re doing this to be a mensch. It’s the only way you can really help them. And in their fear and stuck and hard, it’s the only way they can really say “yes” to help from you.
That’s it.
Okay, rant over. Really. I’m willing to try that thing you wanted to show me now.
I don’t even care if it’s hard. Just remember to keep telling me you know it’s hard.
Some rules are meant to be . . . admired: The “No Asshole Rule”
So I read about three nonfiction books a week, mostly biggification and self-work (what regular people call business and self-help). Rated on a scale of ducks: 1 duck = Stephen Covey (yawn) and 5 ducks = Malcolm Gladwell (do a little dance). Books worth reading are image-linked to independent bookstores.
The book: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.
The author: Robert Sutton, PhD. (Also: professor of management science and engineering at Stanford, and all-around swell guy.)
The rating: 4 ducks
What I thought.
This is a smart, funny, sweet, interesting and useful book with lots of neat studies, good research and clever ideas. And it’s well-written too, gott sei dank.
Sutton is a thoughtful, engaging writer (who blogs!) and he’s completely like-able.
In fact, I had the feeling that I could happily have a conversation with him on absolutely any subject and find it fascinating (Bob, if you’re reading this and you ever get to Portland, let me know and I will invite you to dinner!).
Also, you have to love how the title (best title ever?) sums it all up so thoroughly that I don’t have to actually tell you what the book is about or anything about the content. Take that, short review.
And … should you be thinking that the title is somewhat distasteful, he discusses that too, as well as the process of deciding that no, this was really the only thing to call it.
Sutton systematically breaks down the patterns of at-work assholeness, if you will, and talks about who these people are, how to recognize them and how to know when whoops, you’re doing it too. Actually, his “we all have an inner jerk, so let’s be honest here” approach is both endearing and refreshing.
Only one caveat, and it’s not a big deal.
The one thing the book is short on is the how-to side, where, of course, I am naturally tempted to jump in and suggest/apply a bunch of my techniques. Or whatever, forget about my techniques. NVC, baby.
Sutton tends to throw up his hands when it comes to dealing with certain difficult situations in a kind of “whaddya gonna do” attitude, whereas I want him to be more concrete, probably because I already have very concrete opinions on exactly what you could do in these situations.
It doesn’t matter though. The book is about mind shifts, and mind shifts are the important part anyway. I enjoyed this book thoroughly, and it gave me plenty of good material to think about.
Cool unintended side-effect of reading this book:
We’ve all worked with that person. We’ve all had uncomfortable confrontations or uncomfortable avoidance of potentially difficult confrontations.
Though it’s a business book, not a self-help-ey book, you can definitely use it for healing.
Reading the book brought up lots of old memories for me of various people I’ve worked for who could have single-handedly justified the need for such a rule. Doing some work and processing around this has helped me release some old pain and helplessness around certain work-related situations*.
*I know you’re all dying for some juicy Moroccan mafia stories from my pre-yoga life, but that will have to wait for some other occasion.
Bonus fabulousness:
One of my favorite business writers (Leigh Buchanan) interviewed Sutton about the No Asshole Rule for Inc Magazine.
Leigh is so freaking great that even in an interview where all she gets to do is ask questions, she’s still a kick in the pants. But more to the point: it’s good stuff.
Bottom line? I love this book.
Well written, relevant, useful. Read it!**
**Yeah, I’m talking to you, Marshall Goldsmith.
Friday RoundUp #3: the break-up 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.
The hard stuff
Breaking up with my nooz.
If you were here this week, you already know what the hardest part of my week was. After almost three years of regularly writing my beloved noozletter, I let it go. I dumped my nooz and it was hard and scary and weird.
And yeah, I know you probably think I was all strategic about this, but really I wasn’t.
Actually, my intent this week had been to go crawl into hang out in this one business forum I’m in.
(Which is, interestingly enough, facilitated by the awesome Mark Silver — who incidentally also starred in last week’s Friday Round-up as the mysterious guest forced to drink juice out of a Harley Davidson wineglass).
The plan was genius: I was going to show up and explain to my co-thinkers a little bit about what I was going through, and ask for help. And they were going to comfort me and give me good ideas. Which they totally would have.
Except that I didn’t make it that far.
I got as far as starting — but not finishing — a post where I listed some of the problems I was having with the nooz:
1. Resentment. Used to love, then to like, now kinda hating. Too much work in the back-end and too little fun all around. I wanna be hanging out here on the blog where all the fun is. Stuckness.
2. Envious of friends who have biggified blogs and who are growing their businesses like crazy without even doing the noozletter thing. What? You don’t need a nooz? Nooz to me. I want like this too!
3. My own mental health. Because doing stuff I hate? Bad for me.
4. Trusting the seachange: it’s just time. I’m done.
At that point I stopped and meditated on it. then I re-read what I’d written and realized:
Oh. Right. So I guess I don’t actually need help deciding because apparently I’ve already decided.
Right away it became a question not of “argh, what the hell do I do next?” but “okay, so what are my options?”
Did that make it easier?
Mmmm, not really. It gave me focus, which is nice. But break-ups still suck. Plus I’ve been ending relationships left and right. And it’s a lot to process and adjust to.
Among other things: taking on a brand-new business model, based on not much more than a feeling. And it’s a lot of goodbyes. Sad face.
Okay, can we move on to the good stuff? Because there was good stuff like crazy this week, and thank goodness because I needed it.
The good stuff
My clients’ dads can beat your clients’ dads at arm-wrestling.
This completely inspiring post (from a smart, creative artist I recently worked with) made my week.
We did a one-time mini-session on dissolving procrastination and shifting some stucknesses in the creative process. Well, the creativity was already there, obviously — just nothing happening with it because of some old stuckification patterns.
We got a lot accomplished in less than an hour, and had some serious fun doing it. Heather was also cool about letting me experiment on her with a brand new, uh, wackier-than-usual technique, and we got some really great results.
Anyway, here she is, having gone from pretty much not wanting to think about it to publicly blogging about the process. Which is huge.
Go read about Heather’s decision and cheer her on because she’s awesome.
Speaking of my clients and how awesome they are …
I did an emergency session over the weekend for a former client who had a huge, important, scary, horrible meeting coming up Monday that she was not looking forward to.
It sounded hellish as all get out, to be honest, and my job was to help her come up with a. strategies for not freaking out and b. useful language to get her points across and be heard.
We did both. She survived the scary, came through the meeting-from-hell with flying colors and reported that the language we came up with helped enormously.
I was super proud and happy for her, and also really excited that she was able to use the techniques and all the other stuff we worked on in the moment. Because that’s the test.
Coolest thing ever.
Someone who bought the Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic wrote this in the shopping cart:
I have to say your site is fabulous. I’d read your landing pages just for fun any day!
First of all, that’s just plain cool. Second of all, I’ve never heard of anyone reading sales copy for fun — even biggified marketing people — but whoah, shouldn’t that be an obscure hobby? Or maybe … an Olympic event? No? Fine. I’ll shut up about it.
The break-up, part 2.
Okay, I actually have to include the nooz break-up here in the “good stuff” list too, because while it was really hard and sad, it was also completely liberating.
Also, I would like to add that my gentleman friend is the kindest, most loving gentleman friend in the entire world.
He didn’t say “Oh my god, you’re going to lose all your income and all your clients and your business will go to hell”. He said “Good for you! Taking out things that cause you resentment! You’re really walking your talk.” And then I cried.
Confrontation (and rain gear!)
This one is also a mix of hard and good, that ends up all good. Remember the super expensive raincoat from last week? Well, it showed up and I hated it.
Can I go way, way off our regular topics of “changing yer habits and patterns” and “promoting that thing you do in a smart, conscious way”? Oh, good.
The raincoat I ordered was a “medium”. The raincoat I received was a tent. A muu-muu of gargantuan proportions.
It swamps me. I didn’t take pictures because it was too horrible, but just imagine yards and yards of billowing material with me poking out from somewhere in the middle, and my gentleman friend holding his stomach from laughing at me.
Normally if something is too big you just go down a size. But for this coat I’d need to go down maybe five sizes, and as far as I know they don’t make them in XXXXS.
Also: keep in mind that “small” is not really a word that anyone has ever associated with me.
I’m tall. Taller than average. Plus I’m big-boned. By which I do not mean chubby or round or whatever — if that were the case I’d just say it.
What I mean is … my bones: they are large.
And — you know, being the #2 world expert in an obscure body-mind martial-art-like training thing — I have big, crazy muscles to go with the big bones.
Which is to say: it’s patently absurd that I would wear anything under a medium. If anything, the medium should be tight.
That wasn’t the hard. The hard is that I hate confronting people and this week has been all about confronting people and then I had to return the coat. So you’re probably wondering at this point where the good part comes in. Three things.
1. Instead of avoiding confrontation (as is my wont), I called the company up and told them how I felt.
2. I employed the art of the ask and, while I didn’t get what I wanted, now at least I don’t have to pay for shipping the stupid thing back to them. And I asked instead of not asking, which for me is still pretty awesome because it’s pushing (bonus: pushing gently, not violently) against the pattern.
3. Guess what? Turns out there’s a Columbia outlet store right near my friend’s house … so I got a fabulous raincoat — from a local business — that fits — for $50. Rock. On.
It doesn’t fold up into a neat little package, and it isn’t a cool shade of blue, but hey, it didn’t cost $150 and it doesn’t make me look like Inspector Gadget when he turns into a balloon. I repeat: Rock. On.
That’s it for me ….
And yes, you’re totally welcome to join in my Friday ritual if you feel like it and/or there’s something you just want to say out loud too.
Happy weekend. Happy week to come.
When habits go bad …
There’s this thing — yes, a thing, don’t make me get all specific — that invariably comes up when you talk to people about habits and how their habits work.
And this thing annoys the pants off of pretty much everybody.
Here’s what happens.
You work really, really, really hard to establish a habit. A new, healthy, good-for-you, good-for-your-life habit. Eventually, with effort, patience, and god knows what else, you reach the hooray point where it’s actually kind of happening.
Next you reach the point where you don’t even think about it anymore because the new thing has totally taken root. This is admittedly somewhat less glorious a moment, but it still feels pretty terrific. The new thing becomes ingrained and automatic, and you’re happy about that. Life is good.
But then … something happens. Something knocks you off track. Of course you think, whatever, no big deal. I own this stupid habit. I’ll just climb right back on.
But then you don’t. Because you can’t. And it’s awful.
Plus you feel frustrated and cranky because deep down you really need to know that you can trust yourself. You need things like support and stability. You want to know you’re not going to let yourself down and you’re afraid you just did.
Hmmm, why would I be bringing this up?
I was just on the phone with a client in Switzerland who is dealing with exactly this issue. Well, this and two other things. And, for the record, we resolved all three of her problems in half an hour. Yay!
So then we spent the next half hour resolving a bunch of problems she didn’t even know she had, and now she is officially problem-free, which means that I probably need to start charging way the hell more.
But getting back to the point.
This woman had a regular daily yoga practice that she loved because it was really grounding for her. It kept her fit, kept her high on happy hormones (because let’s face it, that’s why most of us do yoga) and was a wonderfully comfortable, safe, and supportive thing in her life.
[Note: if you’re one of those people who thinks they hate yoga people — and I was this person before my weird conversion experience, so that’s completely fine if you are too — substitute something you actually do like instead.]
And then, for whatever reason, she stopped doing it. She fell out of the habit — and can’t get back. And it’s gotten all tangled up with old patterns of guilt and blame and pushing herself.
To make matters worse, she didn’t know what she even wanted to fix. Was it re-establishing the practice? Was it allowing herself to not want to practice and just working on the guilt stuff? Was it a bunch of other things she hadn’t thought of yet?
Anyway, this is something that — obviously — comes up fairly often when you work with people on rewriting their patterns and habits. Not to mention on your own stuff.
No, really, why am I bringing this up?
Okay, it’s also something that’s really close to me right now because I was sick all last week. Sick like a dog. In gazillion degree heat. Poor, unhappy puppy. That was me. For a week.
Which means that for seven days I wasn’t doing my yoga practice. Also wasn’t doing Shiva Nata (hard-core yoga brain-training that makes you smart and hot but will seriously mess with your head, watch out). And hardly meditating at all, because when one nostril is clogged and the other is flooded, it’s just too much work.
So, as you might imagine, I was especially tuned in to what was going on for this woman, because ow, I just went through this again myself.
And yes, it sucks when you don’t know if you’re emotionally ready to get back into it, and it sucks when you think you’re emotionally ready to get back into it, but your body can’t take it yet.
And it sucks when you want back in but you don’t know how.
I can tell you how we fixed it, but really I’d rather talk about concepts. There’s four of them.
Four concepts that you really need to know (and I really need to remember)
Concept #1: Permission.
Because resistance is futile, baby. They said so on Star Trek. Or something. That’s not the point. The point is that when you fight with yourself, the struggle always wins.
If this woman forces herself to practice, she’ll either avoid it and hate herself — or do it, but start associating resentment, guilt and irritation with the thing she used to love. Not the healthiest way to (re)establish a habit.
So I wrote her a permission slip.
You know, like a doctor’s note. I gave her permission to give herself permission (yes, it’s complicated) to not do more than one pose a day for a week. And I’m a habits expert and a yoga professional, so she pretty much had to take it. Ha.
You give yourself permission to not want to do the thing. Maybe you’ll do it. Maybe you won’t. But you have permission to not want to.
Concept #2: Ebb and flow.
Stuff shifts. Things change. Not to go all yoga teacher on your ass again, but life is flow.
There will be times when the new, healthy patterns are attractive and supporting you. And there will be times when that’s not happening and you’re in resistance and pain. It’s no fun, yes, but it’s normal.
So it’s always good to be able to stop and remind yourself that this is the way of things, and that all it means is that you’re working on a pattern. You’re noticing the pattern, noticing your reactions to it, and coming up with ways to shift it.
Concept #3: Think small. No, think smaller. No, really. Smaller than that.
Everybody and his mother tells you to break stuff down into baby steps, but they don’t give you any structure. What you need is a strategic plan that incorporates itty bitty baby steps that are beyond ridiculously small. And do-able.
For example, my client and I agreed that for one week she’s only going to do one yoga pose each day.
For say, six to ten breaths. And then go straight to shavasana (intentional, conscious, semi-passed-out-on-the-floor relaxation).
The next week she’s going to do three poses each day. And then pass out on the floor. And so on.
Of course she’ll end up taking bigger steps eventually. It won’t take her months to get back to her hardcore 90 minute practice. It’s just that the pressure is off. The shoulds are gone. It’s one step at a time.
I didn’t start with 45 minutes of Shiva Nata. I started with five. And it hurt. And that’s where I’m at.
Concept #4: Bring on the goofy.
The process of working on your habits and patterns is really a process of learning how you work and how you interact with the world around you.
So that you can learn how to work with and around all your “stuff”, and maybe even like yourself anyway on the good days.
This process is a lot of work sometimes, and it can bring up a bunch of stuck gunk, so you really have to be willing to have some fun with it.
This client of mine was working on about ten different things. And they were all tangled up in the same pattern of feeling guilty. The guilt was mucking everything up, from her yoga practice to her business.
So we came up with a goofy, silly pose she could do and decided that this was her guilt pose.
And every time the guilt comes up, she’s going to go into the guilt pose and talk to herself. She’s going to say, “Whoah, here I am dealing with that guilt thing again. What is my guilt trying to tell me and how can I meet myself where I am while still giving myself comfort and support?”
Obviously I wouldn’t suggest this for just anyone. Probably not even for most people. But it was the right thing for her. For you I’d probably suggest something different. But would it be goofy? Hell, yes. Bring on the goofy!
Of course your patterns deserve a ton of loving attention because they’re part of you, but if you can’t poke a little fun, what’s the point?
And the moral of the story is?
Who knows. Let’s skip that part until I’m fully recovered. Obviously I’m taking all of my own advice, because it would be absurd not to. And I’m trying to have some fun with it because that’s what it’s about.
And sometimes I can’t do that. So when I can’t, I just can’t. And that’s just the way it works sometimes.
There you go. Four concepts. Some humility (mine again, hi). And practice, practice, practice. Ooh, and a snot-free hug to anyone who didn’t get theirs on Monday.
Some good advice is meant to be ignored
In which I do something fabulously stupid and enjoy the hell out of it.
Some day scientists will isolate the part of the brain that thinks it’s fun to ignore the very sensible, practical things that everyone tells you.
You know — the rebellious part of the brain whose job it is to release joyful chemicals when you’re doing something that goes against all common sense and advice to the contrary. And they’ll probably give it a really cool name.
I have to say, I get a big crazy rush when this part of my brain takes over. It doesn’t happen that often but when it does, wheeeeee!
Two possibilities …
There are two ways this kind of decision can play out.
One is disastrously.
This is what is often known as “the stupid streak” — a phrase I took from one of my all-time favorite novels, Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool.*
[Aside: If you’ve read Russo’s Empire Falls and thought “A Pulitzer? Meh”, go read Nobody’s Fool. It’s the one that should have gotten the Pulitzer. I really don’t know why they never ask me. Just saying.]
“Such sudden sensations of well-being … were, in fact, leading indicators of the approach of a condition that Sully had come to think of as a stupid streak, where everything he did would turn out wrong, where each wrong turn would be compounded by the next, where even smart moves would prove dumb in the particular circumstance, where thoughtlessness and careful consideration were guaranteed to arrive at the same end — disaster.”
Ah yes. I think we all know what that feels like.
On the other hand, the other way this thing can go is fabulously.
This is the gambler’s high. You go against the grain. You take the leap. You mix your metaphors. You do the thing you know you have to do and it ROCKS. Cue cheesy end-of-bad-hollywood-movie music.
That’s what I’m talking about, baby.
Anyway, I’m in it right now.
I’m doing something that is the exact opposite of every single piece of business advice I’ve ever received from every single person I respect.*
* Except for Naomi-my-internet-crush (who is also mad as a hatter) and my designer (who just really likes it when I’m happy).
It could be a stupid streak. But it feels more like wheeeeee!
Because no nooz is good nooz.
I’m sick of writing the noozletter. There. I said it.
It used to be a highlight. One of my favorite parts of having a business. Twice a month I got to put on my writing cap and be a writer. In an active “look, I’m doing the thing!” kind of way.
Obviously in my heart and head I’m always a writer. Just never got to be in writer-mode all that often. So writing the nooz was really fun.
Plus people really, really love it. Every time I send one off I get mad fan mail — just sweet, personal contact from the awesomest people ever.
It is a mystery to me how my readership seems to be entirely made up of really bright, thoughtful, inquisitive people, but wow. I’ve gotten to meet some of my favorite people ever through the noozletter.
But a lot has changed since December 2005 when I started writing it. For one thing, I wrote a bunch of ebooks and have other fabulous writing projects in the works.
For another, I has a blog. Which means I get to write all the time. And blogging? Way more fun than noozletter writing. The thing no one tells you about blogging is that it’s basically free therapy. It rocks.
So I began noticing resistance and “do-not-want”-ism showing up — and I started thinking about the life cycle of passion.
The life cycle of passion
My nooz is almost three years old. That’s really old.
Well, it is in internet years — where a blog that’s been around a couple months can already be a freaking establishment for crying out loud.
Here are the life stages of my baby:
1. Baby nooz is unsteady on its feet. Makes a very uh, select few people happy every month or so. I feel nervous and excited and hope I won’t drop it on its head.
2. Toddler nooz is already off-to-school nooz. I’m sharing techniques that I use with clients, and people are using them! Weird. Awesome. I feel curious and a little tired.
3. Nooz comes out every two weeks like clockwork. It’s totally its own thing with its own personality now. It’s separate from me.
I stop trying to give people big techniques and start focusing on little mind shifts that can help them do stuff a little differently right now. I’m meant to do this. I am a writer. I feel elated and giddy.
4. Teenager nooz has its own friends. People email my duck. Seriously. Anything I write will automatically get a ton of email responses. Which is cool. But ack! Responsibility. Adulthood kinda sucks. I feel conflicted.
5. My nooz is all grown up and off to college. I start blogging. I discover that writing every day or almost every day is more fun than doing it just every other week.
So what to do now?
Anyway, this is where I was as of last week. Pre-stupid streak. I mean, pre-ecstatic-high.
I was feeling frustrated because I knew that the noozletter was becoming a “should”. And oh boy, I don’t work well when I’m in resistance.
So on the one hand, I really needed to know I could trust myself to a. be there for the people who depend on me and b. do the right thing for my business.
And on the other hand, I was needing some reassurance that my life wasn’t going to have the fun sucked out of it. Because shoulds are bad for your mental and emotional health. And they’re bad for business.
There was some hair-tearing.
And then I started asking everyone I know for advice. Which was a mistake. Because they all told me what I didn’t want to hear.
Here’s what everyone said:
They told me what I already knew. That you gotta have a list. That writing a noozletter is how you connect to the people you want to help so that they can get help from you.
And so they can feel safe and comfortable with you, so that should the time come when your products and services are useful to them, they feel excited rather than anxious.
And then I would say:
Okay, but having a bunch of blog subscribers, while not as much of an intimate connection, is actually better. Because they do that whole interactive thing.
And then they would say: You have to have a newsletter. You have a relationship with the people on that list. You can’t just dump it.
And then I’d say: Well, I think the wave of the future is going to be blog-based relationships. People will use lists more like fan-clubs — as a way of giving people special attention — but the weekly or bi-weekly article is on its way out.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I realized that we could go back and forth until the cows are already home and tucked in bed, but it didn’t change the basic fact that I just didn’t want to write the noozletter.
It was clearly time to turn down the input from the logical part of my brain and check in with the other parts.
Here’s what my body said:
Blech. Yuck. Ack. Ptooey.
It said: resentment and resistance aren’t good for you. You know what’s good for you? A relaxed, happy state of mind is good for you. Writing is good for you. Creating is good for you. Go do some more of that.
And then I did some meditation and stuff and realized: my goal is still to help as many of the people I’m meant to help as possible. And the nooz just no longer feels like the right way to do it. The way to do it is to go where the mojo is.
I felt better.
So much better in fact that I yelled “OMG, I’m dumping the nooz!”
And that’s when the buzz kicked in. Wheeeeee!
Stupid streak? Maybe. But I don’t care.
The thing I’m taking from this.
My noozletter has grown up. It’s moving on.
It’s not old. I am not saying that my noozletter is old. It’s not wearing frumpy clothes. It’s not like we’ve reached “stick this baby on an ice-floe” time or anything …
It’s just that I’m done with it. Things are changing and shifting. I’m going with what feels like the right way rather than what sounds like the right way..
Here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll still get to hang out with all or most of the smart, wonderful people that I adore. All the teachings, the lessons, the insights, the goofiness — they’re not going away. They’re just going to be here — on the blog.
I’ll still use my list to connect up with because I adore them. I’ll give them special prices on my stuff and send out some case studies and things that I think are useful and important. But the every-other-week nooz is no longer a thing.
Maybe it will start a trend and all sorts of biggifiers will start dumping their noozletters too. Or maybe I’m an idiot and this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done to my business. I doubt it, but it’s possible.
In that case? Oh, well. Then we’ll rethink things and change course. Or I still won’t care. In which case you’ll find me right here. Writing up a storm.
P.S. Special thanks and a big fat kiss to my wonderful designer for the many gorgeous old-timey nooz designs. Showcased here: some of my favorites.
