Why should anyone pay you extra or give you their attention? Why do you deserve what you expect to get out of the work you’re doing? What makes you unique?

Why is it that the things that should be easy, like doing things that are brave, or public speaking or pushing a remarkable idea out there, are difficult, and that things that should be difficult, like working all night, and typing stuff without a typo or learning how to program in C, are actually pretty easy?

How is it that we organize ourselves around a society where we spend all our time and effort doing things that are physically and emotionally draining but aren’t willing to confront the stuff that’s actually important?

We live in a post industrial age where every individual, no matter what they do for a living, has the power to matter, to make a difference, to connect, to be human. Now what I want to know, and it’s why I wrote Linchpin: if you have that power, what are you going to do with it and why should anyone else care?

We can either be terrified or see it for the brilliant opportunity that it is.

I don’t play golf, but one of the things that’s interesting about golf is they give words to the things that go wrong, like a hook or a slice. If there isn’t a word to describe it, it’s much harder to address it, much harder to know that it’s happening, and much easier to be terrified.

In the book, I try to identify some of these things. One of them I got from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. He identifies “resistance” as the voice of the lizard brain—the part of your brain that’s responsible for fear and anger and lust and spreading your genes. It’s the part of your brain that wants you to fit in, and so will sabotage anything that makes you unique.

Once you have a word for it, you can call it out. You realize that every time you feel that resistance—feel like backing off or sabotaging your work—you know that that is the moment you must do exactly the opposite.

Resistance is the weather vane that tells you which direction the marketplace will reward you. Resistance wants you to stop, you go. Resistance wants you to run, you stick to your guns.

But this is the exact opposite of anything we learn in school. The public school system is a vestige of the early 20th century. Sitting in straight rows, using a number two pencil, filling in the circles—and not standing out. All of it was invented by industrialists to create compliant workers to fill factories with enough cheap labor to get the job done.

If you’re over 16 years old, it’s too late to undo your education, but it’s not too late to see it for what it was: mass brainwashing.

I wrote Linchpin as a wake-up call. Here’s the essence of my argument: we’ve called your bluff. If you said 20 years ago you wanted to write a book, you had a great excuse, which was no one would publish it. But now, you can publish your book on the Internet for free.

Now that your bluff has been called, you have to do it. If you have an idea for a t-shirt or a product or a seminar or any piece of art you want to create, you can’t blame anyone else on its non existence. You have to do it.

But just doing something because you “can” or because you “want to” isn’t enough. Now that everyone has the capability to take their ideas to market, then you must be extraordinary. Unfortunately, the reason we choose to be non extraordinary is because of the resistance. The resistance tells us that being in the middle is safe.

So, it’s not enough to decide to create something, you must be extraordinary – you must create something extraordinary. And the reason to be extraordinary is because you care about the outcome and you are willing to overcome the resistance to make a point.

I’ve learned, though, that some people like being stuck in the dip. It scares me to say that out loud, but I believe it.

Before I wrote books as a proper author, I was what’s called a book packager. Book packagers are like movie producers, but for books. I did 120 books with a team of people over the course of 10 years. Some books I wrote myself. Some books I put my name on but didn’t write at all. Some books I wrote half of them. Other times I found famous people who needed to write a book but didn’t know how, and we wrote the book for them and put their name on it.

So, the act of making books is something I’ve been doing for a really long time. I love making books because books are instantiations of ideas. They are souvenir packages of knowledge that stand the test of time. People don’t like to throw them out. They’re valued at more than they cost. It’s a magic medium.

When I made the transition to being an author, it was very natural for me because I had already been busy working in the medium for a long time.

The first book that I had that was a bestseller was called Permission Marketing, and the reason I wrote Permission Marketing was I found that if you take your time and describe your thinking in the form of a book, you could change people’s minds. This is very rare in our society and our culture that you get a chance to actually change someone’s mind, and I love the power that a book gives you to do that.

Blogging, for someone with ADD like me, is a gift because I don’t have to write a book every week now. If I can write a six paragraph blog post, I get the idea out of the queue, that’s wonderful because I get the idea, give it a push, and maybe it will spread, but I don’t have to spend the next six months of my life writing it.

The challenge for most bloggers, and times a hundred for people who use Twitter, is you get the idea out there, but it almost never has a real impact.

One idea by itself has a lot of trouble surviving on the Internet. And instead what you need to do is consistently drip elements of the idea. Be present with articulations of the idea over time. That has a lot of power.

If you read the work of someone like Kevin Kelly or Chris Brogan, who are daily showing up and taking you on a path, that has power. But, don’t think just because you write three paragraphs and put it out there, that’s going to make a difference, because it’s not.

All I get to do every day is write six paragraphs. I can’t add sounds. I can’t have clever repartee. I can’t insert hours of video. There’s no gimmicks available to me. All I can do is write six paragraphs every day—and I can either be boring, in which case people will leave, or I can do things that sometimes make people angry or offended or scared. But, that’s all I have. That’s my only option to be relevant and make a difference.

For me, “right” means delivered with respect and worth thinking about. But, it doesn’t mean that I’m right. So, it’s very rare that I write something where I believe I know exactly the answer and everybody else is wrong. What I’m saying, with as much confidence as I can muster, is, “Perhaps you should think about the implications of this.” If all you do is think about these ideas, then I have failed.

What I am begging people to do is make the decision about whether this is important or not. And if it’s important, then you won’t think about it anymore, you will just start failing, and failing often. Once you discover that failure doesn’t kill you, then you can do it again. Standup comics are a great example. Most of us would rather donate a kidney than be a standup comedian. But, once you’ve been a standup comedian for a week, nothing can hurt you ever again.

I fail certainly more often than almost anyone I know. And it’s one of the secrets of my success.

And here’s the secret of failure: The idea itself doesn’t have to be that important.

If I look at a painting by Picasso or Monet, there are very few paintings they’ve done that they would be willing to die over, that they would give their lives up to paint. The act of painting was far more important than any particular painting. The act of doing the thing is what needs to be important. Not everything you do has to be the “Mona Lisa”.

But if you treat the result as being more important than the act, then the resistance will say to you, “Oh, that one’s not important enough, don’t do that one.” And my argument is that it’s all important if you do it for the right reasons.

And this is why I wrote Linchpin. This wasn’t an easy book to write. It has cost me so much sleep. It is twice as long as anything I’ve written lately, and it’s a lot more provocative. I didn’t need to write a book like that. It would have much easier to sell a lot more copies of a simpler book. I did this because it’s important and the resistance told me not to. ♦

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One of the keys of complexity theory is the idea that systems self-organize optimally. I think that’s true for us in social environments, and can certainly be true for schools.

I had a pivotal experience in my last year in high school. I had a very, very happy young childhood, but then when I reached school age—the age when peer pressure starts to mount, I found that, I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand why kids were being mean to each other. Why they were dishonest. All of this just kind of threw me, and so I went through a number of years in my middle years of schooling, that were very unhappy, and not very successful.

In my second to last year of high school, I was almost ready to drop out.

In my last year in high school, they decided to do a pilot project, which they called Independent Study. The purpose of that pilot project was to allow outstanding students to be exempt from classroom attendance and only show up for tests. As long as we maintained at least a B+ average in our test scores, we were allowed to remain outside the classroom and, essentially, to teach ourselves. The theory being that it would free up teachers’ time to focus on the students that really needed the help. Somehow, I lucked into it.

I hated going to school, so this was perfect for me. I connected with some bright students and within about a month into that year, we had kind of created our own self-teaching unit. We would spend about an hour each day teaching each other the curriculum and checking each other’s work. And then the rest of the school day, we would go to museums or the science center or art galleries. Or we would just sit out in the park and talk about philosophy.

I began to read all kinds of stuff that was never on the high school curriculum. And in the course of that, two things happened. The first was academic: my grades went from a 67 percent average the previous year to a 94 percent average. I was one of the high scorers on the province-wide final examinations. Our group of “Independent Studiers” also won the lion’s share of the scholarships that year for the entire province. That really attested to the power of this experiment, of letting people teach themselves, of letting them direct their own learning.

The other thing that came out of that experiment is that I discovered a passion for writing. I had been terrible in English, but through this class, I discovered that I loved to write. I just kept writing and this group of friends kept telling me, “Oh Dave, that’s a piece of shit. This is what you should be doing.” And they taught me. Soon my work was being published in the school ‘s literary journal. I went from being somebody who couldn’t stand English class to being a writer. And that all happened in one year, through unschooling.

That’s why I’ve become such a fanatic advocate of the unschooling process as the means to really discover yourself and what you’re good at and what you love doing—and therefore, what you’re meant to do.

The reason this unschooling worked was not only that it was self-directed, but that it was collaborative. The group of us essentially self-organized into a learning unit. And human beings are really good at doing this. If we’re facing a problem, we’re really good at self-organizing ourselves. We don’t need to be told what to do. But we’ve created an economy where it’s expected that you will be told what to do, and that you will do that. And I think that’s a terrible waste of talent, and a lost opportunity for joyful work.

For personal reasons, partly relationships, and partly the fact that I have struggled with depression for much of my life, I lost my way after that year of high school. It took me a number of years to pick myself up. When I finally did, I found myself in British Columbia, cold and hungry and poor. I needed a job. So I walked into this building that had an opening for a computer systems analyst, in Victoria BC. But I didn’t get that job.

As I was walking out, though, I decided to visit a company that was in the same building – the predecessor firm to Ernst & Young, and I said to them, “I don’t know what debits and credits are, but I’m a quick learner and I need a job, and I’ll work really hard, and I’d like to be given an opportunity to work for the company.”

To my astonishment, they gave me an hour of their time. One of the senior partners told me exactly what I needed to do to qualify for a job at the company. So I took some courses they’d recommended and a couple of months later, I applied for a job there, and also, at the same “job fair”, with six of their competitors. Ernst & Young gave me the lowest offer, but I took it because I was grateful for them having helped me out when I had just walked in off the street. That was the start of a 27-year collaboration with them.

After I took the job, I discovered that one aspect was helping entrepreneurs—and I loved doing that. I loved when entrepreneurs would come up to me and say, almost in tears, that the expertise that I had shared with them–what I had taught them, was the difference between them still being in business and not.

That was enormously satisfying. And also to hear them say that it was my ability to do this kind of lateral thinking, the fact that I could read about something or hear about somebody’s experience in one industry and apply it somewhere else—that just led me to believe that that was my sweet spot, and that there was a need for this. They were the best years of my work life.

Canada has a terribly vulnerable economy. We are very dependent on natural resources and commodity prices. And we are very dependent on being employed by foreign companies – foreign-owned businesses employ a very sizeable percentage of Canadian workers. The way to make the Canadian economy more resilient and healthier is to wean ourselves off that dependence on our natural resources and foreign employers. And the way in which we can do that is through entrepreneurship.

What’s next for me? Well, I don’t think there’s much doubt that it has to do with environmental activism.

I was a radical environmentalist as a teenager. When I took up the blog in 2003, it quickly became the focus of my attention—to rediscover the state of the environment and what individuals can do to make our world a better place.

I invested a lot of time and energy into researching our environmental situation and determining what we could actually do. Now that I’m in a position where I can retire, it’s time for me to stop just writing about what you can do to make the world more environmentally friendly, and act.

I think we’ll need a combination of three things to make the world a better place. So-called “destructive” activism, where you’re actually obstructing the damage that’s being done by major polluters. Personal actions, such as recycling and learning to grow your own food. And the creation of new models, like intentional communities, permaculture and the transition movement.

Just like building an enterprise, it’s not what we do individually that really matters. It’s what we do collaboratively that will determine our success. ♦

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Dave Pollard believes that human civilization is in its last century and is attempting to fulfill his responsibility who will rebuild a new civilization out of our ashes by living life in the sweet spot. Read his blog. Follow him on Twitter.

I was never – and never pretended to be – an expert in how to run a business. Having worked with a hundred and fifty entrepreneurs – more or less – I did learn a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

I have always been a voracious reader. I read scientific journals, I read philosophy, I read politics. One of the gifts that I’ve always had, is the ability to read something and say, “Hey, I think I can understand how that might apply to this other area that nobody ever would have thought of applying it.”

And that’s what I did for many years at Ernst & Young. For many years, my sweet spot was connecting entrepreneurs with the people and information that would help them be successful.

I was a bit of a shit disturber, really. And my bosses recognized that. They recognized that I was a guy with considerable imagination. One day they figured that I was the right guy to be the Chief Knowledge Officer. They were probably right, but it took me out of my sweet spot. I spent the next ten years longing to work with entrepreneurs again.

Back in 2006, I got a bit of a wake up call. I got very sick and my doctor said, quit your job, change your life, or the stress is going to kill you.

So I left. And shortly after I left, I was recruited to head an entrepreneurial research center. They told me I could rewrite the job description if necessary because I was the candidate for the job.

To some extent, the work that I’ve been doing for the last two years, has been an attempt to “re-find” that sweet spot that I’d lost at Ernst & Young. To my astonishment, I discovered that my sweet spot had moved. And so now I’m in the process of rediscovering where it has moved to, and learning what I am meant to do next, which is partly why I’m retiring.

My most notable writing besides the blog has been a book called, Finding the Sweet Spot, whose objective is to help aspiring – or struggling – entrepreneurs to find the work they’re meant to do.

My book has two main points. First, you need to find your sweet spot, which is the intersection of three things: 1) your gifts, the things that you do uniquely well; 2) your passions, which are the things that you love doing; and 3) your purpose, which I define as, something that’s needed in the world that you care about. And then, having identified your sweet spot, find the right partners to help you realize your purpose.

A lot of people get stuck trying to find something they love. It can take a whole lifetime to find out what that is. Particularly now. When I was growing up, we were almost expected to take a year off after high school and go to Europe to discover ourselves. Kids growing up now are pushed into careers—into the directions that they think, will give them some kind of job security before they really have the chance to discover their sweet spot.

It’s not just about discovering your sweet spot, though. It’s establishing a life-long practice of self evaluation. A lot of people who have read my book tell me that they had chosen a career around their sweet spot only to wake up ten, twenty, or thirty years later in jobs that they hate. They were oblivious because it happened so slowly, so gradually, that they didn’t realize that the work that they were, at some point, meant to do had turned into a prison sentence.

I am really appalled at our school system. Not only does it not help you discover your purpose or help you learn the basics of business, but they are not even interested in doing that. They don’t think that’s their purpose.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have the chance to talk to graduating students, both in Canada and the United States, and I hear the same message. When I ask them what they want to do with their lives they tell me they’ve never really thought about it. Their objective in attending university has not been to broaden their thinking; it’s been to land themselves at a comfortable and secure job. In many cases, they approach that with fear that is almost gut wrenching. Often, , they will stay in the university system as long as they can, because they are so terrified of going into a job market which they fear will disappoint them. And they’re absolutely right in that fear.

University basically just drags on the dreaded point at which we make the plunge into the world of wage slavery. And some of us find out very quickly, and others take a lifetime to discover, not only was that not what we’re meant to do, but life is too short to spend it doing work that we loathe.

I think one of the main reasons that young people don’t start their own businesses is because of these very real fears they have of failure, of the fact that they basically don’t have the core skills and knowledge to be able to do it.

That can be overcome remarkably easily, particularly if you don’t start a sole proprietorship. One of the key messages of my book is basically, don’t do this alone. Find partners whose skills complement your own and who share your purpose. Between you, you’ll work out what you need to do to find a need in the world that you can satisfy better than anybody else out there. I’ve seen this work many times. But it’s certainly not something that we learn in high school or university.

I think the school systems were, perversely, designed that way. Perhaps that was the appropriate educational system for the industrial revolution – you really wanted people coming out of that system who were obedient and would do exactly what they were told—and not think for themselves. Automation has made that type of educational system obsolete. But we’ve maintained it, and as a result of that, the hierarchical system, which requires obedience and “leadership”, continues to this day, even though it’s outlived its usefulness.

We have an education system that effectively grinds the imagination out of people.

Our educational system is completely non-entrepreneurial. It’s the road to a joyless society. It may have been right for the early days of the industrial revolution, but it’s totally wrong for the modern economy. And it’s totally wrong for the health and well-being of creative individuals. ♦

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Dave Pollard believes that human civilization is in its last century and is attempting to fulfill his responsibility who will rebuild a new civilization out of our ashes by living life in the sweet spot. Read his blog. Follow him on Twitter.

It’s a powerful process that forces us to move past the typical navel-gazing that occurs when we think about what we want to do with our lives, and actually gives us the tools and processes to discover what we’re meant to do.

For next week’s Ruzuku challenge, we’re focusing on one of the three components of the Sweet Spot: your passion.

What is Ruzuku? Ruzuku is a learning community built around support and encouragement. You commit to a challenge and then report periodically on your progress all the while supporting and being supported by the community going through the same thing you are. Read more about Ruzuku here.

Here’s how the challenge will work.

Step 1: Commit to the challenge. If you’re at all interested in discovering your passion and want to work with a group of folks working through the same process, sign up by Monday, November 9th. Registration is free.

Step 2: Answer the question. Every day, answer at least one of Passion Discovery questions. I’ll post a suggested question in the Challenge Forum, but it’s up to you which one you answer. These questions come from Dave’s book, Finding the Sweet Spot, and are

• In other people’s observation, what do you seem to enjoy the most? What activities cause you to smile or sing while you do them? What is it about these activities that makes them so enjoyable?
• What have you done, or tried to do, that you really loathed? What made it so awful?
• What tasks do you take on with most relish, whether you are good at them or not? What do people get you to do because they know you will take it on enthusiastically?
• Intuitively, if someone asked you what your “ideal job” might be, how would you answer?
• If you’ve done interest tests, where did they suggest your passions lie?
• What did you enjoy most in school, whether or not you were good at it?
• What hobbies or recreational activities that you do, or have done, do you or did you most enjoy? Why?
• What do you most enjoy working with: people, tools, ideas, or information?
• If you suddenly received a lot of money, or a lot of power, what would you do with it, and what would you start doing that you’re not doing now, and why?

Dave also re-published some additional questions originally posed by Neil Crofts in his book Authentic Business:

• When do you feel at your most motivated?
• When do you get lost in activity or thought and lose all track of time?
• When do you feel alive, focused, and engaged?
• What is the common thread between smiling at the rain, enjoying the earth in your hands, putting on a sumptuous feast, and playing with your child?
• What is the focus of all your “flow” activities, the pivot around which they turn, the outcome to which they all drive?
• What is your nonnegotiable dream, so precious that so far you have told no one about it for fear it will be compromised?

Step 3: Tell us how it’s going and what you’ve learned. As part of the Ruzuku Challenge, you’ll be prompted to update your progress on the journaling activity. Report back to the community any insights you gained, anything you’ve learned, or questions you have. Unless you want to, there’s no need to talk about the content of your answer. The point of the Challenge community is to provide support and accountability to ensure that you are on the path to discover your passions – and so that we can learn from each other in the process.

What are you waiting for?

I’ve scheduled the challenge to start on Monday, November 9th. So, you only have a few more days to register. Registration will remain open until midnight your time November 9th, but know that the first journal assignment is also due November 9th, too! Registration is, of course, free.

Sign up and change your life!

Learn more about Ruzuku and see other challenges »

If you’re not passionate about your work, you’re doomed to mediocrity. People with passion will steamroll you.

Even if you rode your passion to the current high point of your career, if you lose it, some up-and-comer will win because their passion is still driving them.

It’s why some champions don’t stay champions for long. They lose the hunger, the drive, the passion that made them champion. The ones that stay on top are the ones that wake up every morning excited about the day’s work—even if today’s work feels and looks a lot like yesterday’s work.

Smart folks, when they lose their passion, they walk away. Smart folks slow down, spend time discovering where their passions went, and then give chase.

I don’t think there are many smart folks out there.

We spend so much time chasing our dreams, that we forget to reflect on whether this is still the dream we want to pursue. Or when we finally achieve those dreams, we forget to dream new ones. Which is why the not-so-smart return to their passionless work day-in and day-out.

The lucky ones get a wake up call.

A warning. For those that do slow down to re-find their passion – or those that are pursuing it for the first time, there’s a dark side to passion. Passion can be blinding. Overwhelming. Passion can get us spinning around ineffectually, throwing all our efforts into a tailspin. We crash and burn before we ever have a chance to succeed.

Passion is a powerful energy source. When handled with care, it can propel you faster and farther than anything else out there. When handled recklessly, it will blow you to smithereens.

So, what’s your passion? Are you sure?

Are you ready to (re-)discover your passion? Starting Monday, November 9th, we’ll be running a Ruzuku challenge to help you (re-)discover your passion. It is completely free to those who participate and will last for 5 days, posing a new question of reflection every day to get you thinking about your life and your passions in new ways – ways that might make you a little uncomfortable, but by the end of the week, you’ll have new insight into your passion-fueled work.

About Ruzuku. Ruzuku is a learning community built around support and encouragement. You commit to a challenge and then report periodically on your progress all the while supporting and being supported by the community going through the same thing you are. Read more here.

Take the Challenge. Change your life.

I’ll be posting more about the power of passion tomorrow. And on Wednesday and Thursday, I’ll post my interview with Dave Pollard, whose book, Finding the Sweet Spot, inspired this week’s theme.

What is Ruzuku?

Ruzuku is a learning community built around support and encouragement. You commit to a challenge and then report periodically on your progress all the while supporting and being supported by the community going through the same thing you are.

Ruzuku in 3 + 1 steps

We aim to keep Ruzuku easy-to-use, yet powerful enough to provide the support and structure you need to succeed.

Step 1: Commit!

Find a challenge and make a commitment to completing the challenge. Just make sure you sign up by the start date! As part of your commitment, we ask you why you want to take the challenge. This line is a private affirmation and reminder as to why you want to take this challenge.

Step 2: Journal your Progress.

Share your experiences with the community as you work through the activity. Each time you report, you’ll be asked how you feel about your progress (the smiley scale in the screenshot) as well as to reflect on any insights or other thoughts you’ve had.

Step 3: Support.

Support and be supported by the community. Comment on other people’s updates, letting them know they’re not alone. It’s this one-to-one feedback that makes Ruzuku such a great place to learn. And stay tuned, we have plenty of more support and encouragement tools on the way!

Step +1: Feedback.

You saw the alpha part, right? We’re using Get Satisfaction to collect your feedback. We launched a simple version of the site so that, together, we can shape Ruzuku into powerful tool that you use regularly to make meaningful change in your life.

See it in action.

The best way to understand Ruzuku is to see it in action. Click on any of the challenges listed below to join one. We’ll send you an email reminder once it’s time to start the challenge. Look forward to seeing you there!

Chase the drama or chase the dream.

I have a friend that’s a pretty smart guy. He’s completely unhappy, though. His relationship with his wife is in shambles, making it very difficult for him to even think about the future much less take the time necessary to discover his purpose. He spends all his energy steeped in the drama of the relationship, leaving little time for anything else.

I asked this guy once, “What are your wife’s dreams.” He didn’t know. And I don’t think he’s ever asked her. Maybe he’s too afraid he’ll get an answer that he doesn’t like. Or maybe he’s afraid that the drama is all that’s left of their relationship. I don’t know. But I do know, that if you want someone to support you, you must also support them.

Not so extreme?

But maybe your relationship with your significant other is pretty good. I think mine is. That said, I do tend to take my wife for granted. She’s the power behind our family, very supporting and encouraging of my current efforts to get MoreBetterLabs and Ruzuku off the ground. I put in a lot of time on Ruzuku and this blog while she’s pretty busy chasing after our two kids. We try to make time for each other, but it doesn’t always happen.

Affects your entire support network.

In all these examples, I’ve talked about spouses. But your support network can come from many different sources. A friend. Parent. Business partner. But the issue remains the same: if you’re not engaging and supporting them, you are at risk for losing your support network.

The BIG Question.

Whatever your situation is, ask yourself: Am I satisfied with the amount of time I spend really engaging with the people in my support network?

If you are, congratulations. I’d love to hear from you – leave some comments below about how you’re fully engaging your support network and empowering them to achieve their dreams as they do the same for you.

Baby Steps.

But if you’re not completely satisfied with your level of engagement, Rosa Say has a powerful first step that you can take called the Daily 5 Minutes.

Each day, without fail, [you] give five minutes of no-agenda time to [someone from your support network]. What [you] are giving is whole listening time, and [your] undivided attention to whatever that person has on their mind.

You’ve got 5 minutes, right?

The Ruzuku Learning Community.

To help you build the habit, Rosa is taking an early version of Ruzuku out for a spin – and you’re invited to come along. I think she summed it up perfectly on her blog today:

On Monday, November 2nd we will be launching a first-ever virtual habit-building challenge designed for The Daily 5 Minutes in partnership with Ruzuku.com. It is completely free to those of you who participate, and will last for 15 consecutive days, helping you build your own D5M habit in the Managing with Aloha way —with me as your coach.

Read more about her challenge here.

So, who loves you? Who are the people closest to you that make chasing your dreams possible? Sign up today and commit to spending five minutes a day for 15 days focused solely on them.

If you’re like most of us, you don’t know how tough you are. Maybe you’ve won a few battles, but your real mettle has yet to be tested. You’ve yet to stare these demons in the eye – so you’re not sure if you’d laugh or retreat with the barest of whimpers.

This is a good thing.

This means you have time. Time to prepare. Time to steel your mind against the demons’ meddling. Because they’re not going to attack you until they see that you’re already weakened. And this my friend is the problem.

Right now, you’re doing okay. Life is pretty good. Mortgage is paid on time, your paychecks keep clearing, and while there may have been a round or two of layoffs at work, you’re department is “fine.”

Fine. What a terrible word.

Fine is a façade.

Fine is a fragile picket fence dream that’s a paycheck away from the poor house.

Fine is what cooks this demons meals. Because when you’re fine, you spend your energy maintaining the status quo, believing that tragedy happens to others. So you don’t prepare because that superstitious part of our brain foolishly believes that by preparing, you’re tempting fate.

But that’s bullshit. You will face some kind of hardship in your lifetime – and probably multiple hardships—and if you’re really unlucky, they’ll all be happening at the same time.

The question you have to ask yourself right now is whether you’ll face that tragedy with the emotional tools to persevere or will you find yourself swept into the depths of self-pity?

I hope you never have to find out. I hope that you’ve somehow been blessed with a Pollyanna life. But you haven’t and you know you haven’t. Life is a ride of ups and downs and it’s up to you to prepare for the downs when you’re up so that you can focus on the coming ups when your down.

Right now you’re “fine” and you could go on being “fine” until you’re no longer “fine” or you could actually prepare. I vote for the preparation, but you are not a democracy and I wouldn’t get a vote even if you were.

The Challenge.

If you’re ready to move past “fine” to actually being prepared, Kathryn Britton is starting the first of four Resiliency challenges at Ruzuku on Monday. It’s one of four challenges she’ll be leading throughout November about how to build resilience – how to develop key emotional skills to better handle the hardships life throws at us.

From handling disagreements with our spouse to coping with the dreaded pink slip, these exercises enable greater emotional control and even allow you to react more quickly and more appropriately to stressful situations.

But they take practice. And that’s where Ruzuku comes in. Ruzuku is a learning community built around support and encouragement. You commit to a challenge and then report periodically on your progress all the while supporting and being supported by the community.

At Ruzuku, you’re not just thinking about change, you’re making change with the support of a community going through the same thing you are.

Kathryn’s first resiliency challenge is focused on calming our negative emotions by identifying them. Here’s how she describes it:

Negative emotions such as fear or anger cause swift physiological changes to prepare us to fight, flee, or freeze. Negative emotions are more powerful than positive ones because quick responses to threats meant survival in early human history. Positive emotions could be put on hold. So the first step for dealing with a negative event is to calm down your physiological response to threat. One very effective approach is to name the emotion without judging it. Research shows that naming without judging has a quick calming effect on the part of the brain that controls the fight-or-flight response.

And who’s Kathryn to facilitate this particular challenge? For starters, she’s graduate from the University of Pennsylvania’s Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program. I interviewed her a few months back, so you can get a better sense of who she is by reading the interview. And she wrote a great article, Building Resilience for Hard Times.

Take the Challenge. Change your life.

We get so crazed about what we think we want, we generate so much noise and frenzy trying to create it, that we actually end up with something that just doesn’t satisfy us.

In your interview with Patti Digh, she talked about desire lines and how easy it is to lose track of what you actually want. That’s something I sometimes struggle with – what do I really want here? – and I think it’s a challenge for many people, especially in situations where their regular routines or habits don’t apply or aren’t working.

Something Matthew Cornell said to you also got me thinking. He talked about how we deny ourselves certain things we’d like to try or do because we’d never be great at it. We tell ourselves “Well, but I might be all right, but I could never be great.” And we stop there. But what if, instead, we just tried it for a day or two? Just experiment with it. Be open minded, and notice what happens. Powerful stuff.

Paradoxically, those of us who want to see the world operate differently may need to stop trying to change it. I would ask: wouldn’t it be better if we just slowed down enough to join the world where it’s at? Connect to it first, and then exercise a subtle influence on it. For example, when you’re talking to someone and you’re just not getting anywhere. What if you slowed down? What if you listened a bit more? Reflected a bit longer? Did a bit less?

That’s the heart of my mantra: “Notice more, change less.” It starts with noticing things for what they are. It’s a lifelong practice that few of us master because we – well, I think most of us were not held sufficiently as children. That’s the nature of our upbringings. As a result, many of us, including me, are probably highly functioning neurotics – and we need to cut ourselves, and each other, some slack.

We naturally overreact to certain stimuli. We find ourselves careening around the place, thinking that we’re doing what we want, but it’s all just reactions to stimuli. Instead, we need to realize that we’re engaged in constant interaction with each other – and even our selves. If we come to this realization, we might see the world as far richer and more complex than we had every imagined.

But most of us are rushing at such a hectic pace that we aren’t willing to – or maybe don’t know how to – sit in a place of not knowing and see what emerges.

Businesses have a similar problem. A lot of businesses think that their job is to make ideas happen. But if you’re too busy trying to make ideas happen, they’re not going to actually have new ideas.

A lot of what is written about innovation and organization is a bit bonkers. It comes from a viewpoint that says there aren’t enough ideas, that ideas must be managed. Good ones must be identified, and bad ones must be eliminated. But what if ideas are massively abundant and we’re just not noticing most of them because we’re too caught up in the execution?

Businesses should probably risk obsessing less about outcomes. They’re important, but it’s got to a point where you have to define the outcomes before the full potential of the idea is fully understood. What makes this situation even worse is that the product or service is not a success unless you achieve those specific outcomes.

To some extent, I think we’re guilty of that in our personal lives, too. We need to stop feeling like we have to master everything we attempt – or that we even have to succeed at everything we do. We put too much focus on this idea of success. This pressure to succeed often times causes our failures – or, maybe we do succeed, but like Patti Digh said, maybe that success isn’t quite what you wanted.

If you can’t allow for the possibility of failure, you exclude the possibility of success.

I say it like it’s easy. It’s really a life-long practice. In my personal life, right now, I’m planning to leave London. It’s a big change for me and one that opens up uncertainty – and a good challenge for me to see how good I really am at this stuff I like to talk about!

I think I’m in the midst of a process of deceleration and London is quite an intense environment. I’m hankering for something more spacious and quiet. Not necessarily a barn in the country, but the outskirts of Cambridge feels about right. Cambridge, England – not Massachusetts.

I think that if I slow down, I’ll do more. Even as I say that, I realize that it can’t just be about moving house, it’s something that’s a deeper process. So I think there’s some deceleration I’m doing—and I’ve certainly got further to go.

It’s quite a painful process, really. It’s not like you slow down and immediately feel better. You slow down and panic a bit, actually. I think the initial loss of stimulus is a bit frightening. But you get used to it, and find – at least, I am finding – that I like it. ♦

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Johnnie Moore is attempting to take life’s moments as they come and that makes him both wise and daring. Our conversation left me with a newfound appreciation for the art of improv and facilitation. Read his blog. Follow him on Twitter.

Facilitation gets as close to describing my work as I can, although it’s certainly a term that means different things to different people. To me it’s about supporting groups of people to collaborate more satisfyingly.

I’m not trying to teach people anything. I’m trying to draw out what is already there.

I didn’t really have an “a ha!” moment. I had maybe an “a!” moment. I was at this business speed networking event. It was one of those events where you meet like 20 people in 20 minutes. You obviously had to introduce yourself in an incredibly short way. Up until then, I was one of these people who said I do lots of different things. I decided, though, that given the constraints, I would just say that I’m a facilitator.

I thought no more of it, but looking back a bit later, that was a turning point for me. I get a sense that things changed direction at that point. That such a simple declaration resolved a certain amount of ambiguity around what I wanted to do.

It would be an exaggeration to say that facilitation is the only thing that interests me, but it interests me so much more than anything else does these days.

I used to work in market research doing focus groups. That was nearly 25 years ago. That’s not exactly facilitating. I was researching, which is a slightly different kettle of fish.

I ran my own advertising business, so I had to do everything. I did some copywriting. I did planning strategy, account management, all of those things. I just gradually got less excited by it.

Somebody once told me that in the early stages of your career, your focus is primarily on achievement. In the latter part of your career, meaning becomes more important. It’s definitely a transition I went through. When I was younger, running my business, I wanted to get ahead—advance my status, increase my profit. Everything was going great for me and then I think I just went through a phase of starting to find achievement less meaningful.

I remember working as a consultant on a very big ad campaign. There were an awful lot of people working on the campaign – maybe 20 people with five or six agencies. We were literally fighting it out on a weekly basis, and what was emerging from those meetings was the very worst kind of awkward compromise: The camel that comes out of the committee that’s appointed to design a horse.

I was being paid an enormous amount of money, but I got fed up. I walked away, and it wasn’t hard to walk away. I look back and think: “Wow, I walked away from an enormous amount of money” and I didn’t even really notice at the time.

You know, I didn’t think I was making a strategic career move. I just walked away from something I was fed up with. But it was one another one of those little turning points for me that led me to where I am today.

Facilitation is much more fascinating, engaging, and challenging. My sense of achievement is certainly not quite so hard cut. I can’t post sales figures and it’s harder to “prove” that it worked. It doesn’t tick the achievement box quite so obviously. But it has significance. It feels worthwhile.

I don’t think facilitation can be about following a set of defined rules and or best practice. It’s a constant practice of paying attention, of seeing what’s really happening, and responding to it.

My mantra at the moment is: “Notice more, change less.” Stop wrestling with fate and start noticing more about a situation.

I think that’s a key to facilitation – to be present in meetings, to see what’s going on, to let go of the urge to control everything. It’s so easy to play the part of that expert who cleverly operates from outside the system with the aim of producing a certain result.

I think it’s more useful to operate from within the system, including all its puzzles and ambiguities.

Improv has certainly helped in my facilitation practice. It’s a disarmingly powerful technique. What would appear to be a pub game is actually full of significance – especially when you start to examine how we play it.

Even more significantly, you don’t just do improv when you’re performing. You actually bring that sensibility moment-by-moment into your life. So you look for offers and notice when you or other people are blocking.
It’s actually great training in how not to block people. It’s very easy to block people – to shut them down before you’ve had a chance to let them explore their ideas or express themselves fully. And just to know what to watch for, is a gift, really.

All these rules of thumb that improv actors use are actually deceptively simple practices that create a framework for brilliant teamwork. ♦

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Johnnie Moore is attempting to take life’s moments as they come and that makes him both wise and daring. Our conversation left me with a newfound appreciation for the art of improv and facilitation. Read his blog. Follow him on Twitter.

I graduated in 2006, with a degree in computer science. I quickly realized, though, that I didn’t want to be a programmer for the rest of my life and decided that I wanted to get a degree in management—I just wasn’t really sure what area of management.

Within a couple months of graduation, I applied to the Chicago MBA program.

I had about a year in between my undergrad and my graduate. During that time, I had a few different jobs. I worked at Caterpillar, a financial services firm, and a few web startups.

I discovered that I’m the type of person who, if I was going to work at a startup, I would want to be one of the founders. The founders in a startup tend to be really tight and it’s hard to get any ideas through. I think this can be a cultural issue especially as a company grows from being just the founders to including living, breathing employees.

You pretty dramatically changing the culture of the company when you add that first employee and it’s hard sometimes to let go.

With a startup, I found that I was much more passionate about my ideas than I was in the corporate world.

You invest a lot more your self and your time when you work at a startup. And because you’re so passionate about what you’re doing, it’s frustrating when you’re ideas are being ignored. Corporate is different. It’s probably equally as difficult to push your ideas through, but you’re only working 40-50 hours a week so you don’t care as much.

After starting the MBA program, I felt that I had to take action to gain the type experience required to be qualified for the roles – marketing and management consulting – that I really wanted. So, I started my own marketing consulting company.

I’m graduating soon. Over the next few months, I’ll be applying to several jobs in my field. While I like the prospect of running my own company, the experience I would gain and relationships I would build working at one of the brand name consulting firms would open a lot of doors in the startup and venture capital worlds.

If I don’t get hired there, I’ll continue to run my company and will even look for more entrepreneurial opportunities.

I’m not sure we’ll see more women from Generation Y become entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is still very much a guy’s world. I think men and women go into entrepreneurship for different reasons – for men, it’s ego. For women, it’s work/life balance. Women start small businesses, and men start businesses like Twitter and Google. Men are not afraid to go for venture capital, and women like to self-fund and grow slowly.

Juggling work and school is difficult. What ends up happening, a lot of times, is that you are thinking about work during your class or you’re trying to get a presentation for school done during work. It’s stressful. It’s a lot easier to focus on one thing rather than have two huge things in your life. And then sometimes there’s just not enough time, so you end up kind of skimping a little on both.

Something I’ve learned along the way? Decisions are rarely right or wrong. They’re made, and then they’re lived with. ♦

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Monica O’brien is an ambitious young woman who has only started her dream-chasing and something tells me that she has great things in her future. Read her blog. Follow her on Twitter.

I’d been writing Twenty Set for a year and a half. That one started out about generational issues–specifically, Gen Y. Resourceful Marketer was more about the consulting work that I’ve been doing—it included topics like market research, consumer insights—it was more professional in its topics.

Maintaining two blogs was almost impossible.

I’ve combined the focus of my two blogs into a single blog. I’m going to focus more on marketing to Gen Y, including research that I find about marketing to Gen Y. For example, I was reading an article yesterday on Brand Week that talked about how Gen Y cares about the environment, but they don’t take any steps to help the environment. That is, they’re just not willing to spend extra money on eco-friendly products.

I’m also working on a project with a friend of mine. It’s the Huffington Post for a Gen Y demographic. It’s still in the works, but it’ll be about life’s major inflection points – major life changes like marriage, a new job, kids, graduation — things like that. We’ve got about eight writers lined up and each are at different points in their lives, so we’ll have a range of viewpoints.

I’ll think about a post for days and then sit down and write it out in 20 minutes. A lot of my posts come from personal experience and rants, so that makes them easier to write. At this point, I don’t have a good process because I’ve been blogging for so long and I know what my Gen Y audience likes. I know how to write a winner quickly for that audience.

I haven’t been posting as often as I would like. Partly to overcome that and partly because I want to write a book, I’m working on a series about entrepreneurship called “60 Days to Entrepreneurial Freedom”. I’d like to get feedback on my ideas before I invest the time to write a book. I also figure that if I don’t have enough ideas for 60 days, I probably don’t have enough to fill a book.

When I wrote my article for On Damsels in Success, I was working in manufacturing where the way to get ahead was really by being the squeakiest wheel. But I was expected to be quiet, smile, and help plan the holiday parties. Ultimately, though, when I started speaking up at meetings, people started listening—even if it seemed out of place. From that experience, I learned that it’s not impossible to break out of expectations.

I’m the type of person that always has new ideas, but I don’t always follow through on those ideas. That’s not always a good thing – but it’s not always bad, either.

Growing up, I usually I wanted to be a singer and an actress. I also had phases where I wanted to be a doctor, photographer, and/or lawyer. I always wanted to be an author. I wrote a lot of children’s books when I was young.

I traveled a lot when I was young because my dad was in the military. It was hard, but I was probably a bit drama queen about it. I was really awkward as a kid so it didn’t help that I had to move every two years. Now I’m not sure how to put down roots.

I never considered joining the military. I couldn’t imagine putting my kids through that when I hated it so much; it would hardly be fair after all my whining!

I can’t even pick from all the things that have gone “horribly wrong” at some point in my life. But I’m still here.

If you’re not failing, you’re not trying. ♦

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Monica O’brien is an ambitious young woman who has only started her dream-chasing and something tells me that she has great things in her future. Read her blog. Follow her on Twitter.

Did you like this post enough to share with your friends? If so, tell them about us on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious or other social networks.

Melia gave it all up to chase her dream. She serves as an inspiration for those of us who want to teach others to chase their dreams: if you’re not chasing yours, you’re not really teaching. Read her blog.
Check out her Flickr stream. Friend her on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter.

I spent the fall of 2008 in my old classrooms. Not only to make peace with my past relationship with school, but to see what’s going on now in schools, and how could I make it different through my own education work.

I arranged to start kindergarten on the very first day of kindergarten in August of last year. From there, I spent a week at each grade level. I’d sit in the classroom with the kids and just do whatever they did.

I blogged about it. I started reschoolyourself.com where I captured what I was doing in the classrooms and I encouraged other people to talk about their school memories and their thoughts about education.

The kids were great. The little ones were just happy to have a big playmate.

In middle school, the kids wondered why I was there when I didn’t have to be. I remember walking into some sixth grade classes a few times and I would get this cheer, “MELIA!” I was like, “Wow. I wish I had this kind of reception everywhere I went.”

The high school students pretty much ignored me.

In college, I blended in really well because everyone is a different age and people are more independent. The teachers sometimes announced me and I had to say a little thing about my project, but for the most part, I got to be invisible.

The most exciting lessons were hands-on. From an outsiders viewpoint, these seemed like the ones were the students learned the most, too. I think part of that is because they’re seeing something work rather than memorizing how it’s supposed to work.

In the fourth grade, for example, we watched this documentary on the Titanic that had these scientists going through the wreckage and deciding whether to put it in a museum or to leave it on the ocean floor. Then we had a class discussion about the ethical issues of that. The kids had all different opinions. It wasn’t about who was right and who was wrong, it was just about whether you could support your opinion with evidence and really thoughtful discussion.

Having gone through school twice, I think middle school is the hardest. I mean, you’re changing physically, so things are awkward. And socially, it’s all about not being “uncool”. If I could give middle schoolers a piece of advice: Whether you know it or not, everyone has a hard time in middle school and life really does get so much better.

“This too shall pass.” That’s something my Mom would always say to me. I think they are the four wisest words in the English language—whether you’re on top of the world or down in the dumps. Everything is always changing, so there’s really no point hanging onto things because life is going to change anyway.

What’s next for me? Well, I’m going to keep on learning and trying to find my balance. I’m not 100% there yet, but I’m a hell of a lot closer than I was last year at this time.

When I started the project, I planned it in two parts. The fall portion was all about going back in time and making peace with my past. The spring has been about moving forward and figuring out what I want my future to look like and what kind of lifestyle I want to lead.

I figured it out to some extent. I’ve incorporated some music and yoga and cooking and laughter into my daily life. I want to become more financially stable. I want to write.

Writing has been a passion since I was young, but I have a big ten year gap where I didn’t write much of anything except college papers and grant applications.

After doing all this, I think the one piece of advice I’d like to give everyone: Just be present in order to see the opportunity and possibility in your life. ♦

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Melia gave it all up to chase her dream. She serves as an inspiration for those of us who want to teach others to chase their dreams: if you’re not chasing yours, you’re not really teaching. Read her blog.
Check out her Flickr stream. Friend her on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter.

I was an overachiever, not because my parents or teachers were driving me – though they were certainly giving me reinforcement – but it was something internal and there was this whole system set up to reinforce my desire to achieve.

When I got to high school, I realized that I just wasn’t happy. I didn’t really know why I wasn’t happy, I just knew that I wasn’t.

At my high school graduation, I had these few great moments when I was recognized for all my achievements. I got all these awards and medals. It was exhilarating for a few minutes. And then … there was nothing. I felt nothing.

I came to realize that school is this game that’s set up for you to go for A’s and the medals and the honors and all those things. So all the students are playing this game and no one has even asked if you wanted to play.

Once I got to college, though, I went right back to playing the game. By the time I was graduating, though, I was more aware of what was going on. I didn’t apply for Valedictorian or Phi Beta Kappa even though I was invited. I didn’t even go to the Honors ceremony. My housemates and I actually wrote letters to the administration that said: “Thank you for the honors, but we’re not applying because we think there’s really not a point to it.” Who knows how they received them, but it felt good to do.

Once I graduated, though, I fell right back into the same patterns with my work: workaholic, overachiever, didn’t take care of myself. Slowly, I started having this realization – that most of the things that I killed myself studying for – like algebra and chemistry – I didn’t use. And if I did use them, I could study them at any time. And I actually enjoyed them more!

Once I realized this, I decided that I wanted to make school and learning better for other kids. I discovered that there’s this whole international movement called Democratic Education. There are schools out there that allow kids the freedom to do what they want with their time. And the kids that I’ve met from these programs have turned into articulate, passionate, balanced, creative, adaptive people. All the things that you want—all the ingredients for success.

My friend, Chris Balme, and I decided to start an organization called Spark where kids got to choose their dream job and apprentice with someone in that field. Filmmaker, pilot, or mechanic – didn’t matter.

Just seeing the passion that the kids had was wonderful and inspiring.

Chris and I ran that program for four years. When it started, we had no funds, so we tutored half time and worked on Spark. It took us years to get to a point where we could draw modest salaries. What’s cool is that we took Spark from being an organization that ran on our blood, sweat, and tears to this year having a $1.2 million budget and serving hundreds of kids. We’ve even been thinking about national expansion now that we have the funding.

Last year, I left Spark so I could focus on Reschool Yourself. I’m still on the board but I’m no longer active day-to-day.

It was a challenging decision – especially being an overachiever and someone who really thrived on recognition. It ultimately came down to my own happiness. I was exhausted, I was burned out. Program administration just wasn’t for me.

The clincher, though, was the kids. I was telling them to pursue their dreams and to do what they loved. But I was unhappy because I wasn’t pursuing my dreams. And I think that my actions spoke louder than my words. So I walked away.

It was incredibly hard to walk away when I did because the program was just starting to take off. At one point, when I was transitioning out of my role, we were getting a new video filmed. The video crew was in the office and they didn’t even know who I was even though I had helped build the organization from the ground up. It felt like I was fading into the annals of history – that I’d be forgotten after all this hard work.

I think that’s when I really committed to my choice. I could’ve decided to stay, gotten paid more, and even had my face on the news. But I just decided that it wasn’t worth it. The recognition and accolades and everything were really not as important as my own happiness and well being.

I am very happy with my choice. ♦

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Melia gave it all up to chase her dream. She serves as an inspiration for those of us who want to teach others to chase their dreams: if you’re not chasing yours, you’re not really teaching. Read her blog.
Check out her Flickr stream. Friend her on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter.

Read the whole Twinterview. Read other posts from the interview.

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Karen Swim is grounded in a strength that can only come from trusting that she’s on the right path even if she doesn’t know where that path might lead. She’s a writer, a marketer, and a social media expert. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her through Rosa Say’s Joyful Jubilant Learning and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you take the time to get to know her, too. Read her blog. Friend her on Facebook. Connect on LinkedIn. Follow her on Twitter.

I guess I never thought of writing as a career because I’ve always had a very practical side—even growing up I was pretty practical. I mean, I started out with the typical childhood dream of becoming President of the United States, but then I researched the salary and decided that I didn’t think it paid enough given how much stress you’d have to deal with.

My plan was to go into the medical field, which made sense given that I  grew up in hospitals – my mom was a nurse; my first job was working in a doctor’s office; and after school I’d go to the hospital. I even read the medical encyclopedia for fun.

Here’s a funny story. As a kid, I used to wake up in the middle of the night and read, kind of sleep reading. So, I would get up in the morning and encyclopedias would be open on my desk. I was a weird child.

My initial plan was to become a child psychologist. Once I got to college, I decided I really didn’t want to spend my days with heartbreaking stories.

I thought about becoming a brain surgeon. But I worked with a few doctors and decided I didn’t want to be defined by a career. Sure, they had a great job but if you aren’t connected to the people in your life, it’s worthless. I knew that I wanted to get married and have a family, and I didn’t want my kids to be calling my office on holidays saying, “Hey, where’s my mom?”

Now, after all that, I make a living as a writer.

So often, we have a vision for where we want to be and we plan out everything that’s going to happen along the way. But the adventure is far richer and far more rewarding than you could ever plan – but we have to open ourselves to the journey if we’re going to realize those rewards.

What’s next? Great question.

When I had that initial epiphany, “Hey, you could actually have a writing business.” I also had the thought that I might become a published author some day, too. So, my secondary plan has always been to fund the dream of being a fiction writer. Last year I realized that I’ve focused so much on building the business—that I haven’t taken any time to work on the dream. So I used the National Novel Writing Month as an opportunity to just jump in. I decided the week before that I would do it.

After 30 days—actually a little less than 30 days—I had a finished novel. I didn’t know how good it was, but I had it. I let it sit for 30 days before re-reading it and was actually pleased.

So, my dream is next. That means going through several rounds of editing and getting it to the point where I’m ready to start submitting queries to publishers.

I’m really excited about the next part of my journey. And that’s something that I’ve really come to understand over the past few years, when you think you’ve arrived, there’s always somewhere else to go. ♦

Did you like this post enough to share with your friends? If so, tell them about us on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious or other social networks.

Karen Swim is grounded in a strength that can only come from trusting that she’s on the right path even if she doesn’t know where that path might lead. She’s a writer, a marketer, and a social media expert. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her through Rosa Say’s Joyful Jubilant Learning and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you take the time to get to know her, too. Read her blog. Friend her on Facebook. Connect on LinkedIn. Follow her on Twitter.

We help people identify and articulate their brand distinction in a way that resonates with their target audience. Once we have done the foundation work we support the development of strategies and, of course, content that support the brand messaging.

I always kind of knew that I would run my own company one day. It wasn’t this great big epiphany. It was more like a seed that had been planted long ago and it just waited until the time was right.

Nearly six years ago I lost my husband. Before he died, I had planned to take a six month absence from corporate America to care for him. Those six months turned into two years. After he passed, I moved from California to Michigan and went back to work in corporate America. My goal at the time was really just financial stability. Two years without income and a major illness takes a huge hit on your finances.

I wanted an easy way back into the workforce. I didn’t want to go back to being in charge of 200 people; I didn’t want the big title. I had just lost my husband of 10 years and I didn’t want the stress.  I wanted to have a low level position and just work – allow myself some recovery time.

Shortly after re-joining the corporate workforce, I realized that I wanted a different kind of lifestyle than what I could have in Corporate America.

You’re never the same after you lose a spouse. You realize that your life here is so finite, that it’s worthwhile to take risks and pursue the things that you want. And it’s pointless to live with unnecessary stress or to go to a job that doesn’t make you happy. I already knew all this – on some level, I think a lot of people know this – but when my husband passed, my understanding and awareness went to a much deeper level.  I wanted to take my skills and experience and build something rather than implementing and executing somebody else’s vision.

After a year, I made the move. The company was going through a round of layoffs. I convinced them to lay me off and I took that opportunity to just jump out and to start my own business.

Everything came together for me once I said, ‘OK, the time is now.’

When I stepped out of corporate America, I went into full on research mode, trying to determine what kind of business I would start. I never thought writing could be a career. I figured that you can’t just decide to write a book and get it published.

During my business research, I happened upon a book, “How to Start a Home Based Writing Business by Lucy V. Parker a writer who had started her own writing business. The whole thing clicked.

Before reading that book, I was on my way to becoming a pet sitter. I had written business plans, gone to the Small Business Administration, met with mentors. I had even obtained my Animal CPR certification .

I guess writing was so much a part of me that I didn’t even stop to think for one second that it could actually be a career. ♦

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Karen Swim is grounded in a strength that can only come from trusting that she’s on the right path even if she doesn’t know where that path might lead. She’s a writer, a marketer, and a social media expert. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her through Rosa Say’s Joyful Jubilant Learning and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you take the time to get to know her, too. Read her blog. Friend her on Facebook. Connect on LinkedIn. Follow her on Twitter.

I was a graphic designer turned network administrator turned blogger turned Internet marketer turned Internet consultant turned social media guy. That is how I got where I am at now.

I used to run a hosting company back when FrontPage first came. I was around when companies were paying 30 to 50 thousand dollars for a five to seven page brochure website.

I had a gadget blog that launched around the same time as Gizmodo and Engadget. It had good traffic. But I got a couple of projects, took on a nine-to-five, and I ended up letting it go. Now I am kicking myself for not keeping it going. I mean I had a feeling it could be successful, but I didn’t have the time, and I didn’t do a good job of recruiting contributors to help keep the site going.

I used to call myself the unofficial Web 2.0 beta tester. If there was a new site launched, I had to have an invite.

People throw me in the category of social media because I was in the space prior to the social media bubble that we are in now. I thought MySpace was OK. Facebook was always interesting – and I certainly don’t take full advantage of Facebook now, but it never caught me the way Twitter caught me.

I remember when Twitter came out. I created my account in July, 2006 and was like, “Wow.” That was really that “aha” moment for me.

I built my brand pretty quickly because I shared a lot of information. Sharing and connecting are really key to success on any social media site.

Back in December 2007, I posted a video of me sitting in my home office saying, “Hey, this is Wayne Sutton” and I just talked about what I do and who I am. I immediately started getting all of this traffic. People were saying that it was a great video and a great example of personal branding. The video sucked. I look at the video now, I can’t even stand it. It’s dark, I’m moving in my chair. I say “adapter” when I was supposed to have said “adopter”. It sucked.

Looking back, I wish I would have promoted myself more. I think I could have grown my audience larger and faster had I been willing to promote myself more than what I did. For the average person, it’s not about numbers. But, in the industry that I’m in, it really is about making meaningful connections with as many people as possible. That’s definitely different than the sleazy used car salesman who always hypes “me, me, me”, but you still have to actively promote yourself and I wish I had realized that sooner than I have.

Look at what Gary Vaynerchuk is doing, he just signed a seven‑figure book deal. He launched Wine Library TV, he used Twitter—and, really, social media as a whole—to promote his winelibrary.tv video show. He didn’t just wait for people to promote his stuff. A whole lot more people know Gary Vaynerchuk today, than know Wayne Sutton.

The thing is you’ve got to be real. You’ll see some people on Twitter or Facebook or whatever and they fake it – you can tell when they’re faking it.

Life is too short. I refuse to be somebody else just to get a quick dollar here and there.

Wayne Sutton is a cool guy. I mean the kind of cool, southern guy you could hang out with on a Sunday afternoon, kicking back and talking about Social Media in between laps of a NASCAR race. That’s my kind of cool. He’s an entrepreneur, strategist, speaker, and producer with a passion for video blogging and social media. Friend him on Facebook. Connect on LinkedIn. Follow him on Twitter. Whatever you do, just talk to him and hope some of that cool rubs off.

That’s how TweetShops started. I’d been using Twitter for a while and thought I could teach people how to use Twitter to grow their business. I’ve held two TweetShops to date. People loved them. After those initial two workshops, I just stopped. It’s an idea that I’m still playing with, though.

I’m also seeing a lot of churches creating Facebook Fan Pages and Twitter accounts. Pastors are tweeting and live streaming their sermons. They’re using social media to extend their global outreach.  I’d love to do a series of workshops for churches and nonprofits on how to use social media to deliver their message.

A lot of the things that we’re doing now are the same things a lot of people were doing three years ago. And it just evolved and became mainstream. Three years ago, we could have done a live TV show using uStream, you know. But now we got organizations like Fox, NBC, and CNN using Livestream. Now these companies are doing it, but you know we could have done that a couple years ago.

I’m spreading myself across too many projects. I should be focusing on one or two things. I think that might be more successful – that said, it’s hard to focus. I don’t believe in putting all my eggs in one basket.

Right now, I’m really trying to focus on projects that are fun and profitable, which means I have to let some things go that are fun, but not quite so profitable.

And that’s why I like Wayne Sutton TV. It’s going to be a showcase of my work. I’m going to put all the video interviews I’ve done on it and I’m going to do a weekly live show. I’ve interviewed a lot of people over the years, so the site sort of tells my story—and showcasing my work at the same time.

I just launched a marketing company with three other partners. We’ve started with zero capital, using only money we’ve generated from project work. You know, that feels good. Is it at the point to where it will pay our salaries? Nowhere near it, but ultimately that’s our goal and it’s exciting to build something from the ground up.

Wayne Sutton is a cool guy. I mean the kind of cool, southern guy you could hang out with on a Sunday afternoon, kicking back and talking about Social Media in between laps of a NASCAR race. That’s my kind of cool. He’s an entrepreneur, strategist, speaker, and producer with a passion for video blogging and social media. Friend him on Facebook. Connect on LinkedIn. Follow him on Twitter. Whatever you do, just talk to him and hope some of that cool rubs off.

My father and my grandfather, they had me out on the fields at an early age– cucumbers, corn, tobacco. It was hard work, but it was fun.

I am not good with words. It’s one of the things I hated about my childhood. I got picked on a lot growing up because I had to go to speech class—from elementary to seventh or maybe ninth grade. I didn’t necessarily have a lisp, but I had a hard time pronouncing words. I still have a hard time saying specific. People who know me from high school are like, “Wow. Wayne’s doing what?” They could tell you some stories about me.

I am a big basketball fan. My mom is a Carolina fan and my dad is an NC State fan. I’m a Carolina fan—so, I grew up a mama’s boy.

I like to work with computers. Dad’s thing was cars, mine is computers. And I always had that entrepreneurship mindset—I think I got that from my mom because she always had a business going.

Growing up, we were not always a successful in terms of money. At one point we were on food stamps. Dad had an accident on his job and he couldn’t work for a while. We had to struggle but, at the same time we had to do what we had to do to survive. From that, I learned that there is always opportunity to fail, but you keep going anyway.

My dad taught me the importance of never giving up—that if you work hard and put your best foot forward you can do anything and complete anything.

I have launched two companies and neither one of those succeeded. I am working on my third now, and hopefully this is a winner.

Those values that they gave me at a young age have helped me get where I am at today. I always had to live up to certain expectations growing up. Both my parents were well known in the community. People would see me and say, “Oh, you are Glen and Willie’s son.” So, there were always higher expectations put on me because I was their son.

My parents have been married for 37 years. One thing about growing up with a mother and father who’ve had such a successful relationship is that you want to emulate their success. I didn’t grow up like, “Oh, I want to be a player.” I grew up wanting a wife and a family.

I spent a long time in some relationships that I should have gotten out of earlier. I look back and wish I could do things a little differently, but some of those mistakes are what made me—are what gave me some of the personality characteristics that I have now. So, I think it all works out for the good in the end.

I have been married for four years. Zero kids. If my wife had her way, kids would be right now.

I am really nervous about being a father. Raising a child is not easy. And it’s only made harder by the state of the world and the economy. I feel like I’ll really have to slow down the be the kind of father I want to be and I’m just not ready to slow down. I’m having a hard enough time finding time to spend with my wife – I think I would go crazy if I had a child right now.

My wife just turned 30, so I tell her that we’ll talk about kids at the beginning of 2010.

Wayne Sutton is a cool guy. I mean the kind of cool, southern guy you could hang out with on a Sunday afternoon, kicking back and talking about Social Media in between laps of a NASCAR race. That’s my kind of cool. He’s an entrepreneur, strategist, speaker, and producer with a passion for video blogging and social media. Friend him on Facebook. Connect on LinkedIn. Follow him on Twitter. Whatever you do, just talk to him and hope some of that cool rubs off.

After a correct response, the electrical impulses coming from neurons in each of the brain areas was more robust and conveyed more information. “The signal-to-noise ratio improved in both brain regions,” Miller said. “The heightened response led to them being more likely to get the next trial correct, too. This explains on a neural level why we seem to learn more from our successes than our failures.”

(Read the study.)

This bit of research explains a lot–you have to really want something if you’re going to succeed. Want it so bad you push through the frustration of feeling like you’re not learning anything until you find that successful attempt that stimulates your brain and shows you the possibility of what you can achieve.

I think this fits perfectly with something Hunter said: not many people are willing to try 10,000 different things. Of course, he’s referring to the quote by Thomas Edison:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas Edison

Here’s the thing, notice Edison said he made 10,000 wrong attempts. I think therein lies a necessary mental shift: If we learn something, we didn’t fail, we just discovered a way that we can’t succeed.

I have a little Donald Trump in the back of my brain (scary in a big way, yes, but he’s there and I can’t get rid of him) and right now, he’s reading that line I just wrote and saying, “Did you win? Then you failed! Get out of my way, loser.” I think this is a typical mindset that we need to shift away from. Seeing failure in what you’ve done is depressing. Seeing a wrong attempt can be hopeful, because it’s another step forward–one of 10,000 steps it takes to achieve your success.

Okay, okay. Shifting your thinking from “failure” to “wrong attempt” is not some magical fairy dust that will make pushing through those non-successes any easier. But maybe it’s just the little boost you need to keep going when things are particularly difficult.

So here’s today’s thought exercise: What if we start our journey toward success with the expectation that it’s going to take 10,000 attempts before we succeed. If it takes less, we’ll be pleasantly surprised. If it takes more, well, we must be doing something incredibly worthwhile and we’ll keep on trucking.

So, how many wrong attempts have you walked through?

But that didn’t happen and I apologize.

Fortunately, Gina, Colton, Emma, and I are settling into a routine, which includes time for me to reconnect my brain to the Interweb – and time to devise and execute a plan to get this blog back on track.

Here’s my plan.

I’m nearly finished with my reflections post for Hunter Nuttall. Hunter said lot of great things that got my brain spinning. No way am I  letting his interview slip by without posting my two cents. I’ll post that next Tuesday.

The week of September 14^th, we’ll begin running more interviews. I have four more interviews completed—they just need to be edited. These are slated to run on the following dates:

• 9/14 – Wayne Sutton
• 9/21 – Karen Swim
• 9/28 – Melia Dicker
• 10/5 – Monica O’Brien

These are some great folks who are doing some really interesting things. Check out their Web sites to see how interesting they really are.

See? We’ll be back on track before you know it.

Now, I could also use a little help to keep us on track. You may have noticed that I said, “I have four more interviews completed.” Well, that means I need to conduct more interviews. I’m looking for some interesting folks who are in hot pursuit of their wildest dreams. If you know someone that I should be talking to, ruzuku.com">email me their contact information and a link to their blog, book – or whatever makes them interesting. The only criteria is that they be chasing their dreams – and by all means, define “chasing their dreams” as liberally as you like.

So, that’s where we’re at. I’ve got a new daughter, the blog is on a tiny break, we have some pretty cool interviews coming up, and we need help connecting with more dream-chasers.

Sound like a plan?

I don’t know how long you’ve been on my blog, but I’ve come across a lot of videos that are just really inspiring. There’s this video about Mr. Rogers addressing the US Senate in 1969, trying to win back some funding that was going to be cut. It’s really amazing.

My main fault? I guess: self‑acceptance. I have a problem looking at my situation and just accepting myself because I’m doing the best I can. Because I had this image in mind of where I’d like to be, and when I notice that I’m not there, I start beating myself up. I’ve got to stop doing that.

I think a lot of people are more miserable than they need to be just because they have unrealistic expectations. It’s easy for me to see it in other people. It’s a little bit harder, though, changing my attitude. But I’m trying.

I’ve really never been interested in pursuing something just because it’s super‑popular. If you look at my blog, you’ll see that I write about a lot of things that fall outside of the traditional personal development topics. I just don’t write a whole lot about goal setting and about maintaining a positive mental attitude and stuff like that. And it’s not that I don’t think that stuff is important, I just think that other people have done a really great job of covering those topics already.

My blog is really about exploring things that are interesting to me. But whatever particular topics those are may change from one day to the next as I’m always discovering new interests.

That’s actually a bad habit that I’ve gotten into—it’s both a blessing and a curse, I guess—I tend to be interested in a lot of things and want to pursue everything all at the same time, which is completely untenable.

When you’ve got limited time and you’re trying to chase too many rabbits, all of them escape.

I’m trying to focus on one or two projects at a time. Right now, for example, I’m pursing this photoreading course as well as trying my hand at becoming ambidextrous.

I do find, though, that when I get interested in something, I’ve got to strike while the iron is hot. I’ve got to pursue it right then and there because I find that I can get easily distracted with a new project.

The one thing I that I would most like to be known for is something that I haven’t come across yet. I think that we need to always be moving on to bigger and better things. So, I’d like to think that the kinds of things that I’m involved in now are going to be dwarfed by what I do later on.

Hunter Nuttall attempted Polyphasic Sleep before Steve Pavlina had even heard of it. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, he also wrote a little eBook called The Zen of Blogging. If you’re thinking about starting a blog, stop what you’re doing right now and go read it. If you like that one, check out his other eBooks. Hunter blogs at hunternuttall.com and Pick the Brain. Follow him on Twitter.

When I first started thinking about getting into blogging, I really like the idea. But it took me about seven months before I even decided that personal development was the topic I wanted to go after.

Once I decided on that, it became pretty clear that was the right topic—I remembered all of these things I had done and forgotten about.

For example, you know about Steve Pavlina’s polyphasic sleep trial that he did? One of the things I remembered was that I’d actually tried polyphasic sleep back when I was a teenager—just to see what it would be like. Would it be something that I could do? Would it be something that would be beneficial?

It didn’t work out nearly as well as it could have.

I got to the point where I could keep the polyphasic sleep going indefinitely, but I felt like I was tired all the time. I was always groggy. I just wasn’t at my peak potential. Much later, I learned that I wasn’t taking as many naps as I should have and I wasn’t sleeping long enough during each nap. I think Steve Pavlina was sleeping about twice as much as I was.

Back in those days, I just really enjoyed going through the process of figuring out this strange truth about our world – even if I failed. It was the process that excited me. So whenever I came across a problem that just seemed interesting, I dove into. I guess I’m still pretty much like that today.

Do you know what a perfect number is? It’s a number that equals the sum of its factors other than itself. For example the number six is the smallest perfect number because it’s divisible by one, two, and three, and one plus two plus three equals six. In high school, I was working on this project to try to find the pattern that you could use to predict whether a number was perfect or not. I didn’t get anywhere with it and eventually, years later, I found out the real answer and it’s very complicated. I wasn’t even going to come close.

I was always interested in art. I really liked M.C. Escher and at one point, I got into tessellations. I took this one class in seventh grade where I learned how to draw tessellations and other kinds of illusions. It really didn’t take a lot of artistic skills, what I was doing. If you know the formula for constructing them, you can make a tessellation. That said, just because the pattern tessellates, doesn’t mean that it’s going to look good.

My parents would always encourage me to participate in my hobbies and experiments, but they weren’t terribly interested in it themselves. They just wanted me to do what I liked to do.

My dad has always been a great teacher. He taught math for many years. And to this day, even though he’s retired, he still has students recognizing him in airports and restaurants and coming up to him and saying, “Thank you so much. You’re the one who got me interested in math.”

So I guess from him I learned that there is a lot of value in teaching. There is a difference in knowing something yourself and being able to explain it to somebody else. And that there is this inherent value in spreading knowledge to other people and seeing it make a difference in their lives.

My mom has always been very career‑minded. She started her own company and did very well with it. So I learned about drive from her, how to have that focus on success, but not too much, so you’re able to have that work-life balance and still pursue your dreams.

Hunter Nuttall attempted Polyphasic Sleep before Steve Pavlina had even heard of it. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, he also wrote a little eBook called The Zen of Blogging. If you’re thinking about starting a blog, stop what you’re doing right now and go read it. If you like that one, check out his other eBooks. Hunter blogs at hunternuttall.com and Pick the Brain. Follow him on Twitter.

You know these are the questions that always trip me up. The things that are so obvious to me are often hard to put into words for somebody who doesn’t know me.

I guess that’s a question you can answer on many different levels. Mostly obviously, I could talk about my career. I’m a software developer by day. By night I’m a blogger and a personal development student who is always involved in the strange sorts of experiments that most people wouldn’t want to get into. That’s one way to look at it.

I recently updated part of my home page to better explain what my blog is about. I said that this site is “personal development for smart and bold students of life.” That’s the most concise way I’ve come up with to explain what my blog is about and, by extension, that’s what I’m about.

But what I’d like to be known for – is somebody who was always pushing the limits of what he knows about the world. That’s really what I am when you get down to it. I’m very curious by nature. I always like to learn, explore and grow, and I would like to be remembered that way. Now as far as how that actually gets succinctly expressed, I don’t know.

The title of your blog is from a Thomas Edison quote, right? When he invented his storage battery, he tried 10,000 different solutions that didn’t work. With every “wrong attempt,” he eliminated a possibility, he got more data points – with every wrong attempt, he got closer to finding the solution.

He course corrected all along the way and eventually got what he wanted. A lot of us aren’t willing to try 10,000 different things. A lot of people tend to give up – and that giving up is the real failure.

Making “wrong attempts” is just part of the process that leads to the eventual success.

Even I tend to get discouraged long before I reach my 10,000th try. But I always keep coming back to the fact that ‑ well you know if you stop trying, then nothing’s going to change.

I recently took a 4 month hiatus from my day job to see if I would enjoy full-time blogging. I was at a job that I really liked. The people were nice and I liked working with them, but I had just gotten to the point where I was bored with the position and was considering something else.

I thought, “If I just move on to something else how is that really going to be any different? Maybe I just need to take some time off.” I wanted to take some time off, but I needed to make sure I had enough of an emergency fund saved up.

I really wasn’t looking forward to losing the income, but as time passed, I was more and more certain that taking the time off was the right thing to do.

I woke up one morning and I thought, “I’m going to resign today.” Well, that’s the day they announced the company was probably going out of business. I stayed on board until the company went out of business and I was able to get some severance.

I ended up taking about 4 months off and, well, my results were mixed.

On the one hand, I just loved my time off. I’d been working non‑stop on software development for 10 years, and while I do like it, it was awfully nice for the first time to be free to do whatever I wanted.

I found that I really needed that break – that taste of freedom.

But in terms of me being able to create an income online that would allow me to sustain my joblessness indefinitely—that was really a failure. In fact, I probably learned more about what not to do than what to do, so I guess there’s a silver lining in that.

Hunter Nuttall attempted Polyphasic Sleep before Steve Pavlina had even heard of it. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, he also wrote a little eBook called The Zen of Blogging. If you’re thinking about starting a blog, stop what you’re doing right now and go read it. If you like that one, check out his other eBooks. Hunter blogs at hunternuttall.com and Pick the Brain. Follow him on Twitter.

The secret to successful supporting relationships

There’s an incredibly important lesson embedded in Phil’s story: It’s not enough to have supportive relationships; you have to nurture those supportive relationships. This is actually a crucial lesson embedded throughout many of our guest’s stories.

When you listen to people like Leo Babauta or Matt Cornell talk about their supporting relationships, they talk about the time they spend with their wives (their wives, in both cases, are their main source of support). Leo talked about the time he and his wife reserve for dates and Matt talked about he and his wife became certified massage therapists together (this may have been cut from the published version of the interview).

I think Phil sums it up nicely when he says, “Don’t put all of your passion into your work. The work will always be there.”

So true, yet it’s a lesson that many of us, including myself, struggle to learn. It’s not that we’re thick-headed or don’t understand it conceptually. (Well, I might be a little thick-headed.) It’s just hard to walk away from work when I’m so passionate about what I do – and there’s so much to do.

As you’re reading this (assuming you’re reading on the date this is published), the tension between my work-life balance is about to get a bit more joyously complicated. If all is going well, this post will be published on the day that my wife is having a C-Section, giving birth to our second child, a daughter we’re going to name “Emma Rose”.

I am ecstatic and nervous and terrified –basically a big ball of stress, right now. How do I juggle my own personal dream-chasing with raising my two kids, maintaining a strong relationship with my wife – all the while keeping my sanity? A great question and I can only imagine the increased complexity adding a second child to our already precariously balanced lives.

I think the answer is here – at least, the seeds of an answer that must be experienced to be fully understood.

Nurture your supportive relationships

I want to use Leo Babauta as an example here because he has divorced, remarried, and has six kids in the mix – making my situation look like a cake-walk. Through it all, Leo has managed to launch a blog, write a few books, run a marathon, as well as many other accomplishments and still has time to nurture his relationship with his wife.

No, that’s not right. It’s not that he has time to nurture the relationship. It’s that he makes the time. On Day 4, Leo says, “You have to have intimacy. You have to have that closeness and you have to put in the time to make that happen.”

Put in the time to make intimacy and closeness happen.

Make the time to make your relationships great

And maybe the secret to having the time for intimacy with your partner comes from another lesson that Phil says he’s still trying to learn: “It’s Parkinson’s Law. Work will expand to fit the size of the container you give it, so give it a very small container.”

Powerful stuff. Make the time to nurture your supporting relationships by keeping your work constrained to a small container.

Working for myself, in a start-up, the containers for my work have grown. It’s hard to walk away from the computer. Not only am I 10 times more passionate about my company than any other job I’ve had, but we have a limited runway to get our product launched – due to both limited time and budget. Every second I’m not working, is another second that the end of the runway is getting closer. Is it possible, in a startup, to work less and still be successful?

I don’t know the right answer to that question. I certainly don’t think I’m qualified to answer the question for you. I do know my answer, though. Actually, it’s the only answer I can accept. I want to be part of my children’s lives as much as possible and to do that, I have to make those work containers smaller.

Does that mean that my work will suffer? That the startup will implode? I certainly don’t have a crystal ball, but I don’t think so. I think Abe and I will find ways to produce something better than if we didn’t have these constraints and our success will be so much sweeter and our setbacks more easily overcome if we take the time to nurture our families – without whose support we wouldn’t be here in the first place.

So, here’s your question for this week: Are you properly nurturing your supporting relationships? What  have you done lately to nurture your support network?

I grew up in a really poor household. I had two younger brothers, and was on food stamps most of my childhood. I knew from early on that I never wanted to be that way.

My dad got up at 4:00 AM to milk cows. My mom would get up early to go to the nursing home, or stayed up late to bartend or work other jobs. I just realized early on that that was expected of me.

My only regret in going to work at such a young age was that I came to value money more than I should. Unfortunately that lesson stuck for much of my life. When I was in the navy, right after high school, instead of enjoying where I was, I spent a lot of time managing a shoe department. When I was in college I always worked a couple of jobs. So, yeah, I spent a lot of time working, a lot of time valuing money instead of valuing relationships or valuing experience.

I still work harder than I should. I don’t know if it’s a lesson that I will ever fully learn. But, I’m getting much better at saying no. I’m getting better at suggesting other people, at not getting myself entangled in too much.

I’m not gonna lie to you: saying “no” is hard. It’s a daily struggle. I’m always wondering, is this the right balance? Am I doing the right thing for the right reasons at the right time?

I have a keynote speech that’s called “Make a Plan and Make it Great.” The idea is to create a purpose and then run everything through the purpose filter. I’ve really worked hard at doing that more this year than I ever have before. I’m starting to really, really think about my purpose—to think about why I am here, why I am on this planet.

I’ve had two failed marriages.

Something I learned from those failures? Don’t put all of your passion into your work. The work will always be there. It’s Parkinson’s Law. Work will expand to the size of the container you give it, so give it a very small container. I’m still learning that one.

If you have a dream, make sure the other person sees themselves as part of your dream. Because if you don’t, then it’s a lonely dream, a lonely story, and if the other person doesn’t see themselves in your plans then chances are that they will see their way out of your plans.

My brothers have done a lot better job at marriage than I have.

I have a niece that lives 12 minutes from me. Seeing her, spending time with her – it’s slowed me down a bit and helped me to realize that there are more important things than climbing the corporate ladder.

What’s next? My goal next is to transition to speaking, writing, and the coaching full time—probably going to make that transition in 12 to 18 months out.

I just published my second book, Help Desk Manager’s Crash Course. It should be available on Amazon now. I’ve got a couple more books at least inside me.

Basically, I want to break out of corporate America and do my own thing.

Phil Gerbyshak has scaled the corporate mountains and is now chasing his dreams. Five words sum him up nicely: “Energetic, helpful, inspiring, enthusiastic, fun”. He blogs at Make it Great and The Slacker Manager at Bizzia. Follow him on Twitter.

A lot of the things that I write about and that I talk about are things that I learn from my team or things that I’ve learned from other managers.

For instance, my team taught me not to talk about poop at 6:30 in the morning.

One of the things I’ve tried to do with my team was to read to them at team meetings. Once a week, for about two months, I would read to them. The last straw came when I read a passage from a book called “The Dog Poop Initiative,” by Kirk Weisler. It sounds a little odd, but it’s actually a book all about the power of taking initiative and doing the right thing. After I read that passage to them, their eyes glazed over and someone said, “I can’t believe you’re reading me a book about poop at 6:30 in the morning.”

I learned a valuable lesson that morning – and ended up turning it into a little phrase: “Don’t talk about poop at 6:30 in the morning.” It basically boils down to this: As a manager, you need to try new things because you never know what’s going to work. But you need to be receptive to them and willing to move on when things don’t work. Through this process comes a deeper understanding – both for you and your team – of who they are and what makes them tick.

My company knows what I do and that my eventual plan is to break out of corporate America.

Everybody says they are committed to learning, but it’s really hard to judge in an interview how committed someone is.

When I ask interviewees the most recent book they read, being an IT Manager, it’s pretty consistent that they’re immersed in Microsoft books or Cisco books. I’m realizing now, though, that the folks that are curious about something outside of IT are really going to be more successful than the folks that are only interested in IT.

I recently wrote a post where I said something like, “I’ve only quit my managers, not my companies.” That’s actually something I’ve been thinking about for a few years now. I realized that the people that I work for really have to be top quality people, and if they are not good people, if they don’t have my best interest in heart, well then I don’t want to be there.

I’m really fortunate right now that I have two bosses that really care about me. It makes my life a lot easier, a lot richer. It makes the decisions that I make probably more congruent with what the company wants me to be.

I joke with my boss that I often use “WWBD” as my management style. It’s, literally, “What would Brian do?” Brian is my CTO—my direct manager is Cindy. I really enjoy working for both of them. I trust them. I know they’re smart people and that they trust me. So, when I need to make a decision, I often think, “What would they do?” If they would make a decision, then I probably should make that decision, too. And if they wouldn’t, then I probably should not.

My management style is somewhat hands-on. I actually use something Tom Pitters talked about as management by walking around; Rosa Say talked calls it her daily five minutes.

Basically, I try my best to get around and talk to each of my associates. “Hey, how was your weekend? How is your spouse? How is your kid?” One of my employees had a pet rabbit that was really sick a couple of weeks back. And to her that was the most important thing in the world. Now, I’m not going to lie and say that I care about her rabbit, but I care about her. I care about how she is doing. I care about the impact this event has on her life. So, I don’t say “Hey, you know I really hope your rabbit is doing great” because I really love rabbits. I say it because I care about her and what’s important to her.

It’s really about personalizing the attention to each person. I even have some folks that could give a care if I ever stopped by. So, if that’s how it works, so be it. That’s OK. That’s up to them. I personalize it to them.

Phil Gerbyshak has scaled the corporate mountains and is now chasing his dreams. Five words sum him up nicely: “Energetic, helpful, inspiring, enthusiastic, fun”. He blogs at Make it Great and The Slacker Manager at Bizzia. Follow him on Twitter.

I write a blog called Slacker Manager as well as “Make it Great with Phil Gerbyshak.”

I help people become known online. I help them with their social media and branding questions, either entrepreneurs or small businesses. I do professional speaking.

I didn’t start Slacker Manager. I’d love to take credit for that, but Bren Connelly started that about five years ago. A couple of years ago, though, he gave it up and now I am the Slacker Manager.

When you write for someone else, there’s always that concern that they’re going to want you to fit in their hole. To b5’s credit, they’re very comfortable with my writing style. My readership continues to be good and feedback on the blog is wonderful.

Twitter has brought a whole new dimension to blogging. If a blog is like an engagement, Twitter is like a speed date on crack.

Twitter has made me a lot quicker in my thinking. It’s helped me to share more and to connect with folks that I wouldn’t otherwise see.

Everybody talks about Twitter, but nobody really teaches you how to use it.

All the early adopters are so far past telling you how to use it, they just say, “Hey, yeah, it works. Go use Twitter.” They say, “I love Twitter.” Well, how? What? Why? When does it work? When are the best times?”

I’m working on a course that I’m calling “Social Media Saturdays,” where I’m going to teach entrepreneurs and small businesses how to leverage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks to maximize their business.

Ultimately, it’s not about the medium, it’s about the conversation. Whether we did this on our phones, whether we did this face‑to‑face, whether we did a video chat – or whatever, it’s all about the conversation we’re having.

If I see one more, “Hey, buy my product,” I’m going to barf. Online even more than in person, it’s important to serve first and to sell last.

It is vitally important that we hyper personalize our message. If we create a following based on our interest in the Milwaukee Brewers and we talk about the Brewers and we have interesting information about the Brewers, when we come out with a product based on the Brewers, people are not going to be surprised.

But, if we’re talking about the Brewers and then we try to pitch them on why they should buy the latest Gecko watch, that’s such a disconnect. It’s definitely not okay to do this in person and it’s more than not okay to do this online. People have maybe 50 tabs at a time. It’s really easy to just close the tab and say “Smell you later” or “Go away, I don’t want to talk to you.”

Phil Gerbyshak has scaled the corporate mountains and is now chasing his dreams. Five words sum him up nicely: “Energetic, helpful, inspiring, enthusiastic, fun”. He blogs at Make it Great and The Slacker Manager at Bizzia. Follow him on Twitter.

In Day 1 of Matt Cornell’s interview, he talked about the Buddhist concept of attachment leading to suffering and our careers can be one of those things we become most attached. We spend years growing attached to the knowledge we have gained, to being recognized as an expert, and even just to identifying ourselves in a certain way. But what happens when you get to the top (or even just a peak) and realize that it’s not where you want to be. Sure, you enjoyed the journey and you’re glad you’re here, but when you look up to the next peak, it’s not all that exciting.

What Kathryn did next is inspiring: she stepped back, started over.

First, there was the stepping back. For Kathryn it was the recognition that she found the people more interesting than the technology. And, beyond that, admitting she just wasn’t where she wanted to be. Just this first step alone is a powerful step.

For as few people willing to take the first step of admission, there are even fewer willing to take the second step: action. I see another line between Matt’s and Kathryn’s interviews. Something Matt said: “Repulsion plus attraction gives you direction.” If I might expand on that a bit: the weaker the repulsion, the stronger the attraction must be.

Here’s the thing: while Kathryn and I were talking about her career move, I never got the sense that she hated her job at IBM. In fact, she stayed for another nine months after she decided to leave, which tells me that she was satisfied with her career though not contented.  What’s that mean exactly? She wasn’t strongly compelled to find a new career. She only knew that she would rather work with people than technology.

On Day 1, Kathryn talks says that she considered teaching, but couldn’t make the leap. But when the opportunity to join MAPP came along, she connected almost instantly. The attraction to her new path was far stronger than her satisfaction on her current path. I’m not discounting the fear, uncertainty, and doubt she must have felt throughout the application process – not at all. But she made the leap. She connected with something and trusted in herself enough to follow the path. That’s pretty amazing.

And this is key to what inspires me about her career move. It’s not that she hated her job. People who start a new job or career because they hate the old – that’s almost a natural course of action. (Not always, true, but the repulsion is so great when we hate something that it doesn’t take much to attract us to a new direction.)

That someone who had found some measure of satisfaction, even if it wasn’t contentment, found the courage to acknowledge this and step onto a new path – one where she could move from satisfaction to happiness – that is what I find inspiring.

And so, here’s my question for you today, does your career still have its glitter? Is there something missing? Are you satisfied but not happy? If so, I challenge you to figure out what you find lacking in your current job or career and then open yourself to serendipity – even if that means starting over.

Is coaching the best way for me to put what I’ve learned into practice? Or would writing be a better way? Or would consulting and doing workshops for groups be a better way?

I’m answering my questions largely experientially, by trying things out and observing how they fit. Observing when I feel energized by what I do and when I feel drained. Observing when I have to make myself do something versus when I’m eager to do it. I’m still in the middle of this exploration and am discovering what really fits.

I have this great sense of freedom that I can try things. The ones that work—those are great. And the ones that don’t? Well, they were interesting to try out.

I’m finding that I like finding ways to make these concepts accessible to people – combining the empirical work with the right stories that make these ideas come to life.

I coach. Everybody comes to the coaching engagement with different goals; they’re at different places in their lives; they have different sets of obstacles. Coaching is a wonderful place to experience people at a much deeper level than you do when you’re walking through an airport looking at faces.

My people curiosity fits in very well with my coaching practice.

I’m teaching a project management course at the University of Maryland, You could call it, “How to Set Up Positive Work Places.” That’s not its official title, but it sums it up nicely. I’m co‑teaching with Jocelyn Davis.

I also do workshops and training for small groups of people who are trying to find ways to bring more satisfaction and joy in their lives.

I’ve really had to work on my personal measure of success.

I won’t say that money was my measure of success at IBM, but making good money represented the fact that my boss approved of my work, that people respected what I was doing, and that I was getting ahead.  Now some of the things I do aren’t directly related to money in the here and now.  They may bear financial fruit later, but who knows?

I’m not climbing a career ladder anymore. I’m making up what I’m doing as I go along. So I have to define success internally, rather than have it be reflected back to me by good appraisals, promotions and raises.

That said, how I measure success is never going to be completely separated from other people. Now, though, it’s centered more in how they respond to me. Do they understand what I’m saying? Does it connect with what they’re doing? Do they find the questions that I ask helpful? Are they making progress when I’m working with them?

Sometimes I think, “Oh, I come from a highly technical background, I have a high level of education, I can only talk to people like me.” But, I’m finding that not to be the case.  I can make the jump from my own experience to what might be important for someone else.  I’ve been giving workshops to a small manufacturing company.  I’m connecting just as well with people working on the line as with management.

I’ve found that working in close partnership with other people is one of the main things that I missed about IBM. So my future has to hold close partnerships with people who are working on some of the same ideas.   I realized the other day that I’ve already managed to set up about four or five different partnerships with people like Jocelyn Davis at the University of Maryland.

I like to connect with other people AND have the freedom to organize my own life the way I want to as I go along.  The combination is absolutely wonderful.

Kathryn Britton is hard at work carving out her place in the pantheon of life. She’s a self-proclaimed opportunity addict, which is fine by me because, along with the many things she does, she’s also on my company’s advisory board. She is an editor and contributor at Positive Psychology News Daily, a senior editor and consultant at Zone Positive, and an adjunct faculty member of Project Management at the University of Maryland where she co-teaches a course with Jocelyn Davis about establishing positive workplaces. She is also a coach at Theano Coaching and in her copious free time, she blogs at Positive Psychology Reflections.

I have a Bachelor’s degree in English so I spent my undergraduate years reading about people in various times, places and situations.

I like technology, too. It is like working puzzles.

I have a master’s degree in Computer Science. When I was an undergraduate, I noticed that a lot of people took computer courses so they wouldn’t have to write papers. I thought it was very funny that, after I graduated and got a job, most of what I spent my time doing was writing – writing specifications, writing emails, writing design proposals, writing invention disclosures.

In addition to all the writing, I worked a lot with people at IBM. You can’t get anything done without working with people. A big part of my job was finding common ground that existed between people who had different points of view on a particular question – maybe they worked for different products that had different interests.

After awhile, working out the technology puzzles became less interesting to me. I started to question whether my work at IBM really connected with my values. 

I was contributing to the technological underpinnings of the world and enabling a lot of technology solutions to occur.   But I started having trouble seeing how my work was making a difference for people. So, positive psychology particularly interested me because it opened up a way to make a direct contribution to the well-being of other people.  In the MAPP program, we were learning about what helps things go right in people’s lives. What excites me is figuring out how we can put that knowledge to work to help people improve their own lives.

People are so different.

My MAPP research partner and I have been studying curiosity. I’ve observed that there are different kinds of curiosity. Some people are curious about experiences—what would it be like to bungee jump or eat dinner in the Tour d’Argent restaurant?   Some people are curious about concepts—how do plate tectonics explain the shape of the earth?  And some people are really curious about people. They watch others all the time or maybe they read People magazine.

Some people, of course, are a mix.

I’m a highly curious person, and a lot of my curiosity has always been about people. That is why I’ve always been a great reader. I’m interested in the wide variety of different experiences people have in life.  Reading has exposed me to people I’ll never meet directly

There are so many different ways that people get through life—so many decision points that they come to, where their  decisions  take them either towards  flourishing or towards  languishing. I just find that interesting.

A few months ago, I went to the Folklife Festival in Seattle. There was just this massive sea of people. Mostly what I found interesting was looking at people and seeing how they dressed and whether they had piercings and tattoos and who they were with and what they ate and where they stopped to watch.. There were people there of all ages, from very small to very old. It was just a really interesting time to look at people and see what was going on – see snapshots of humanity in the context of a festival.

Then yesterday, I was in the airport. I had a long wait for my plane, and I kept myself entertained by watching people’s faces and the ways they looked at other people, and whether they smiled or whether they withdrew. It can be intriguing to observe the variety of ways that people interact in a not-particularly social setting, like an airport.

Kathryn Britton is hard at work carving out her place in the pantheon of life. She’s a self-proclaimed opportunity addict, which is fine by me because, along with the many things she does, she’s also on my company’s advisory board. She is an editor and contributor at Positive Psychology News Daily, a senior editor and consultant at Zone Positive, and an adjunct faculty member of Project Management at the University of Maryland where she co-teaches a course with Jocelyn Davis about establishing positive workplaces. She is also a coach at Theano Coaching and in her copious free time, she blogs at Positive Psychology Reflections.

When I spoke to my manager about bringing my IBM career to a close, she talked me out of it. She said, “Well, why don’t you stay at least for a while with IBM and see if you can’t put some of those ideas to work here.”

I ended up cutting back to half time so I’d be able to establish my coaching business on the side.   I worked for IBM for another nine or 10 months.

I mainly focused on teams that were at various levels of morale, helping them figure out actions that they could take themselves in order to increase job satisfaction and engagement.

When I worked with people, I would tell them, “Look, those things that you are not happy about, those are the realities of your situation. I’m not going to try and get you to whitewash over them and pretend they don’t exist. But, what can you do, what is within your own power to do, to take your work life and make it more energizing, and more satisfying and more engaging so that you can get the best experience possible  out of the situation as it exists?”

I worked with three, four, or five teams. I don’t actually remember because some of them sort of merged together – and toward the end, I started working with large groups. I do remember giving a lot of presentations that year.

I worked with one team that was about 100 people. I did some appreciative interviews, basically asking people what they most valued about their job, what they most valued about themselves. I also asked things like: What about your job ‑ if everything else changed ‑ what would you want to stay the same? When do you feel the most alert and alive at work? What are your dreams for the greater vitality of your job?

I asked a lot of questions like that. I think I interviewed about 18 people individually, another 45 to 50 people in roundtables, and another 25 in a pair‑wise fashion, where I asked some of the questions in a large group and then had people break up into pairs and interview each other and bring the notes back to me.

People were amazed about how good it felt to think about these questions—that just asking questions about what is going right was an intervention all by itself. Because most of the time if people get together and talk, they tend more towards venting and complaining rather than trying to focus on what is going right.

A lot of people walked away from those interviews saying, “I didn’t know we had so much going for us.” People get so focused on what is going wrong that they take what is going right for granted.

I ended up writing a paper about some of my experiences. It was published in a coaching journal. I guess it was last November.

After about nine months working half-time, I “retired” from IBM. I say that in quotation marks. Somebody once told me not to say I’m “retired” because it makes me sound old, but instead to say “I am finished with my IBM career.”

But I don’t mind using the word “retire” because, in my mind, people of my age cohort need to be training the world that retirement from one job just means starting something else. It means a start of a new life. It doesn’t mean putting yourself up on the shelf someplace.

Kathryn Britton is hard at work carving out her place in the pantheon of life. She’s a self-proclaimed opportunity addict, which is fine by me because, along with the many things she does, she’s also on my company’s advisory board. She is an editor and contributor at Positive Psychology News Daily, a senior editor and consultant at Zone Positive, and an adjunct faculty member of Project Management at the University of Maryland where she co-teaches a course with Jocelyn Davis about establishing positive workplaces. She is also a coach at Theano Coaching and in her copious free time, she blogs at Positive Psychology Reflections.

I don’t really remember an exact ah-ha moment where I just knew that positive psychology would be my new career. I had been looking for the last 10 or 15 years for something different.  I didn’t want “I built software for IBM” on my tombstone.  But when you get to be pretty high up in one profession it is really hard to walk away and start over.

I had been thinking about becoming a teacher, but that had the rather intimidating prospect of getting an education certificate, and then starting at the bottom of the heap again. So, I just never took any action.

I tried a few different things. I took a part‑time leave of absence from IBM to work as a consultant for the Chapel Hill Carrboro School District.  I interviewed middle school teachers and pulled together a plan for gifted education in the regular classroom based on all their good ideas and experiences.  But I couldn’t jump entirely into education.

After 25 years or so in the software field, I realized that, technical problems were losing their glitter. I was starting to find that the people were the most interesting part of what I was doing. Then, in the spring of 2005, I received an announcement for the brand new Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

It was one of those serendipitous things that take you off in a completely different direction.

I guess when I applied, I thought, “If this is meant to be then I will get accepted and figure out how to make it work.” And since I was accepted, I guess it was meant to be.

I had more fun during that year in school than I had in all the rest of my education put together. And I have a Bachelor’s Degree in English, a Masters Degree in Library Science, and a Masters Degree in Computer Science.

I would go up to the University of Pennsylvania for a couple of days every month. Be in class from 8:00 in the morning to 5:30 or 6:00 at night. Spend the evening working with people or socializing. Then between times I would read—a whole shelf full of books and articles.

I wrote 36 papers that first semester – ranging from half-a-page to 20 pages. The second semester was similar, lots of things to do.  Good thing my husband is a project manager – he was able to keep me focused and moving ahead.

Since we were the first class, we felt like we were pioneers building a bridge from the academic world to the future for this field of positive psychology. Before then, people working in the field were largely academics who knew a lot about setting up studies to get empirical results that made sense. But they didn’t necessarily know how to use their results to make a difference in the world.

There is a psychologist, Albert Bandura, who has made the statement that psychology has very poor social diffusion methods—that is, Psychologists don’t really have good ways of getting what they learn out to the general public.

So that’s where we came in, practitioners in medicine, law, education, business, engineering, coaching, to figure out how to get the findings out to the public. The idea was to teach us about the science of positive psychology and then have us take it home and put it to work. Then report back on what seemed to really be effective.

It was exciting to be inventing this new field.

Kathryn Britton is hard at work carving out her place in the pantheon of life. She’s a self-proclaimed opportunity addict, which is fine by me because, along with the many things she does, she’s also on my company’s advisory board. She is an editor and contributor at Positive Psychology News Daily, a senior editor and consultant at Zone Positive, and an adjunct faculty member of Project Management at the University of Maryland where she co-teaches a course with Jocelyn Davis about establishing positive workplaces. She is also a coach at Theano Coaching and in her copious free time, she blogs at Positive Psychology Reflections.

Not that these are hard-hitting interviews designed to uncover some deep-seated psychological trauma, but I harbor a secret hope that my guests might somehow find my questions thought-provoking – perhaps even life changing. (I suppose that ambition is not so secret anymore.)

Matt’s actually glad he gave up the guitar. Hasn’t touched it since, he said. And when I asked if he regretted that decision, he said that there are only 2 reasons to look to the past and regret wasn’t one of those reasons. Such a clever dodge to the question; and similar to the dodges offered by past guests.

Fond Regrets

Now I certainly have regrets. I’ve told a few lies that I regret. There’s at least two women I wished I had asked out before I met my wife. Those are pretty generic, uninteresting regrets that I imagine most people have. The more interesting ones cut too deep to mention here – especially since we just met.

But saying that I regret something sounds like I’m not happy with my life as it is right now – that I would change something in my past, which would, of course, change my present. And while my present is not perfect, I’m pretty happy. So, I might say that these regrets of mine are Fond Regrets – regrets that I’m glad I have—things that I want to regret.

With Matt, though, I really want to believe that he doesn’t look to the past with regret – or, if he does, he has fond regrets.

In Day 2, Matt talked about missed opportunities. I think regrets fall into the category of missed opportunities. Though, rather than being opportunities that don’t register on our radar, we knowingly pass them by because we are too afraid – afraid we’ll look stupid or afraid we just might get what we’re asking for. And as our life unfolds, we have a decision to make: are we going to be bitter about those missed opportunities or not?

You already know my decision. Though, writing that I hold my regrets with fondness is easier than it actually is to do so. I work at it. What makes it easier is that I am happy with my life. I did, on balance, choose to follow my curiosity more often than not and met some wonderful people, had some amazing experiences, and have landed in a great place – in a place where I am not only hopeful of the future but am going into that future with some amazing people.

Follow Your Curiosity

And that’s the ultimate point here. Something I think Matt was really driving at in the interview – or something that I’m reading into it, but I’ll still give Matt credit – Follow your curiosity, but don’t beat yourself up too badly if you, for whatever reason, decide against it. After all, there is no test at the end of the class. There’s only you. And as Rosa said, guilt is a worthless emotion.

Maybe it’s better phrased as “Follow your curiosity where you can.” And when you can’t or don’t or won’t, chalk those up as fond regrets and keep moving.

To build on another great insight from Matt: Life is to be experienced not regretted.

It’s that idea that a stagnant pond is dead. Things have to be moving in order for there to be life.

My biggest fear? When you make a huge change like I have, you turn your finances topsy turvy. Unless you are independently wealthy, there is a huge financial risk when you try something like this. So, financial fears in the past have been major.

Another fear is that my message doesn’t get out – that it doesn’t resonate with people.

The concepts have helped me so much. That is why I am really driven to share them. That is my big push. For people not to get it and it not to help them, that would feel like a failure.

But how do you define failure? We could have a whole conversation about that.

What’s next? Well, it’s interesting that you ask that because, the other day, my partner turns to me and says, “We are always focusing on the ‘what next?’ It is built into our culture.” For example, the first question we ask high school or college grads: “What are you going to do next?”

That said, “What’s next?” is a good question because it shows that you are curious. And I think it makes sense because you might have some help for them or some ideas you think might be helpful. At the same time, though, they just accomplished this major thing – we should pause for a second, relish that amazing accomplishment rather than immediately look for the next mountain to climb.

This is one of the things I teach with my consulting. When you’ve finished a big project or sometimes even a little task from one project, sit back for a second and give yourself a pat on the back. It is this sequence of activities, successes, and appreciation that define our lives, but so often, we forget to appreciate our accomplishments.

This idea of being in the moment and the present is all we have. The past is gone. The future hasn’t happened yet. That is another kind of classic Eastern idea.  Observe. Smell things. Laugh when somebody says something funny. Appreciate surprises when they come along. You might learn something that you just didn’t expect.

Be open to the world.

It’s the classic idea that the journey is more important than the destination. So, enjoy that journey. Celebrate each step. The people that you are with and that you love and your little child giggling and laughing and smiling at you, those are rich.

One question that I would ask readers, “What are two experiments you have going on right now, even if you don’t think of them as experiments? What are you trying that you don’t know the outcome of right now, and how do you enjoy yourself with that uncertainty?” That is something I really would like to know because I’m just a student who’s learning this stuff all the time.

Matthew Cornell is a productivity consultant and so much more. An experimenter at heart, he embraces life’s twists and turns with seeming ease – though, he might tell you otherwise. During our interview, he had some great stories and some great ideas on how to live a more productive, fulfilling life. Read his blog, check out his new eBook, and definitely follow him on Twitter.

When I started consulting, I said I want to be the best productivity consultant in 100 miles. At the same time, I didn’t really have any experience or know where it was going to go.

Having somebody say yes to your very first workshop, the one that I created from scratch and that I’d not tested before, that was exciting but nerve-wracking.

This think‑try‑learn perspective was something completely unexpected that came out of my consulting.

When I started the consulting I said, OK, I don’t know what’s going to pop out at the end, but I hope it’s a super successful consulting career. I went into it knowing that I didn’t know what it would look like in the end – I really tried to limit my preconceptions.

At some point, I started realizing, this perspective of treating everything as an experiment had a lot of personal power for it. It cut out a lot of the fear of making such a substantial change, it opened my eyes, gave me more courage to try new things. Now, along with my consulting practice, it’s become something extremely satisfying.

No system can guarantee that they will be successful at whatever it is they’re teaching, but you will learn something using our method. It might be fun, surprising – or even unpleasant. But, no matter what you try, you will come out a bigger person than before you went in.

I put together my first eBook, recently, called, “You did what?” It is 99 tiny experiments that you can do to be healthier, happier, and have more fun. I start with a page that introduces the concepts of living life as an experiment – and how you run these experiments. And then I have 99 experiments grouped into categories like Mindset, Just for Fun, Health, and a few work ones. There are just three or four sentences on each—just a little gem of an idea to go out and try.

Here’s an example: for one week carry a garbage bag with you and pick up all the garbage that you see lying around, even if it is not garbage that you put down.

The key is to not get really heavy about the end result. It is just, “Try this. See what happens. Observe.” And you start to see behavior changes in a way that is natural.

Something else I’m working on, that’s pretty exciting: we are just starting to prototype the “Think, Try, Learn” software platform. We call it Edison.

It’s basically an experimenter’s notebook, a way for you to list the things that you are trying, what you hope to get out of them, and your observations while you’re running your experiments. Maybe at some point you will be able to share your experiments and observations with people or give support.

I’m also slowly writing a book about the Think, Try, Learn concepts.

Matthew Cornell is a productivity consultant and so much more. An experimenter at heart, he embraces life’s twists and turns with seeming ease – though, he might tell you otherwise. During our interview, he had some great stories and some great ideas on how to live a more productive, fulfilling life. Read his blog, check out his new eBook, and definitely follow him on Twitter.

Farmers would hire high school kids to go out and cut the weeds down. It was a horrible job.

I also played electric guitar in a wedding band for six years – through high school and into college. That was good pay for fun work.

You ever have something that you do so much that it becomes part of your self-identity? Playing guitar was one of those things for me.

I used to love playing guitar. At one point, though, I lost interest and was getting on my case about it telling myself “I ought to play music. I love music and that’s when I’ve been the happiest.” But it got to this point when I just wanted to be done with it. I sold all my music equipment and the sense of relief was really, really astounding. I haven’t touched it since.

I like listening to music, but I don’t worry about playing anymore. Same thing with programming. I did that for 20 years and gave that up, too.

It’s good to give up things sometimes. The trick is how do you know when it’s time to give it up?

For me, in computer science, it was a sort of being pushed away from programming. At the end of my programming career, there was this repulsion pushing me away from the work – at the same time there was this attraction to the productivity work.

Repulsion plus attraction gives you direction, right?

My wife was great about this huge switch to consulting. She’s just a wonderful person. We’ve been married 26 years, and she’s super supportive. It’s such a privilege to have a partner who is willing to give you the space to try something new.

We actually met at 30,0000 feet above Texas. She was coming back from her brother’s wedding in Mexico City and I was flying back from a job interview at Texas Instruments.

You ever noticed that some of the most profound things in life are some of the most fragile? The slightest little change and my life would have gone in a massively different direction–if I had a different seat on that airplane, I wouldn’t have met my wife.

It’s entertaining to think about those a little bit, but I don’t get too scared thinking about that, though, because there are a ton of opportunities that we don’t pay attention to—or they just don’t register for whatever reason. Like you might have got a wrong book from the library and it might have been a really good book for you to read, right? Or maybe you were late for an appointment, but something else came up instead. (Not that my clients are every late.) We just have to make the choice to take advantage of these opportunities.

I tell people there’re only two reasons to look back into the past—I pick two just to be provocative—if it gives you joy to look reminisce or if you can learn from it. Otherwise, I think it’s a waste of time—especially if you spend a lot of time in the past.

People say what we’re seeking meaning in our lives. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking, though. I think we’re seeking an experience of being alive, of being aware of the life lived around us – and being happy with our place in that life.

Matthew Cornell is a productivity consultant and so much more. An experimenter at heart, he embraces life’s twists and turns with seeming ease – though, he might tell you otherwise. During our interview, he had some great stories and some great ideas on how to live a more productive, fulfilling life. Read his blog, check out his new eBook, and definitely follow him on Twitter.

They bring me in and I teach them a method for getting on top and freeing up their brainpower. Productivity consulting is what I call it.

Before this I worked at a research university for 15 years doing AI programming. That was my life up until somebody gave me a copy of David Allen’s book. I adopted the ideas. I lost 15 pounds. I cured my insomnia, and then got rid of a back problem.

I thought to myself: I’m either having a mid‑life crisis or there’s something to this book. I’m an ex‑NASA engineer, so I had to figure it out. So, I started studying the field and eventually went half time because I got so excited about it.

A little over two years ago I quit my job and became a full-time consultant.

This process has been amazing. It’s not for the faint of heart, though. For me, there’s a lot of anxiety. I’m the kind of person who wants it to work out a certain way. So, to let things be in flux and to just trust the process is really hard. It’s always exciting and it’s always scary. It helps me to look at everything as an experiment. In other words, accept that I don’t know the outcome.

I’m going to try this consulting, or I’m going to try writing this book. Heck, you can try this blog post and see if it sticks or not. That way, I get a little bit of healthy detachment—at least, that’s what I call it. By trying something, it becomes a Petri dish. I’ll put my little breadcrumbs in and see what grows. But you have to be comfortable with nothing growing – or some hideous green goo growing – or maybe something wonderful that you weren’t expecting.

At one point, I don’t remember exactly when, it finally hit me – this is the essence of a scientific lifestyle. It really kind of grabbed me and evolved into this “Think, Try, Learn” approach to discovering happiness. The basic idea is that you have something you want to do. You make an effort. You try it, and then, after you get the result, you ask yourself, “Did it match my expectations? What surprised me? What was novel?” Then you adjust your path.

Adjustment is key, but a lot of people have problem with adjustment.

Have you ever heard this idea of attachment leads to suffering? It’s a Buddhist thing. Let me give you an example. If you start a consulting practice, you could say that you expect X amount of dollars or some number of clients or a certain kind of clients. Now, if you’re attached to that, that means you have a binary. You either get it or you don’t.

You’re stressed all along the way because you’re like, “OK. I hope I get it. I hope I get it. I hope I get it.” You’ve got one answer. Then at the end of it, if it isn’t exactly what you have visualized, you’re miserable. Not only was the process not a joy, at the end product you failed. You want to be focused, and you want to have goals. But at the same time, you want to be flexible and enjoy the ride.

“Attachment leads to suffering” is a big deal. I think the science equivalent is committing to a theory and then ignoring the data. I believe economists call this “sunk costs”. You don’t want to change gears because your ego says, “Oh, I’ve gone this direction. Changing is risky. I’ve committed to this.” That’s the whole attachment thing. You want a certain direction to work out and when it doesn’t, you’ve failed. Though, you probably missed out on other opportunities by focusing on your end goal so intensely.

There’s that classic quote. I think it was Einstein who said the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over even if it’s not working.”

If you’re not getting the results you want, it’s time to make a change – regardless of the time or money you’ve invested to get you to where you are today.

Matthew Cornell is a productivity consultant and so much more. An experimenter at heart, he embraces life’s twists and turns with seeming ease – though, he might tell you otherwise. During our interview, he had some great stories and some great ideas on how to live a more productive, fulfilling life. Read his blog, check out his new eBook, and definitely follow him on Twitter.

I think it is really hard to get out of bed every day, so I have to have tricks to tell myself that everyday is a new day, rah‑rah. I mean I think life is hard. I don’t think life is full of inspiring moments.

I really like helping people. Growing up I didn’t get a lot of help and so it is really rewarding to me to help other people. I’ve set up a series of moments in my life where I get to help people a lot and this is one of them. I feel really lucky for that

I got to pick everybody that I work with. It is my company and it is super‑fun to work with people you like.

My biggest fear right now is that my company goes under. I really love my company.

I don’t actually think my parents acknowledge that I have a company. I think they think it is like a little crazy side business that does nothing. I think this can be a common experience for entrepreneurs especially in the start‑up phase. It is very hard for anyone to see what you are doing.

People are used to K‑Mart or T.G.I. Fridays or whatever Big Company you can think of. They are not used to what companies look like when the company is just getting off the ground. So to a lot of people I think entrepreneurship looks like nothing.

I get a lot of job offers. I have a lot of opportunities – you know, where I could go make stable money, a good salary. I love this company so much. I believe in it so much, but this is the worse time in the world to be running a company. It is just really hard.

It was very, very hard to break so many career rules and not have a support system to do that. I mostly had people around me telling me I was a complete loser, and I had to keep believing that the decisions I was making for my career were good.

I want to grow Brazen Careerist into a huge network where everybody is helping each other find the career that they want. I would like Brazen Careerist to be a place where everyone feels supportive in making good career decisions, a network that helps people get the life they want.

Penelope Trunk is the author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. She’s a blogger and founder of the Brazen Careerist, a social network for young people to help manage their careers.

To me, always the best time is when I am writing. It is always so comfortable to me. I love when I am sitting down to write.

I’ve been writing about my life since before I could write. Before I could actually write, I would dictate to my dad all the things that were going on in my life. I’ve had a diary continuously since. I have maybe 100 volumes of hand written diaries in my house.

When you are really young, you don’t know why you do stuff. It’s clear to me now: when I had a problem, I would write in my little Hello Kitty diary, but when I was seven I didn’t know that.

When I was maybe ten-years-old I was carrying my diary with me everywhere. Even now I don’t go anywhere without my diary because I’ll never know when I’ll need to write something; when I’ll have a bad moment or good moment. I don’t know it is just obsessive. So it never occurred to me that that was training for a career.

By the time I got into the world where people get paid to write, I had been practicing for 25 years. And when blogging hit, I really clicked with it – it was already very natural for me to write about my days in little chunks.

It is ridiculous to me that people think they can just sit down and start blogging and be a good writer. The amount of work that most good writers have put into writing is extraordinary.

Blogging takes an extremely large amount of time, and an enormous commitment. It can be like sweat shop labor, you have to post all the time. You have to read the comments. You have to engage with people. It’s an enormous job, so when people say I just do it for the publicity. It’s absurd. Only someone who absolutely adores what they’re writing could write a blog for publicity alone. It just takes too much time.

The combination of spending so much time writing about my life, writing during graduate school, and writing my columns – uniquely primed me to do what I do online.

If there was no Internet, I’d be doing it anyway. If people didn’t get paid to blog, I’d be blogging anyway.

I don’t think anybody ever thought I would be a writer. I always knew that writing is extremely hard. I wasn’t an English major. I was Political History major and had always been really good at sports. So my perception of myself was that I should go to Graduate school for history or I should do sports. It just never occurred to me that I was a good enough to get paid for my writing.

I don’t think any parent wants their kid to be a writer. It’s totally unstable and high risk. We have doctors and lawyers in my family. We don’t have writers. Well, actually, I guess we do – now, anyway.

No, I wouldn’t say anyone supported the idea that I do the crazy, high risk career move that I have done. I didn’t get accepted to any universities, so they had to basically give huge donations to my university to get me in. And then I almost didn’t graduate because I couldn’t pass enough classes. After I did finally graduate, deciding to play professional volleyball really pushed them over the edge. They were like, “You have a really expensive degree that you got to go play professional volleyball?” They had had it by then.

So, by the time I started down this career path, they had already written me off. Now, my mom is the first person to notice when I am in the New York Times. To me it is a much bigger deal when a big blog links to me, but my mom gets really excited about the New York Times.

I am in “Psychology Today” this month. It is like one little sidebar. I am sure more readers read my blog than are reading me in “Psychology Today.” But my family is totally excited about “Psychology Today”. You know, that is real to them.

Penelope Trunk is the author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. She’s a blogger and founder of the Brazen Careerist, a social network for young people to help manage their careers.

I’m also a blogger myself and I write a syndicated column that appears in about 200 newspapers. Before that I had a few start‑ups, I worked for Fortune 500, did some Internet marketing, and before that I was a professional beach volley player.

When I was playing beach volley ball, my boyfriend was working at Philip’s Media and they were experimenting with nonlinear media. Before there were CD-Rom’s there was CDI – “I”  for interactive. Philip’s Media was the only company in the whole world experimenting with it.

So they got really cool people working on what could be done with interactive. They had these salons in Los Angeles where they would get entertainment industry people and UCL Film School people and Phillips Media people. They would all sit in a room and try to figure out what could be done with nonlinear media.

One day, I just showed up. After all, I didn’t have anything to do at night because I was a volleyball player. It turned out I had all these great ideas and I just totally got it. People didn’t even say, “Oh, she’s just a volleyball player.” It was such a new medium that everyone’s ideas were equal.

I already had a lot of nonlinear material – I just didn’t know that’s what it was. I had been writing nonlinearly before there was a way to do nonlinear media. So it was extremely good timing for me and it got to the point where – when someone needed nonlinear content, they would come to me.

I eventually got sick of playing volleyball and went on to graduate school for a Masters degree in English – so I could basically get a vacation and get paid to write.

After my boyfriend dumped me, I had this huge crush on this guy in the computer science department. I had finished all my writing for grad school, so I thought I would have him teach me HTML so that I can hang out with him all day. I stopped going to the English department and I would only go to the computer science department where I learned to hand code HTML.

In the end, the guy didn’t really like me – I wasn’t really his style. That and I kept putting my sex stuff on the computer science server. It was really bad.

However, it wasn’t a total loss. I did get a great job hand coding HTML. Back in those days, you could get a $100 an hour from Fortune 500 companies – so that’s what I did.

Penelope Trunk is the author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. She’s a blogger and founder of the Brazen Careerist, a social network for young people to help manage their careers.

It’s in America but it’s like a country unto itself with a culture so rich it steams from the sidewalks. Activities there are meant to bring people together, crawfish boils, festivals, everything is an event in New Orleans!

I could name a million interesting places in many different countries, but I think the most important thing is to start at home. Explore America first. Our backyard is more glorious and more educational than anywhere else in the world. Plus New Orleans has it all. You can volunteer, see historical sights, shop on an authentic Main St. and enjoy the wonders of the French Quarter.

Nature cannot be rivaled by any City. There is a peace that can only be found on a lake in Maine or northern Montana or Peru or Croatia.

Travel stretches my soul. You have to be alert because you don’t know what is beyond the next bend or what is happening next. It’s the ultimate test of your decision-making skills and self-confidence. I want to go there tomorrow. I want to eat this for dinner. I find immense pleasure in travel, especially solo travel. It helps set me straight, clears my head, allows me to be alone with my thoughts.

It’s work being a friend, but it’s especially important to remember to be friends with ourselves and for me travel is a gift that I never take for granted.

I am truly inspired by Working mothers. I grew up with a mom who was an entrepreneur and she woke up before everyone else and went to sleep way after. The demands are many and it takes a long time to see the rewards. My mom worked a lot to make her business grow, contribute to the community and yet be involved with her family.

My mom can run 10 circles around me without breaking a sweat, and probably while opening the mail, cooking dinner and checking voicemail. She’s incredible.

As I get older I find myself thinking more about what it was that started all of this. I’ve decided that it’s like some people are meant to be doctors or accountants or scientists. I’ve been sensitive to what I call the “hurts of the world” for as long as I can remember. I just chose to do something about it.

Every day, I ask myself “What adventure is next?” I can’t say for sure, though I am looking for it. It will definitely involve social action and helping people and using new technologies to reach a wider audience. But where exactly that will be is up in the air. If I was a betting woman I would put half on New York City and half on New Orleans.

Sloane Berrent is a Kiva Fellow and will be in the Phillipinnes until September 2009. She blogs at The Causemopolitan.

First there was the Kiva Fellows piece and that involved required reading and exercises from Kiva before a required week-long training in San Francisco.

Second was the personal preparation. I was concerned about the humidity, which I heard was thick in the summer so I cut off 8 inches of my hair! I did an REI trip for clothes that wicked moisture.

I know from past experience if you’re not feeling well, you really want to have your own supply of medicine. At least I do! So, I went to Target for all the medical supplies I might need.

Third was preparation for the Philippines and for that I bought a travel book, read about the history of the country online, reached out to people in my network for Filipino or Filipino-American contacts to provide additional resources or people to connect with once I arrived.

I was already a supporter of Kiva and had the privilege to meet the Founders, Jessica Jackley and Matt Flannery as well as the President, Premal Shah at various events in the Social Good arena during 2008.

My “aha moment” came this past February. I had gone to South America for 2 months to recalibrate my system after keeping an excruciating work schedule for over a year and being laid off from the social action startup I was at.

I was hiking alone in Ecuador. I looked out at the countryside, at the villages and farms surrounding me and thought about how I always said that “I am the best version of myself when I was on the road.” Right then I realized I wanted to be that best version of myself all the time. And it started with doing something I’d always wanted to do, volunteer to do field work.

I applied for the Kiva Fellows program less than 48 hours later. It would take about 2 months of interviews to find out I was accepted. I couldn’t be more thrilled to represent Kiva in the Philippines and to experience microfinance at the ground level.

The opportunity to be in the Philippines for 3 months is really exciting. I’m a sponge for new places and in only a few weeks here I’ve learned so much!

I’ve never been to Asia before. I love the kind of travel that really immerses you in a culture, surrounded by locals, experiencing local flavors, music, and just seeing how everyday people live.

Let me say this. People are people are people. So the Philippines is amazing but I don’t like comparisons, there are universal truths and I look for those when I travel. Anywhere you go, you can find someone passionate about their hometown and someone who can’t wait to get out, right? I find the former and let them show me around!

Sloane Berrent is a Kiva Fellow and will be in the Phillipinnes until September 2009. She blogs at The Causemopolitan.

I tell people that I’m a philanthropy matchmaker and social action evangelist. That’s a fancy way of saying I like to help people help people. I combine nonprofits with for-profits or individuals and create campaigns to promote a cause or mission.

I think it’s good to have mottos or mantras to live by. Mine is “In it to win it”. It means striving each day towards a goal. Taking tangible steps towards reaching that goal while enjoying the journey at the same time.

I suppose actually “winning” isn’t what’s important. It’s the striving to win that matters to me.

Several books have stuck with me throughout the years. Yeah, they might be a little clichéd, but I can go back and read them time and time again. Some of my favorites are The Alchemist, On the Road, Atlas Shrugged, and The Prophet. I like to take them all together and think of how they impact or affect each other.

I was both a certified lifeguard and a certified ski instructor in high school. Those are two pretty good things to be able to teach!

I don’t really have any regrets. Sometimes I think of something that I wish I could regret, then I bite my tongue. I believe that even one slight change in past events changes the entire story and I’m pretty happy with my story so far—with the people I’ve met, the friends I’ve made, the experiences I’ve had.

Mistakes are opportunities to learn. I’ll take that scrape on my knee, stand up, shake it off, get back on the bike, and keep going.

I’m thinking of one mistake in particular, but the cut is still a little too raw to share.

There’s a quote by Michelangelo that I like. He says, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

I think we all have a statue inside of us. We can see it before anyone else can. It’s a work in progress, I just started carving at an early age.

Sloane Berrent is a Kiva Fellow and will be in the Phillipinnes until September 2009. She blogs at The Causemopolitan.

Everything that we take for granted in the world today, absolutely everything that we do–everything that we know about, every single thing was impossible until the first person did it. That first person reaching to do something that someone else may assume is impossible is a very inspiring person to me.

I’m constantly reading books. When I read books I have a tendency to just devour them. They get written in, they get annotated, and in my head I argue with the author—a lot. I swallow up books.

My idea of happiness is freedom; freedom to make your own choices, freedom to do what you want to do and yet with a complete absence of any feelings of guilt about pursuing that.

A happy person is someone who is well connected to family, to friends, to great relationships that are fulfilling and mutually fulfilling.

I don’t think of my personal failures as things, as much as I think of them connected to people. I think of my failure as being specific to people who I couldn’t help. Times when I just couldn’t get through to them as I hoped to or our relationship didn’t click. I wasn’t the manager they needed me to be for them. If I had to list my failures, they’d be a list of people’s names.

I used to beat myself up for that pretty badly. Now that I am older, or just because I’ve done it more, or I don’t know what it is — now I realize that I can never be all things for all people. I just need to help the ones who I can help. If I do that, then I think that’ll be a very good way of saying mahalo; Thank you to my parents, to God, to everyone who has helped me be the person I am now. That’s the way for me to say, “Thank you for giving me my life.”

I think guilt is one of the most worthless emotions known to the human race.

I would love to be thought of as an inventor. As somebody who invented something. It’s not necessarily a product as much as a way of doing something that we don’t yet understand we can do. I don’t know if that will ever happen, but I want to live the rest of my life within the process of making something like that happen.

Rosa Say is super awesome. She just launched Teaching with Aloha and is managing editor (and a frequent blogger) at Joyful Jubilant Learning, a learning themed community blog. She is the author of Managing with Aloha. Check out her amazing pics on Flickr. Follow her on Twitter.

It is about the idea that integrity is something we arrive at when we are intentionally living our lives on a day to day basis where our actions match up with what we feel our personal values are all about. Our values, we inherit some of them but as we grow up, we change them, we choose them intentionally.

So often, we think of authority as coming from other people. We grow into accepting authority—waiting for someone to give us permission to act. Here’s the thing, though: there’s self permission too; you’ve got to give yourself permission to reach beyond your current situation.

We go through so much of our lives doing what is expected of us. We get that from our parents. We get that from our siblings and friends. We get it from our teachers, our coaches, our sport’s coaches and other people in the community. We grow into this self-consciousness, where we are always trying to please other people. That is not entirely a bad thing—after all, we’re not solitary creatures. But it makes this notion of self-awareness, self-attunement and self-realization difficult.

We just haven’t taken the time to really focus on our self outside of the context of other people. We spend so much time suppressing our self that it can be helpful to have somebody say, “Hey, you can do this” and to help illuminate a part of you that may have kept away in a corner. A lot of times we do this unintentionally; it is just that your attentions have been someplace else.

We need to pay better attention to what we want to do, and what we want to believe, and what we want to have, and then align our values with our work to get those things.

As much as I love technology, it’s basically a huge processor. That is, it does what we put into it and what we put into it is really derived from that human element.

This whole study of the human element is what I am really very fascinated with. We human beings are complex fascinating creatures. That never gets boring to me. Ever. I guess that is why I enjoy coaching as much as I do.

In my coaching, one of the things I ask of my managers, is to answer that “What’s in it for me?” question from their employees perspective because there’s no such thing as motivating another person. All a manager can do, is create this working culture and this working atmosphere that you’re going to welcome somebody into. Pull it off, and once they’re in it, they’re always going to be self motivated to achieve, and to perform, and to star, and to shine because everything is just conducive to them doing that.

For you to manage another person is really about getting them to be consistently self motivated. And that idea of value alignment, is where an employee’s values are aligned with their work, and their work is aligned with the manager’s work and the company’s values.

Rosa Say is super awesome. She just launched Teaching with Aloha and is managing editor (and a frequent blogger) at Joyful Jubilant Learning, a learning themed community blog. She is the author of Managing with Aloha. Check out her amazing pics on Flickr. Follow her on Twitter.

The whole time I was in college I was working full-time. I had an internship at first, and then a management position with the Hyatt Corporation. After college I continued working for Hyatt, and ended up working for them for fourteen years.

Running a hotel is like running a little community. There are so many different disciplines. There’s lodging, food and beverage, the spa, golf, entertainment, sales, marketing, finance. You have front of the house, back of the house and you work with assorted vendor partnerships. So there’s a lot you are able to learn and achieve in different management contexts without wasting the time of trading up to a new employer.

The hotel business was a great business to be in from the standpoint of learning about management, because my work taught me way more than I ever learned at school. I’ve seen this divide in higher education compared to just working in business and getting the experience to deliver the kind of learning that you need. I tend to be very opinionated about that.

However I’ve always thought that I’d love to go back to school and get more education then I’ve already gotten. From working within management I just went straight into teaching it.

I think I would go back to school in some arena of technology or design. I think that the world is just so different now from when I started working; it’s so different from when most of my career happened. I think about this a lot actually. Today I am self-employed. I go into other people’s businesses and I advise them in how to work and create a culture that is very, very different from the work cultures I cut my teeth on when I was a boss, an exec, and when I wasn’t self-employed.

I always worked with these really big corporations and these really big groups of employees. I didn’t work in a small business until I had my own.

If I had one of my old corporate jobs still, I would not run that business at all the same as I did before.

So what I’d go back to school for, would be for learning the things that simply were not taught when I went to school. Curriculum that just wasn’t invented yet. Or, I would do something that is completely outside the realm of business. I’d go back for philosophy. I’d go back for humanities; something in that area of thought that is completely separate from the world of business.

Rosa Say is super awesome. She just launched Teaching with Aloha and is managing editor (and a frequent blogger) at Joyful Jubilant Learning, a learning themed community blog. She is the author of Managing with Aloha. Check out her amazing pics on Flickr. Follow her on Twitter.

My first car was a VW bug. My dad said that if I didn’t learn on a stick, I couldn’t drive at all. And he took me to get my drivers license when I was 15 because he would be serving in the VietNam war and I had to drive us to school.

Me and my next two brothers are all less then 10 months apart. Then there was an eight year stretch before my younger brother and sister were born. Being they are 10 and 12 years younger than I am, we grew up with a much different sibling relationship than I’d had with my other two brothers.

Both of my parents worked very hard to support their growing family. So when my younger brother and sister came along, I was more the babysitter. the one who was home when Mom and Dad were working.

When my youngest brother graduated from high school, my mom and dad wanted to give him a brand new car as a graduation present. My dad asked me, “What do you think? Should we do this?” I was 28 by then and I said, “No, absolutely not!”

When my other brothers and I had graduated, we each got a watch, and I figured, “No, he has to work for it. He has to earn it. He has to be able to pay for the car payments, the insurance, the gas, the whole thing.” My dad said, “Well, you know, he grew up more so with you than he did with me. So if you say ‘No’, it is no.”

Of course, my brother, he thought this was horrible.

He has since forgiven me. If you asked him, he’d probably say, “Hey, it turned out fine. She probably made the better decision for me.”

My parents instilled a strong respect for honoring the truth in all of us – and about thinking twice before we claimed anything we said was the complete truth and nothing but.To my dad in particular, a lie of omission was same as a sin. My parents also taught us that the truth is not always pretty, but it’s always better: Knowing it cuts to the chase.

So what became a strong and constant thread in my own style of dealing with things, both with parenting and with management, was looking for truth versus fact, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s an understanding that perception is reality because it can be someone’s truth: So little is actually pure fact, and managers deal with way more. I define integrity as being truthful, and I’ve tried to raise my son and daughter to be brave in that same way.

The early years of my career were the days of Six Sigma and the Total Quality Management movements, and I really started to be an operational systems type of person. I enjoyed taking apart the processes of work and just figuring out how they were done and how to do them better.

Management was kind of easy for me to do and I did it well so I kept doing it. It ended up being something that I just did for so much of my life and my career that it became almost second nature to me—more than it was an intentional choice.

Rosa Say is super awesome. She just launched Teaching with Aloha and is managing editor (and a frequent blogger) at Joyful Jubilant Learning, a learning themed community blog. She is the author of Managing with Aloha. Check out her amazing pics on Flickr. Follow her on Twitter.

Coaching is something that I enjoy doing and so that is what I do now. I write and I coach about management and leadership, and those are two very different disciplines; at least in the way I think about them they are.

When I think back to my hotel career I feel I was fortunate. I was able to work with Hyatt, with the Ritz-Carlton, and then with Four Seasons, all great companies.

I loved my corporate career. I learned a lot from it. I was always blessed, because I think I had magnificent bosses in my career. They were brave. I saw both good and bad extremes of what a good boss should be and what a good boss would never allow themselves to fall into being.

In the hotel business you really get trained working within the IBU concept, which stands for Individual Business Unit. You get trained to make sure that even though you are part of a very big entity, and I worked for large corporations, that you’re an individual unit from the standpoint of profitability.

I could probably trace my entrepreneurial bent back to the time I realized that, even in a corporation, you’re not working for a paycheck. You are actually working for profit. To me that is a big difference. That is usually the ‘aha’ moment for people going into self-employment: There is no paycheck now. It is about the profit. And you have to generate that.

I think my entrepreneurial mindset didn’t really, really, kick in until 2003 when I started my own business. It was more so necessity and the result of my decision that I didn’t want to go back to working for an employer again.

While it’s possible to manage without leading, you can’t lead without managing. I finally grew into that place where I could no longer manage without leading, too. That’s when I realized that I had to do my own thing – and realized that I was a horrible employee. There really was no other way that I could achieve what I wanted to achieve while I had a boss.

Now, I advise kids who are coming out of college that maybe they should try self-employment after a stint in corporate life first, or as a side business. Being self-employed is not for everybody—and there is a lot you can learn on somebody else’s dime. Learn what you need to learn as you hone your ideas, but give yourself permission to think beyond working for someone else.

Rosa Say is super awesome. She just launched Teaching with Aloha and is managing editor (and a frequent blogger) at Joyful Jubilant Learning, a learning themed community blog. She is the author of Managing with Aloha. Check out her amazing pics on Flickr. Follow her on Twitter.

I think we need to make art of wherever we are– to make art of what we’re doing in the world, and not wait for permission to make art.

There’s a great tradition of poets who were insurance salesman. They were people who had families to support. For them, they had to look at their insurance sales job as artfulness. How do I take the pieces of what I learn out of that and find meaning? In that context, they might ask themselves: “How do I use the fodder from what I’m doing for “making a living” to actually be alive? How do I use that as fodder for my writing or for my art?”

I have a lot of people who write to me and say, “I wish I could write a blog like yours, but I don’t have stories like yours.” My response always is, “You do have stories like these, but you’re not often paying attention.”

I have a very strong sense in my life that everything that I have done has led me exactly to this space and this place. There’s nothing that I would change about that, even the most difficult.

One of the most difficult times in my life was my father’s death in 1980, which now is so long ago. Sure I would love to have had him be a part of my life. I was a teenager when he died. So there’s a lot of loss around that, but I think his death so certainly framed who I am as a person.

I’ll be 50 this year and I think I’ve only just come into myself. I’m still struggling with this, that what I have to offer is meaningful and valuable to the world and to myself.

There’s a certain point in which you begin to look backwards and think, “Oh, I wish I had gotten to that point earlier, because look at all the time I wasted.” I think that’s a mistake that a lot of us make, and I certainly have made it. But I don’t think that I could have come to this place in my life with this sense of wisdom I think I have around living and knowing and interacting with people, if I hadn’t had all those things that I saw as mistakes or as lost years.

I think our mistakes are sort of a pentimento inside of us—an echo or shadow of who we are and who we can become.

Patti Digh blogs at 37 Days. She is the author of Life is a Verb. Follow her on Twitter.

If I looked at it from my old sort of measurement scheme, that was a tough end because I had relied on that job. But it was actually a great liberator because for the first time in many, many, many years, I actually sat still for a good long while, for months.

I think that’s a key part of it, we keep ourselves very busy to just keep ourselves out of our real world.

So, those difficulties we think of as the “end of the world” (in my case, the end of that job) can actually be the things that allows us to stop deflecting, to start sitting with ourselves a little bit more.

I have written two business books that did very well, and I think they’re great books. I think I made a contribution to the field around global leadership and also global diversity. But when I got the box of books that you get from the publisher after you publish a book, I really didn’t feel that much of a connection to either of those books.

And so that was really the catalyst for kind of putting down the mantle of business writer, power suit, because there had always been a disconnect between what I was saying and who I was. It was like I was speaking with somebody else’s voice—the expectation of a voice that was different from my own.

I saw a postcard once that described this perfectly. I was eating lunch with some artists, I was bemoaning the fact that I had to put on a power suit and leave behind my Birkenstocks. And I said to one of the artists, an ironworker, “When I speak in these kinds of settings, I feel like somebody else is moving my mouth and words are coming out.

He said, “Just wait here a minute.” And he ran and got this postcard from his last show. On the front of it was a photograph of one of his sculptures—a business suit—a torso in a suit and the head was made out of all these recycled farm implements. When you turned the card over, there was a picture of the back of that sculpture. There was a little door in the back of this business suit. And when you opened the door, there was this little crank and if you cranked the crank, the mouth would move. I said to the artist, “That’s how I feel.”

I was doing what I was good at, not what I really wanted to do. It’s very, very easy to get seduced by something you do really well.

I remember very vividly, when I worked in nonprofit organizations, at one point waking up and thinking, “I don’t want my tombstone to say, ‘Wow, what a great administrator.’”

Just being good at something—being rewarded for it, promoted for it, sought after for it didn’t really mean that that was my true work in the world.

I think that I had talked myself into the fact that in order to make a living, I needed to do what was expected of me. I don’t think it was false work, I think it was actually good work but it wasn’t my work to do in the world.

Patti Digh blogs at 37 Days. She is the author of Life is a Verb. Follow her on Twitter.

I lived with a Sinhalese family and most of the people in the small village that I lived in didn’t speak English, so I got pretty proficient in speaking Sinhalese. So I think I could probably pick that back up and teach you Sinhalese or Mandarin Chinese, you could take your pick of those two.

I took Chinese at Johns Hopkins when I was in DC. Mandarin Chinese. I knew enough Chinese to be the person chosen when a delegation of college presidents from China came to the United States. And I flew around the country with them. They visited colleges and universities, a different one every day for a month. And I was their tour guide because of my little bit of Chinese.

There was this one fellow—we grew into this extraordinary friendship without language because I didn’t speak enough Chinese to have an in depth conversation with him and he spoke no English. When I look at a photograph from that trip all those years ago, those 30 days, he and I are always together.

He’s a very famous artist in China. My birthday was during this trip and he found that out and literally stayed up all night carving a very special signature stamp for me.

This was decades ago. I lost touch with him. Within in the last couple of months, though, I reconnected with him. I was doing some work at Boeing and there was a guy in the class from China. At a break, I said “You know what, I have thought about this man for decades and I would love to reconnect with him.” By the end of the day, he had emailed me a picture, and he said, “Is this the man?” And it was just this incredible feeling: It was him. An older version of him, but it was him.

He sent me a book of his paintings and I sent him my book. And we’re still in the needing a translator stage, but I’m looking to pick up my Chinese again and be able to speak with him in his language and not expect that he will be able to speak to me in mine.

So, here we are, 30 years later and exchanging our books.

What I find most interesting in all this is that so often we expect friendship relies on language or a shared history and it doesn’t.

Patti Digh blogs at 37 Days. She is the author of Life is a Verb. Follow her on Twitter.

All the great inspirational movies in the world can only take you so far. You have to move past knowledge to understanding and you can only do that with action.

What’s holding you back? You have a mortgage to pay? You have rent? Car payments? Kids who need braces? Are you seriously trying to peddle your kids as the reason you can’t get up an hour earlier and chase down the herd of dreams stampeding outside your window?

There are really few situations that prevent us from chasing our dreams. You know that, I know that. But what are you going to do about it?

As Robin Williams says at the end of the clip, “Your move, chief.”

That time frame was really compelling to me, and I literally did start asking myself every morning, “What would I be doing today if I only had 37 days to live?”

It took a couple of years after my stepfather’s death. He died in November of 2003 and it was January of 2005 that I actually stopped what I was doing and started writing. It was January 3rd, I believe it was, that I started writing “37 Days.”

My answer to the 37 Days question was that if it were true—and who knows if it is or not—I would want to write down all my stories for my girls, so that they would have a sense of who I was as a human being and what I cared about, what scared me, what I laughed at, what I had screwed up on. And so, literally, that was the catalyst for starting some writing that I had never done before.

I mean, I would literally sit every day and write for eight hours. I described it to a good friend of mine recently as the most fulfilling, happiest time I can remember in my life. And I think that sense of fulfillment – that sense of happiness was that I had found what is mine to do in the world.

I had never really written down my stories or considered myself a writer. And I didn’t even so much then, but I knew that I had an internal, incredibly intense intention behind it, and that was simply to leave these stories behind for these two girls.

And I actually think that the single intention and the urgency that I felt around it was the thing that drove people to the work. I first sent it out to 12 friends, just to say, “Look, I want to keep myself honest about this, so I want to post an essay every week. Would you just email me if you don’t get it on Monday?” And those 12 people sent it to 12 other people, et cetera. And within six months, there were between 15,000 and 20, 000 people reading this blog.

What I took from that was that there’s just this shared, underlying motivation for our lives to have more meaning, that we’re all urging toward that like a plant to the sun, but so many other things get in the way. And I really do believe, I mean, this was the best example in my life it’s really the only example of having a very clear, solitary intention. My intention was not to create a successful blog. My intention was not to write a book. It was just to leave these stories behind for these two girls.

I said to my business partner David at one point, “David, how would you approach your art if you truly believe that your art could provide everything that you ever needed or wanted?”

If I really believe that my writing could provide everything that I ever needed or wanted in my life, how would I frame it differently? How would I approach it differently? I think that is a really compelling question, as opposed to “Wait until the proof is there.” If I had waited to see if writing this book would be a logical way for me to make a living, it would never have been written.

Patti Digh blogs at 37 Days. She is the author of Life is a Verb. Follow her on Twitter.

A couple of years ago, I was with my business partner, David Robinson, and we had this week where we were framing our work and what we wanted to do in the world. We asked ourselves things like: what do we want to do in the world, and what’s the work we want to do together.

Late one night, he said to me, “Help me understand why it is, when somebody asks you what you do for a living, you never say, ‘I’m a writer.’” And I said, “Oh, I’m not a writer.” And he said, “You’ve written three books and published hundreds of articles. What bar would you have to have reached for you to be able to say that you’re a writer?”

So we went to this lunch the next day, and a guy just turned to me at one point during lunch and he said, “Well, Patti, what do you do?” And I, of course, was all puffed up with this conversation from the night before. So I look over at David and I looked back at the man, and I said, “Well, I’m a writer.”

And I started smiling. And the guy says to me, “Well, what do you write?” And I said, “Oh, I just write these little essays every Monday.”

So after lunch, David says, “So what’s up with just writing little essays every Monday?” So I think it’s real easy for us to minimize what we do in the world, and that was my best sort of personal example of how I do it.

There’s a story in the book about desire lines. The architectural landscapers use this phrase, desire lines, as a descriptor for those paths that are off the concrete paths. So when you’re on a college campus, for example, there are these dirt paths that people start creating, because that’s really the best way to walk around campus.

So that’s a metaphor for this idea of desire lines. Do you spend your life going on the concrete path because that’s what you think you need to do, or do you make your own line, do you follow your own path? I had felt for a number of years that I was having an out of body experience when I would go speak. Once I was studying at Penland School of Crafts, this beautiful, incredible craft school in North Carolina. And yet I had to leave my two week class for a day to fly to Dallas and do a very high powered business speech for a major financial services firm. There was such a contrast between who I felt I was as an artist and who I was as a business leader.

So there was a certain feeling of coming home or coming into myself when I started writing that was much more connected to who I am as a human being and not just as a business person.

Honestly, I would like to go back into a room with good lights, and white curtains, and a breeze blowing in it, and I would sit there and write for eight hours a day.

I would like to get back to writing with the kind of urgency that I had when I first started “37 Days.” I think it is very easy to pull ourselves out of intention, and to start focusing on things that are not really linked to that intention.

A lot of people write to me and say, “Help me understand how I can build a successful blog, ” or “How many followers do you have on Twitter?” How many books? How many cities did you go to on your tour? How many? How many? How many? I think it’s very, very easy to focus on things that are easy to measure, but don’t really matter.

There’s a great quote: “A writer is someone who longs to say something.” That’s a true description of who I am.

Patti Digh blogs at 37 Days. She is the author of Life is a Verb. Follow her on Twitter.

This bag. The electricity in the air that you feel as he describes it. Even watching the video of a video, the moment is so palpable you taste it. And you can see the character fading away, back to that moment when the world fell silent.

What takes you to that place where you fade from yourself and become what you’re doing or seeing? Where you subtract the world from your self and just exist? It’s so calm, you can hear yourself answering the question you’re always asking — even if you’re not aware of the asking: Am I on the right path?

Find this place if you haven’t yet, it will serve as a retreat when your journey takes you places where you are overwhelmed or afraid.

If you already have it, cherish it. Keep it safe. And visit often.

Call it your groove. Your rhythm. Your flow. No matter what you call it, find it and embrace it. Cuz when you’re in your groove, magic happens.

Take a chance. Sometimes you fail and it sucks. But you gotta put yourself out there or one day, you’ll wake up too afraid to do anything. So, yeah, you might go for it and fall on your face, but what are you gonna do? Sit at home, waiting for the right time, the right opportunity when you have no option but to succeed? You better stop right there because those moments never happen. The only thing you can do is to throw yourself out into the world, throw yourself into your dream; and when you fall, pick yourself back up and keep going. Keep going until those stars do align and the world is yours for the taking.

Like it or not, you have 2 options:

You can live a long, fulfilled life, consciously choosing to chase your dreams. Present. Bringing each day to a close with the satisfaction of knowing you chased something meaningful — with a headful of hope that tomorrow is only going to get better.

Or, you can get busy dying. Focus on what’s holding you back. Focus on the missed opportunities and mistakes of days-gone-by. And watch as every second is sucked into the drain of time never to return.

That second option sound depressing? Then what are you waiting for? Get busy with living.

I was watching this old Nike ad by Michael Jordan. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. It’s the one where he talks about how many shots he’s missed, how many games he’s lost, and just all these different failures. He said, I’ve had thousands of failures, but it’s because of those that I’ve succeeded. And I just thought that’s so true with me as well.

I’m inspired by people in my daily life. For example, this morning my wife went out for a run even though she was tired. My kids. My sister. My mom. You know, just people in my daily life. I’m inspired by the readers of Zen Habits. They share a lot with me and really teach me a lot. There’s some amazing books out there that really just capture my imagination and inspire me to do better.

And yeah, so, I look everywhere in my life for sources of inspiration and when you really look for it, you can find it pretty much anywhere you look.

What’s next? Right now, I’m thinking about my next book. I had my first one that came out, The Power of Less, but now my agent really wants me to come up with an idea for the second one. The problem I have is not that I don’t have any ideas, it’s that I have too many and I need to pick one. So I’m taking my time with that.

I’m creating a couple of seminars. The idea is to help people as much as possible but instead of just writing something, I’m going to be more hands on. The first seminar is for bloggers, I’m doing that with a blogging friend and that’s going to come out in a couple of months. The second one is for personal development – basically taking the ideas from Zen Habits and The Power of Less and putting it into action.

It’s so easy to read a book or a blog and put it down and forget about it.

Stop waiting for happiness — happiness is possible right here, right now. For many years I was waiting for the perfect job, the next promotion, a bigger car, a bigger house, the perfect wife, etc. But whenever one of those things arrived, I immediately started wanting the next big thing. Happiness was always around the corner. Then I realized that happiness isn’t tomorrow or next year or 5 years from now — it’s right now!

To be happy now, start by counting your blessings — all the good things in your life. Then start living in the present, instead of thinking about the future. Appreciate the beauty in every moment of your life. And just allow yourself to be happy, instead of waiting.

Leo Babauta blogs at Zen Habits and Write To Done. He is the author of The Power of Less, Zen to Done, and The Zen Habits Handbook for Life. Follow him on Twitter.

We have lots of kids. Six is generally a lot for people these days. At the same time, though, it’s not that uncommon.

Guam’s Catholic, hugely Catholic. My mom’s originally from Wisconsin, but her family is Irish Catholic, Irish and German Catholic to be precise. She comes from a family of eight. My dad comes from a family of nine. My wife only comes from a family of three, but her mom is from a family of 13 and her dad has nine brothers and sisters. But, more recently, people have one, two, or three kids.

I only had two sisters growing up. My father had another set of kids who are about the same age as my kids. Growing up, though, I only had two sisters.

We have a 16 year old, a 12 year old, an 11 year old, and a 9 year old. Those are the four older ones. We also have two little toddlers. Well, one’s almost five years old, but the other one’s three. The two of them create the messes.

The older ones, although they’re generally not the neatest people in the world, they can clean up after themselves.

They also help take care of the little ones. Right now, the older ones are watching the little ones while I do this interview, so they really help out. That’s been important that we teach them how to help out. Otherwise, I couldn’t do half the things I do.

You’ve got to teach them self-sufficiency.

Having a large family is a completely different dynamic than I had when I was growing up. I really enjoy it, actually.

I am actually in my second marriage. I got married too young, we had a baby young and it just didn’t work out.

The older two of my six kids are from that first marriage. And I know that hurt them when we divorced and I’ll always feel bad about that.

I think I learned a lot about marriage and relationships from that first marriage. And I really don’t want to blame anyone. I learned that certain problems are going to happen with any marriage if you don’t do certain things.

You have to have intimacy. You have to have that closeness and you have to put in the time to make that happen. We’ve made being together a priority. So, we go on dates and spend time together away from the kids.

I’m learning to see things from the other person’s perspective and accept it as just a different way of looking at things and not that one’s right and one’s wrong.

Communication is key. Everyone says how important that is but putting it into practice is the hard part.

Leo Babauta blogs at Zen Habits and Write To Done. He is the author of The Power of Less, Zen to Done, and The Zen Habits Handbook for Life. Follow him on Twitter.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily grind, we forget the joy we might find when we take advantage of unexpected opportunities. That girl you wanted to ask out, but never did. The dance you turned down. Opportunities lost and why? Because you were afraid? Because you had an appointment that you couldn’t miss?

Next time, ask the girl (or boy).

If asked, say yes.

See what happens.

Live life one yes at a time.

Dream-Chasing is filled with pot-holes. One such pot-hole is thinking that winning is your objective when, in fact, the journey is the whole point of the story. And if you’re not having fun throughout your journey, then you need to stop and ask yourself if you really want what you think you want.

I’m not saying that dream-chasing is going to be all fun-and-games for there will certainly be hard, tedious work along the way. But if you’re not enjoying yourself more often than you find yourself unmotivated, then you need to ask yourself if you’re on the right path.

Just some food for thought on this scorcher-of-a-Wednesday.

When the blog started to take off, I realized that this is something I really love doing and maybe it’s something that I could make a living at. The more I thought about it, the more excited I got, and so I decided that’s what I wanted to do that I wanted to quit my day job and do Zen Habits.

I told my wife about it, and she was totally supportive. Eva was with me 100 percent every step of the way. I’m really glad that she was because I don’t know if I could have done it without that kind of support.

I didn’t quit my job right away because I have a family to feed. I had to make sure that I was going to get enough income to pay the bills and put food on the table. So for the rest of 2007, I was working full time and building Zen Habits up to the point it was making enough money – actually more money than I was making at my day job. After we paid off all our debts, I decided the day job was not necessary anymore and I quit.

Quitting was liberating.

I don’t freelance anymore. I dropped that. But I do consulting now with businesses and people as personal development, as well as bloggers. I’m creating a series of seminars one for bloggers and one for personal development. Then, there’s the blog. It sells ads. I sell ebooks. I have my book. And I have a couple other websites.

My kids hear about me doing the blog stuff, but they’re not too involved in that. I try not to talk to them too much about work. I kind of put work aside and focus on them when I talk to them. But once in a while, I’ll be like, “Oh, I have 50,000 subscribers. Let’s go to dinner!” So, they know that I’m doing pretty well, but if I talk about it too much, they tell me to stop bragging. So yeah, I don’t talk about my work too much.

I have a fear that I won’t be good enough. When you put yourself out there as a blogger and a writer, you are pretty much saying that I’m good enough to write for you. And that’s a scary thing because what if you’re not? What if people say your writing sucks? So, yeah, I still fear that maybe I’m not good enough to do Zen Habits or be an author or be an entrepreneur or even be a father or a husband. That fear is always there.

For me, it’s been little steps. With blogging, for example, I put my blogging out there, but there weren’t that many readers at first. So, as my readers have grown, my confidence has grown because all of them are super supportive and encouraging.

And the same is true of anything I’ve had success with. Just little tiny steps. Each time I succeed, I feel more confident and I feel like I can beat that fear of failure – that fear of not being good enough.

Leo Babauta blogs at Zen Habits and Write To Done. He is the author of The Power of Less, Zen to Done, and The Zen Habits Handbook for Life. Follow him on Twitter.

I was working on the weekend, and I missed my kids soccer games. I really, really felt bad about that because my kids are really important to me but my work was overwhelming me at the time. I decided I needed to make some changes.

I quit smoking seven times and I failed seven times before the final eighth time.

The first time I quit, I thought it would be no problem – that I could just quit. I just stopped. As soon as the urges hit, again, I had no strategy for dealing with it. So, then, you start justifying it in your head: one cigarette’s not going to hurt. Then the second one’s not going to hurt. And then you smoke the third one. Pretty soon you’re not quitting.

I learned that you have to have a strategy. And so, from each time I quit, I learned a little bit more about myself and also about what doesn’t work.

The last time I quit, I had a strategy for each of the obstacles I would face. What am I going to do when I have an urge? What am I going to do when I’m in a social situation and people start smoking?

I had my oral thing. At first, it was candy and gum, but that easily adds pounds so that turned into frozen grapes and other kinds of healthy vegetables and fruits.

I also learned to get some support. This is huge. Get the people in your life – your spouse and your kids or whoever is in your life — on board. Even though you’re the one making the changes, it has got to be a group thing. Make it a team effort. That’s really been one of the major keys of my success.

If you can do that, if you can get your loved ones on board, you’ve got the greatest support system ever.

Becoming a vegetarian was a big change for me. People who aren’t vegetarian are not very accepting, at least the people that I know. And they really say negative things and try and get you not to be vegetarian. It’s difficult when the people around you don’t support you.

The idea for vegetarianism came when I saw some info and videos online about the meat, egg and dairy industries. It’s really horrible, and I think if more people knew about it, they’d consider a change.

I thought what most people think, even after seeing all the info — “Isn’t it too hard to become vegetarian?” The answer turned out to be “No.” It’s pretty easy — there are tons of great vegetarian dishes that will have you never missing meat again.

At first, Eva was like “I’m not going to be vegetarian.” And I’m like, “That’s fine, this is right for me. You can eat whatever you want.” But later on, she actually stopped eating red meat and poultry. Now, she only eats seafood. So, she’s not a strict vegetarian, but she’s really changed her diet – with some encouragement from me. But at the same time, it’s just something I think that she decided she wanted to do for herself. We’ve been kind of on pretty parallel journeys there.

We cook vegetarian spaghetti or chili or tacos, things like that, and the kids do like those. So, they don’t turn their noses up at those kinds of foods, but they still eat meat pretty much every day.

I think it’s pretty cool when you have someone who’s trying to do the same kinds of things as you. That’s always really useful. Eva and I started running together. We don’t always run together now, but we both enjoy exercising.

The kids aren’t into exercising, but they go outdoors and they play soccer and stuff like that. They’re not into simplifying, either. I like to get rid of clutter, and they like to keep it. So, that’s kind of a little bit of a battle, but we make compromises.

I’m lucky. My wife, Eva, has been extremely supportive from the beginning of everything that I’ve done. She really wants me to be happy and succeed at what I do.

Leo Babauta blogs at Zen Habits and Write To Done. He is the author of The Power of Less, Zen to Done, and The Zen Habits Handbook for Life. Follow him on Twitter.

We all fall, but only some of us get back up. And you will greatly increase your chances for getting back up if you’ve found your Alfred — the one person who will pull you out of a burning building, prop you up, and abruptly remind you what you’re about.

So, who’s your Alfred? If you can’t answer that question, it’s time to start looking. And here’s your super-secret bonus tip for the week: the best way to find your Alfred is to be someone else’s Alfred.

Change the world.

Seems impossible. Even these eleven-year-olds see the impossibility of the task. Now that we’re older and cynicism has firmly embedded itself into the core of our brains, we know the world cannot be changed. We wake up, we do our job, spend time with our families if we like them, and then go to bed, only to repeat the process again tomorrow.

But what if the only reason we can’t change the world is because we don’t? Think about that for a few minutes: what if changing the world was really possible — and not just the stuff of movies?

With that in mind, his assignment is your assignment: Think of an idea to change our world — and put it into action.

In 2006 I took up running and I started training for my first marathon. I sent daily news to a column in my local newspaper so that I would have some accountability. And when that column ended, I needed a new way to be held accountable, so I started Zen Habits to help me continue changing my habits.

The first month of my blog, I was writing basically for nobody. I got a couple of readers here and there. The second month I started getting more readers who were very enthusiastic. They really encouraged me. The feedback from them was great and it helped me improve Zen Habits.

I wrote a post called the “Top 20 Motivation Hacks.” It was my first real attempt at putting everything that I had been learning into one post. I tried to put the best things that really worked for me, not just things I’d heard about or read about, but things that actually worked. It got picked up on DumbLittleMan.com. They sent me a lot of traffic. After that, I got popular on the delicious. And then, I think it was linked to from a couple of other sites — maybe LifeHack. Those are pretty big blogs. The combination sent me a lot of traffic and a lot of new readers.

Writing “Top 20 Motivation Hacks” taught me how to write a really useful post. That’s basically what I’ve done from there on. I don’t always succeed, but that’s my goal.

I want to write something that people want to share with their friends.

That’s really how Zen Habits has taken off. That kind of content where I’m really trying to help people.

The Power of Less is based on the same concept. I tried to put as much usefulness into it as one book could take. It’s a lot of the basic principles from Zen Habits but really distilled and concentrated, especially for new readers. It’s been out for a few months now. It actually really quickly hit the bestseller list at Amazon.

I was just reading this e-book. I couldn’t stop reading it. I was getting a whole bunch of ideas and just went to my computer and started writing a post about our relationship with food. What I am proposing is that we look at our relationship with food a little bit closer and maybe change it and not use food for pleasure or reward or boredom or anything like that and realize that it’s just fuel.

It’s called Eat, Stop, Eat. It’s basically a diet — or maybe an anti-diet—by a guy named Brad Pilon, a nutritionist. Basically, it’s the idea of intermittent fasting. I don’t know if I’m sold on the concept, but it was really interesting. It’s backed up by research and challenges the ideas you read in the mainstream magazines and blogs and newspapers about nutrition and health.

That’s what I’m writing for my next post. His book really sparks some cool ideas.

I definitely get excited about things.

Leo Babauta blogs at Zen Habits and Write To Done. He is the author of The Power of Less, Zen to Done, and The Zen Habits Handbook for Life. Follow him on Twitter.