It’s only Wednesday morning, and already I have ideas for half a dozen newsletter articles or blog posts. Up until this moment I haven’t made a clear distinction between the two. And, ta da!, now I have some:
- I can have (even more) fun in blog posts.
- Blog posts are better for aggregating ideas.
- Blog posts are good for brain dumps. (Maybe.)
- Blogging is a great way to start a conversation before you’ve reached a conclusion.
With these distinctions in mind, here is a glimpse of all the ideas that don’t fit inside the framework of the upcoming ezine and a chance to comment to your heart’s content. Hey, maybe you’ll end up writing about one of them before I do. If so, link back so others can enjoy your riffs.
So, without further ado, I present Wild Card Wednesday, in which I throw open the doors to the party room and reveal what’s going on inside.
Feeling less than is a sign that you’re in love again. This came to me yesterday when I was catching up with Havi Brooks over at The Fluent Self. (Is that a fabulous name, or what?)
Havi was writing about how Not all monsters like cookies, and I was thinking how much I like her, which led to thinking I should be more like her, and that led to wondering if I was a slimeball in comparison to her.
And then I realized that, far from being a slimeball, I was just in love.
That was really nice.
Abundance is the ability to say no.This startling notion showed up in Barbara Weaver Smith’s e-book Whale Hunting Women, which I reviewed here yesterday.
Just think: no more beating yourself up for not saying yes to everything the Universe sends your way. “Thank you” does not mean “yes.” It’s not ungrateful to say no to the things that don’t fit. Yahoo!
It’s not the time you spend on a project that makes it valuable, it’s the outcome. So, Barbara and I were talking about pricing–underpricing to be precise–and she said, “I never price by the hour. I always charge by what the deliverables are worth to the client. If they question that, I say, ‘Some of my hours are worthless, some of them are priceless. I can’t tell in advance which will be which.'”
Think about that.
If you want to change your paradigm, you’ve got to change your practice. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s not like I’ve exhausted the topic. The point is that the way you move in the world shapes the way you see the world.
Practice doesn’t mean doing something really well. It means doing what you don’t (yet) know how to do over and over until it becomes a way of being and seeing.
So next time you think you can’t meditate because you are too distracted or you can’t exercise because you aren’t a jock, or you can’t earn a good income because you don’t care about money, think again.
If you’re stuck, reducing your emotional investment can get you back into action. I owe this one to Michael Neill’s new book, Supercoach.
Here’s a snapshot of the distinction. There’s more in Michael’s book.
It’s fairly easy to know if you are making progress. Ask yourself how an outside observer would know that you are moving toward your goal. I owe this one to Michael Neill, too. He had the audacity to ask me how likely it would seem to an outside observer that I would accomplish my Big Project this year.
Ummm… When I looked at it this way, I saw I’ve been doing a half-assed job to protect myself from disappointment. That’s how the investment/involvement distinction came up.
So what’s my Big Project? It’s a Self-Employment Telesummit for Accidental Entrepreneurs this September. I’m excited, scared, clear, and utterly confused about it.
Stay tuned. And meanwhile, you can tell me what such an event would mean to you and what you’d want from it here.
When you give something away without asking your clients and prospective clients whether or not they want it, everyone loses. I discovered this when only two of the folks in Authentic Promotion 2009 showed up for a followup session.
Near the end of the course I decided I wanted to offer monthly support while folks put their marketing plans to work. I offered four followup calls, free. No one had to so much as say, “Count me in.”
Here’s a great example of how a failure to upsell does a dis-service to clients. If I had offered this for an additional fee, those who wanted it could have opted in and would have been motivated to show up.
The same support offered free turns into no support at all.
Hmmm.
Well, I could go on. However, it’s past time to work on the Real Article for the week. That will show up here and/or in your email inbox tomorrow afternoon.
Meanwhile, talk to me in the comments.
This post in 140 characters or less: Envy = love. Abundance = no. Time is not = money.
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