In my last post, I talked about my realization that I’d not been approaching my business in a way that’s congruent with who I am – and that was a big problem.

photo credit: Denis Collette…!!!

I’m working (behind the scenes so far) on re-imagining how I talk about and share what I do and make. In the mean time, an opportunity has come up, and I want to share my excitement about it with you.

Maybe it’ll be useful for some of you as well, or maybe you’ll just help me be excited either way is fine.

I’ve known about Mark Silver and The Heart of Business for a while now, and I’d enjoyed some of his stuff, but it didn’t click with me.  I wasn’t ready.

Mark is a Sufi, a practitioner of mystical Islam.  He approaches business as a mystic.  To me, this is very cool.

So, not that long ago, I was struggling how to find a right price to charge for something,  I remembered Havi having written about using a wacky resonant pricing exercise that she adapted from Mark’s work.  So I decided to try it.  I downloaded the exercise from Mark’s post and tried it – it just felt right.  In fact it felt wonderful.  It also introduced me to

The Remembrance

A simple, Sufi practice which is the basis of much of what Mark teaches.  I’m not going to explain the practice here, if you are drawn to know more about it check out Mark’s Getting To The Core workbook, which you get free when you sign up for his newsletter (which I love.)

This practice has been the perfect gift for me at the perfect time, Mark calls it “having tea time with the Divine,” which as strange as it sounds, is really right on.

In fact I’m doing Mark’s Remembrance Challenge right now and loving it – it’s just perfect for me, where I am right now.  Though I’m certainly doing it imperfectly.  (It’s also free on his site if you’re interested)

The Sacred Invitation

I ran across this page on The Heart of Business and signed up for the “No More Square Wheels” teleclass Mark was offering as a free preview class for his 6 week Momentum program.  I was “sure” that I wasn’t going to take the class.  Money is tight right now, it just didn’t seem like an option.  But I wanted to learn what I could from the preview call, which I expected to be mostly content, and a little pitch at the end.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that page was a sacred invitation to me to take the next step into myself and my business.

You see, the call was yesterday – and it just blew me out of the water.  I sat and listened, and felt as Mark would pause, and just breathe as I let what he said sink in, and he felt into what he was called to say next.  (at least that’s how it felt to me…)

He wasn’t talking about a class

He was talking about an entirely new (to me) approach to what business is, what it means, and how to do it.

It felt so right to me.  Exactly what I needed to create the business and life that I feel called to.

And let me be clear I was not “sold” anything – the “pitch” Mark gave was simply an explanation of what the course covers and how it works.  That was really it.

I knew, though, long before that point, that this was what my heart was calling for.

But like I said, I knew I couldn’t afford the class now.  Then I told my Dad about it, and he very graciously agreed to pay for it as a gift.

I am so thankful that I’m now enrolled in this class, and I’m bouncing off the walls excited about it.

And by the way, you can listen to the recording of the “No More Square Wheels” call by clicking here.

So why am I writing this post?  Because my heart is singing with excitement about this and I needed to share it.

Have you ever had something resonate with you like this?  Are you thinking about taking this class?  I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

I had a giant epiphany this week. It was one of those I–can’t–believe–that–I–didn’t–realize–this–sooner moments. It was one of those moments where in an instant, everything I thought I knew about something got turned upside down.

You may or may not know about Binaural Journeys, where I create meditation audios that use a cool combination of sound technologies and my voice to help people relax very deeply, and make changes that they want to make in themselves.

The Setup

I really created Binaural Journeys out of the inspiration for a particular meditation. Then I went looking to figure out how to let my Thing out into the world. What I found was a very traditional style of Internet marketing, taught by a wonderful person who was really helpful. So I got my Things online, and started sharing it with the world. Some people bought it, and those that did have almost universally loved it, but something wasn’t right and it took me a long time to learn what. That was the epiphany.

I finally realized that I wasn’t presenting my Thing in a way that would appeal to my Right People. I realize, that my Right People were the kind of people who are like me in a lot of ways, and that one of those ways is that they have a tendency to not like things that feel like traditional Internet marketing–“squeeze pages,” sales pages written like direct mail sales letters, and so forth.

More importantly, I realized that I really don’t like those things.

I realized, that the way I was presenting this online was not congruent with Me. And I also realized that was a big problem. I realized that that was part of why some people I know didn’t react to my offerings away that I had hoped it would.

Most importantly, I realized that this was the thing that didn’t feel right to me.

So I’m starting over, doing things in a whole new way. It’s a little bit scary, because it’s different, but I’m different to; and I’m convinced that this is what I need to do.

So there are changes coming.

I also realized that in addition to changing how I present Binaural Journeys, there was something else I needed to do. That is, to be more myself here. In addition to the artist me, the storyteller me, the technician me, and the other parts of my life that you’ve met, here I also have a side of me which I’ve been reluctant to share: the Mystic, the one to whom spirituality and connection are so important. So I realized that that’s part of what I need to share as well, and that I need to accept that that’s something some people may not be comfortable with, but it’s part of who I am, and so if this site is going to continue to have my name in the url, I need to make that a part of what I share as well.

Has this ever happened to you?

If you’ve had an experience like this I’d love to hear about it in the comments!  As you comment, please keep in mind however that this is my realization and my process, and I’m not looking for advice about it.  Though I would love to hear just about anything esle you have to say

Before the release of his new book Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, I had heard of Garry Vaynerchuk as the host of Wine Library TV, but I really didn’t know anything about him. Understand, I don’t drink wine, not for any moral reason, I just never got into it.

With a title like "Crush It" I couldn't resist

In any case, I started to hear lots of positive thoughts about this new book, so I went audible.com and downloaded the audio book. Audio books are my preferred way of reading almost everything, but in this case I strongly recommend you get the audio book even if that’s not normally your preference. I will get to why I say that in a minute.

This book is about passion. Of course the subtitle tells us that it’s about making money from our passion, but more importantly, it’s about how living from your passion is the way to be happy. Gary himself as the ultimate example of this. I found his passion both enjoyable and contagious, now some will say that he’s over the top, and he is over the top. The thing is, this is the real Gary. I have no doubt about it in my mind, it’s who he is. He talks about this in the book, and how important it is to be genuine to you are and your own style.

The book is really about how to create a brand around yourself, who you really are and your passion, mostly using social media. This is illustrated very well by Gary’s own story, and examples from other people who have been successful. As I read this last sentence, I realize that “creating a brand around yourself” can sound like something a used car salesman would do. This couldn’t be further from the truth. What Gary teaches is all about real honesty with yourself, and with everyone you relate with. It’s about being genuine at the deepest level.

So, why do I recommend the audio book rather than the print version?

When Gary went to record this book, he was so passionate and so into what he’s talking  about that he couldn’t stay on the script. For me, many places where he riffs off of what is in the printed text are some of the best parts of the audio book, it gives you everything that’s in the printed book plus bonus insights.

For me though, the single best part of this book, particularly the audio book, is the power with which Gary’s passion comes through. I found this really inspirational, it was really helpful to me at a time that I was a little bit down about what I was doing online. Now as I say, Gary style is over-the-top and this will bother some people. But, it’s who he is and though it took me a little while to get into it, I ended up really loving it and loving him.

So, if this sounds appealing, check out Garry Vaynerchuk’s Crush It, either in audio or print.

What do you think about Garry, and Crush It?  I’d love to hear in the comments.

Note that the Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and I get a tiny commission from Amazon if you decide to buy through one of them.

Yesterday I talked about Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. I think it is so important that I wanted to devote a 2nd post to it.

This video is a talk that Dan gave at TED in May of 2009 on some of the concepts at are in the book. The material is priceless and will give you a taste of what he does in the book. The presentation is also done amazingly well – notice how as he makes a big deal about how he’s not telling a story that he weaves amazing stories. Watch this right now! you’ll be glad you did. (I know I’m jumping up and down about this, but I really am that excited by it!)

I have been a huge fan of Daniel Pink’s writing since I read his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. In this book, Dan makes a powerful argument that virtually all left brain, sequential tasks are either being automated or outsourced. He goes on to suggest that what is needed is the incredibly powerful combination of creative, right brain thinking, supported by sequential, left brain thinking. If you haven’t read this book, I strongly encourage it. But what I really want to talk about in this post is Daniel pink’s new book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

It's time to recognize a new type of motivation that actually is motivating.

This book blew my mind, it made my eyes roll back in my head and blink “tilt,” and smoke come pouring out of my ears. Well, not literally, but it kind of felt like that, only in a good way.

Like so many people in our modern society, I was brought up to believe that people are basically motivated by two primary things, reward and punishment. I can remember many times, being frustrated at not being able to get myself to do something which I felt I “should.” I often thought to myself “well I guess not doing this doesn’t hurt badly enough, when it does, I’ll do it.” Dan refers to this as “Motivation 2.0″ and described it as a motivational system of the industrial age. He argues that what we need in the modern world is “Motivation 3.0″ which is intrinsic in nature. He describes this new type of motivation as having three primary aspects: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

He lays out an incredibly solid case of research which has been known over the last 50 years, demonstrating that the industrial age extrinsic motivation concepts are truly problematic and in many cases end up REDUCING motivation rather than increasing it. This fits very well with my own experience.

He gives many powerful examples and suggestions for how to implement Motivation 3.0 in our lives, workplaces, and schools. I’m still processing how to apply this most effectively in my own life. But this is powerful stuff, and I would strongly suggest you read this book — whoever you are, whatever you do, this is something that you need to know, really know, deep in your bones, in order to be truly happy and successful.

Note: the Amazon.com links in this post are affiliate links, and I get a tiny commission if you purchase through them.

I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. They seem to have a shelf life of about 10 minutes, and thereby are not all that useful. In fact the very specific kind of goal setting that is often recommended has rarely proved useful for me. Instead, I ask myself what do I want? And who do I want to be? And how is what I’m doing right now supportive or not supportive to the first two questions?

This is something I do on an ongoing basis, and that has worked very well for me. I feel like I’m coming to a point in my development where more concrete goals, particularly around business may prove useful, but I do tend to work intuitively and haven’t felt called to do that yet.

So with that in mind, you can imagine that I was interested, but not terminally excited when I first read a blog post by Hayden Tompkins about How To Rock 2010. (Let me stop here and say that Hayden’s blog Through the Illusion is awesome and very worth reading.)

It did take me a little bit off guard when Hayden, as she often does, put her own spin on the ideas. She talked about choosing a word for the year. A word that would serve as a navigation point for the year. Her word this year is “dance,” if you want to know why you’ll have to read her post.

I casually tossed around in my mind what my word might be, if I were to come up with one, and didn’t really get anywhere. Then I read a post by Erica Douglas called 2010 Goals; 2010 #themeword; Big Announcement! (If you’re at all interested in business, particularly business online, Erica’s blog is a must read. I know this post is starting to sound like a blog pitch fest, but I really love what both of these amazing women write.)

In her post, Erica talks about starting the #themeword meme in 2007, the concept is very similar to Hayden’s. I thought this was interesting, but since I had already decided that I didn’t need such a thing, I noted that and moved on. Except that my unconscious or higher self or muse or whatever or whoever seemed to disagree. I don’t remember exactly when, but it popped into my head (and landed there with a significant amount of force) that my #themeword for 2010 is Freedom. I like this roll around in my head for a while, but the more I thought about it the more right it feels.

For me 2010 is about creating freedom

Freedom for myself; financially, from a job that I’ve mastered and I’m ready to pass on, and most importantly from my own limiting beliefs and programming.

This year is also about helping other people create freedom for themselves through my Binaural Journeys guided meditation audios. It’s interesting, I didn’t realize that that’s what I was doing when I set out to create audio programs that combined guided meditation, binaural beats, binaural drumming and music. I just knew that I had felt inspired to create programs of this sort, so I did. But, in thinking about my #themeword, Freedom, I realized that Binaural Journeys are really tools for people to use in creating their own freedom.

I am truly excited about the year to come.

So, what’s your #themeword?

What’s an un-blog post? Well of course it’s where I tell you about the un-products that are part of the unlaunch.    Yes of course, I know now I need to tell you  what the unproducts and the unlaunch are, and that requires a story:

Once upon a time,

not all that long ago there was a musician named Pat O’Bryan. Pat was a blues guitar player, he traveled all over the world and performed with many great blues artists. But there was a problem, as great as the blues is, playing the blues doesn’t tend to pay very well, no matter how good you are. Fortunately, Pat met Joe Vitale and began to learn about Internet marketing. Of course in the beginning, Pat was still on the road a lot of the time, but keeping up his new Internet business. He began to call it his “Portable Empire.” Fast forward a few years, Pat is now an extremely successful Internet marketer.

Pat has been very generous in sharing what he’s learned about doing business online through the seven “unseminars”  that he’s put on. Quite recently Pat started teaching even more through his Portable Empire Coaching Program. I am fortunate enough to be a member of that program. One of the things that all of us in the program have done, or are doing, is to create products to sell online. All of the products which are available are collected in one place which you can see at http://portableEmpirecoaching.com/products.html

My Journey to the Spirit of Healing is not quite ready yet, so you won’t see it there, but there are quite a few really wonderful products. One of the things that Pat recommended to us in creating these products is to keep the value to price ratio very high, and many of these products are being sold very, very inexpensively. The members of the coaching program are amazing people who have made some really cool products, I’ve bought a few of them myself and found them very useful.

So since Pat promotes unseminars, and refers to our weekly coaching calls as unwebinars, we decided that the launch of our products would naturally be called the unlaunch of our unproducts.

A number of my uncolleagues from the coaching program are also posting about the unlaunch today. Here are some links to their posts, each of us is talking about this from our own perspective and I think you’ll really enjoy reading them.

http://thesleepsecretebook.com/blog/you-want-what-for-christmas.php

http://www.TipsOnWriting.net/blog

http://loverockstar.com/

http://kellymariaclark.com/

http://mtnjimfisher.com/

UPDATE: I left off 2 blogs, sorry Claus and Chuck!  Check them out!!

http://harmonicthought.com/harmonicblog/http:/harmonicthought.com/harmonicblog/the-one-thing/

http://www.clausdjensen.com/my-portable-empire.html/

UPDATE 2:

http://internetworkcafe.blogspot.com/

UPDATE 3:

http://marthagiffen.com/blog-unblog-question/

Yesterday, in my post about Greg Mortenson’s new book Stones Into Schools I mentioned that I had a realization about social media and Internet marketing while I was reading it. In this post, I want to tell that story.

First, I need you to understand that I started out as an extreme skeptic that social media (Twitter, Facebook and so forth) had anything to offer me other than annoyance. I just didn’t understand why so many people were so excited by these Web 2.0 ideas. In general I’ve always been in favor of expert content, written by experts and edited by experts. The idea of user generated content didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why would I want to look at content created by “average people” rather than researching and finding the best content, which I presumed was created by the best experts. Having grown up in a university town in a relatively scholarly family, then attended college and now spending most of my career working at a university, I guess this view isn’t all that surprising. But over a period of years a number of things started happening.

The first one was a couple of years ago I was involved with a high school play in which one character was a mime. The young woman who played that role (a high school freshman) was absolutely extraordinary. I asked her where she had done her training in mime, and was shocked when she told me that she had none. She had gone to YouTube and search for “mime,” and then figured out what she needed to do for her role from what she saw. Don’t get me wrong, she’s an extremely talented performer, but the idea that she could learn just from YouTube enough mime to do such an extraordinary performance just blew my mind. So I guess, that was my first introduction to the idea that user generated content could in fact be useful.

A year or so later, my friend Dave Gallant who had worked for me as a student at UNH, graduated. I stayed in touch with him, and was surprised to learn that he got his first job through Twitter, a service which had never struck me as having any value. As I continued talking with him I learned that he had really dedicated a significant amount of energy to learning about marketing in social media. In fact he now works at HubSpot, a company that helps business integrate social media into their marketing.

Then I started looking into Internet marketing, and after a substantial amount of research joined Pat O’Bryan’s Portable Empire Coaching Program. Very early in my work with Pat, I learned that he saw social media particularly Facebook and Twitter as important marketing tools. Of course I already heard this from my friend Dave, but I really didn’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, I trust Pat, and I think he really does know what he’s talking about, but it didn’t make any sense to me. I just didn’t get how people use social media to market their businesses. I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with Greg Mortenson’s Books, I’m getting there, bear with me, this does all come together.

Now by this time, I had finally given in and gotten a Facebook account, but I was using it in a very limited way. I saw it as a way to connect with people who I have lost track of since college who I really wanted to get in touch with, and it had worked for that purpose, but I still didn’t see how this “social media stuff” was useful for marketing. As I remember it, I think that both Dave and Pat basically encouraged me to use the tools to build relationships with people who had similar interests, and through that to build a network. At that time, I guess I wasn’t ready to understand what they were really asking me to do.

When I saw that Greg Mortenson had released a new book I bought it immediately. I started reading it last week, it wasn’t very far into it that Greg reminded us of the primary lesson he learned in the experiences that would become his first book Three Cups Of Tea. I’d like to let Greg share that story with you:

“Haji Ali spoke. ‘If you want to thrive in Baltistan, you must respect our ways. The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die. Doctor Greg, you must take time to share three cups of tea. We may be uneducated but we are not stupid. We have lived and survived here for a long time.’ That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in my life. We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly…Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.”
–Greg Mortenson in his first book Three Cups of Tea

I remembered fondly, the first time I heard the story reading the first book. I still didn’t get how it applied to me though. Fortunately, Greg kept returning to this theme of building relationship before trying to do anything else. And then all of a sudden, maybe two thirds of the way through the book, it clicked. This idea of sharing 3 cups of tea, of building relationships before attempting to do anything else finally clicked. I got the message that I had seen, but not understood in so many other places. So I started using Twitter. Meeting people, talking with them, learning about their interests. One of the people who I’ve met along the way is @WarrenWhitlock and I’m pretty sure that he was the one who said in one of his early tweets to me, “people won’t care what you know until they know that you care.” Which I guess really sums it up.

So thanks Greg for two amazing, inspiring books; thanks Dave and Pat for putting up with my cluelessness, and thanks Warren for saying it so clearly.

How would you describe your relationship with social media? Please comment! And if you know somebody who doesn’t seem to get social media, but who you think would like it if they did, please use one of the links below to send this post to them. You might be able to save a lot of time and trouble.

What's your map

I believe, that the key to finding happiness is realizing that you haven’t lost it. Happiness is a choice, a choice that each of us makes every moment of every day.

Now I can hear some of you talking to your computer screens right now saying  ”where the heck did this idea come from, and why is Andy talking about it.”

I know that many of you have found this blog through hearing me speak about storytelling, technology, teaching and the intersection of those things. The thing is, I believe that the ultimate story that we tell is one that we tell every moment of every day by choosing where to put our attention, and how to live our lives. When things become really interesting, is one we live at the intersection of multiple areas that don’t normally meet. This is where I live, so expect to find interesting connections, some may surprise you, some even shock you, but hopefully all of them make you think.

This morning, I read a post that Craig Perrine made on his blog titled “What would you BELIEVE for a Million Dollars?” Which really got me thinking, so much so I wrote a rather lengthy comment on his blog (which as of this writing is waiting for moderation to determine that I’m human and not a spammer.) But in any case the thought stuck with me and so I thought I would write about it here.   Craig said, “You just have to believe you can be happy now. ”

I think there’s something more to it.

In this case I don’t think it’s just a matter of believing that you can be happy, (although I think that that’s necessary.)  In my experience, you have to *decide* to be happy.   I’m fortunate to have several friends who have made this decision. They have decided to be happy in whatever situation they happen to be in. They have decided that it’s not worth the energy to be negative, and it makes them amazing people to be around.

This ties into the other thing that Craig’s post got me thinking about. It’s so easy for us to forget that our perception of the world is not, in fact, the world. It is just our perception. We are only capable of perceiving, and processing a tiny fraction of the information in the world around us in every moment. We take that information, filter it through expectation and pattern recognition, and act like that’s reality. It isn’t, not even close.

It’s like spending so much time staring at a map that we forget that the map is not the territory. It’s just a map, a collection of data about the territory filtered and organized in a hopefully useful way, but that’s not a guarantee of accuracy or even usefulness.

I have been reminded of this recently, how much it’s worth consistently pouring into my brain things which keep my map tuned up the way I want it to be.   I’ve been spending a lot of time lately listening to books (from audible.com) by people like Joe Vitale and Craig Perrine. Keeping a constant stream of this sort of material flowing into my mind has really moved me into a place where I’m seeing possibility everywhere. It’s a great place to be!

Even the experience of writing this blog has changed my map, my beliefs about myself, in a really significant way. But you’ll have to wait for tomorrow to hear that story. I think it may be the most important blog post that I’ve written so far, so come and check back.

This morning Seth Godin posted something on his blog that got me thinking:

Thirsty

I’ve noticed that people who read a lot of blogs and a lot of books also tend to be intellectually curious, thirsty for knowledge, quicker to adopt new ideas and more likely to do important work.

I wonder which comes first, the curiosity or the success?

To answer his question directly, I’d have to say that I think the curiosity comes first.

Curiosity, and in particular the drive to learn and network seem to me to be key to success.  But at the same time, curiosity on its own is not necessarily useful.   It can be so easy to get caught in endless loops of surfing and “study” that that somehow feels productive, but never seems to actually get anything done.

So to be truly successful, I think the key is more then just being curious, but directing that curiosity in a way that has you networking with people and learning things that are supportive to what you are trying to do, and balancing those activities with everything else that needs to be done….

I think that the idea of “most productive actions” is an important one – and that people who are successful are people who (at least for the most part) are consistently identifying their most productive actions and focusing on them.

One of the things that’s so hard about the Internet is the avalanche of information on virtually any topic that is available.  It’s so easy for a simple curiosity to lead to extensive surfing or research – and sometimes that leads to a breakthrough – and sometimes to wasted time……  Perhaps the real key is an ability to intuit which of those roads you’re going down.

Jeff Jarvis, a blogger and professor of Interactive Journalism at CUNY (and a really smart guy) loves to talk about the need for what he calls curation on the web.  Finding ways to consume the information YOU are looking for, without spending tons of time looking for it, by finding aggregations of relevant materials.  The aggregations may be created by humans, or by machine automatically, or a combination of the two – but I love the concept.  I’d love to open my google reader (or some other tool) and have, as if by magic, a list of news stories, blog posts and podcasts that I’m interested in and that are relevant to what I’m doing.  We have a way to go to get there.  In the mean time, I think success requires being our own curators – making sure we sift though the maze and engage with the material that is significant and interesting, and leaving the rest.

How do you do it?  Post in the comments.