My Year of TED

Excitement!!! The site is moving this weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 06:34:00 +0000

In case you are interested, you notice the change and wonder "what the hell happened here?", or if there is a gap in service as the technology catches up - by Monday evening (my time) this site will have changed from the Blogger platform over to Wordpress.

Fingers crossed there will be tech glitches and this will all run smoothly. I'm fixing and tidying all of the old posts to make sure they work with their old URLs, and make better use of categories and tags than I did in Blogger.

If you do encounter anything weird though, please let me know (kylie[at]dinkylune.com) because we all know that tech can do weird and wonderful things in different environments sometimes :-)

Speaking Up, Illness and Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Thu, 12 Mar 2015 00:57:00 +0000

It's been a month since I posted, and I feel a little guilty about it. I could use a thousand excuses for it, but it all comes down to focus - you know one of my 3 words for 2015 :-)

So I thought I would do a quick update on some things, and then get off my butt and do some more complete posts before the end of the month. Here goes:

An update on Experts
If you didn't read my ranty post (Experts Schmexperts), I had a bit of a crappy experience last month. I decided that, for the first time ever, I would take the expert up on the "no questions asked, full refund." Just a point for anyone who offers this, if you say no questions asked you cannot then call the person and to argue why you think they are doing the wrong thing!
Anyway, to their credit, they have tried to resolve some of my issues - although the whole episode was beyond tiring. I continued to be forthright and frank about some of my concerns and problems and, probably for the first time in my life, I felt like I was comfortable challenging the "expert" or the authority even.
This was a huge mindset shift for me, one that has been coming for the last year, if I think about it. As much as I just wanted to say "it's all too hard", and just accept that I made a bad decision, I wouldn't allow myself to do that - and it feels pretty great.

One of the 'excuses'
A short while ago my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I haven't spoken about this in the public space very much, because I have always tried to keep a clear line of what is mine to share, and what isn't (for which some people should be really grateful!). I mention it today because he is currently in surgery having his prostate removed - it is apparently all contained within the prostate so we're hoping this is the worst of it and recovery can start today.
It is one of the reasons my brain has been not quite as focused as it might have been, and I thought I would share this for anyone else who might be going through something similar. We lost Derek's Dad, Norm, to cancer a few years ago now, so this has played on my mind more than I would have expected. Dad has a great prognosis, which is very different to Norm's, but I'm still concerned.

This website
You know how you make decisions early in a process that turn out to be entirely wrong? Early on, I decided to host this blog on Blogger rather than Wordpress - which I realised about 80 posts in was a bad move, only because of the limited functionality of Blogger. BUT, instead of fixing it then, when my audience was fairly non-existent, and it wouldn't have taken much effort, I persevered with wrong option. Last year I set about to address this, but got sidetracked (yeah, I put it off in all truth).
This year I am fixing the issue. I'm in the process of moving the blog to Wordpress, and if anyone tells you this is a simple process, they're not being entirely honest. I will do a post about the things I've had to do to make this work.
What that means is that this blogger hosted blog will cease to exist in the coming month, but hopefully the process will be seamless for you guys. I have not worked out changing the RSS feed, so any of you who are still getting that might need to manually make a change - but I'll advise that before it happens.

One last thing
If you haven't signed up for the dinkylune Courage newsletter, please consider taking the plunge. At the moment you get a free copy of the dinlylune manifesto, the Positive Decisions resources, and my Strategic Plan on a page template. In the coming months you will also get access to seven interviews I conducted with TED Speakers last year. These include Barry Schwartz, Dave Logan, Carl Honore, Richard St John, Derek Sivers, JD Schramm, and a brief interview with AJ Jacobs.
We spoke about their TED experience, their purpose and how I used their TED Talks in this project. Whilst I will be writing a series of articles (probably for another site) about these conversations, subscribers will be the only people getting access to the full transcripts of the discussions - something to consider anyway. And yes, subscribing to the Brain newsletter will give you the same access.
As an added bonus you get a monthly missive from me, that often contains short conversations I don't include on the blog.

Expert Shmexpert - how did we get here?

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 23:04:00 +0000

This is a bit of a ranty post, I don't do them often because I dislike controversy - but I need to say this, so thank you for giving me the space.

We're all prepared to be upsold, it is a large part of our capitalist society - "Would you like fries with that?" But there has been an increasing trend about upselling without providing the initial value that you promised. Or worse still, providing that initial product laden with manipulative sales techniques to try to ensure the upsell.

Case in point, and the reason for this post: I recently completed an expensive training course. It was an in person training course which also required me to pay for travel, accommodation and meals to attend. For my $3,000 investment, I expected more - no, I was promised more - than I received.

Trust your gut, say it with me...
Okay, let's go back a little. Last year I attended a free day, where I knew the guy talking to us would be selling to us. It is the deal with have with people who provide free content in webinars and seminars - "at the end of this I know that you will try to sell me a product, and I'm okay with that, as long as I get something of value for free." We also allow this when we sign up for someone's website freebie, but spamming us with salesy emails will quickly kill that relationship.

He did his job well and I decided to sign up for speaker training, since that is the next big step that I want to take with sharing everything I've learned. A friend of mine signed up at the same time. She did the training in November, and when I asked her about it I was disappointed that there were a few things I believed we were promised that she said they didn't get. So I called them on it, because that's the sort of thing I do nowadays. The response placated me a little, but... let's just say that the placatory details still were not provided in the training, but we'll get to that.

At this point, I feel I should say that I did get value from the course. There were parts that were very well done, and I am basically happy with the outcome - but not the manipulation, and missing content.

So why do I have a bad taste in my mouth?

From the minute we walked into the training, something felt a little off. I won't go into all of the details here, that is for my feedback form (and yes I do plan on being brutally honest about this - which is quite unlike me). What I will say, is that it was clear that we were being positioned to feel like we needed the $9,000 package - like this was all too confusing; that the experience was so transformational in three days, imagine what a year would give us; we were unable to do this alone; we had to sign up for the whole deal or else we wouldn't make it.

Simple content that many of us believed we had been promised in the sales pitch, was actually available to the higher level students only. It felt like everything over the three days was strategically designed to manipulate us - and this is not my paranoia, I number of us discussed the tactics being used on us.

Of course, the sales pitch came on Day 3, although now there was also another level - a master level that meant you didn't have to understand any of this complicated process, because they would do it for you. Don't get me wrong, I understand the attraction in that. If you just want to speak, there is a huge attraction (and possibly value) in having someone look after all of the website, social media, bio and pitching for you. And that's the rub, I get the value of these courses for people; and we did receive some great information on the course, BUT...

...since when has $3,000 become a bottom tier?

I've done a bit of training, free and paid, over the last couple of years. It's part and parcel of trying to establish a business in this crazy online world. I've learned strategies, systems, processes, tools and tactics - some fantastic, some okay, and others not worth the time I gave to them. For $3,000 I expected the focus to be on providing us with all of the value we were promised; a value packed 3 days that would blow my mind, and provide me with the basic details to get myself sorted for pitching to speakers' bureaus.

I did not expect to have basic content only available if we signed up to the next level (the speaker's bio template for example). I did not expect to feel like I was being manipulated - which makes me put my defences up, and I get even less out of it. I certainly did not expect to be made an example of because I dared challenge the celebrity in the room (don't get me started).

The good bits

I did get value, and I did meet some incredible people along the way. It would not have taken much for me to feel entirely different about this experience - actually it would have been very simple to make me feel entirely different. If all of us were valued the same, regardless of the level we registered at; if there wasn't a continual attempt to position us for the upsell; if we had been shown the basic respect of a customer who has paid a significant amount of money for a 3 day event... well this blog post would look very different.

The most valuable thing...

One of the guests told us to "back ourselves" - now this was aimed at backing ourselves by investing in the additional training, but I took it a little differently. I decided that I am done with experts, well not entirely, but I am done with new experts.

I have some incredible experts in my world, who I have weeded out from the pseudo-experts over a number of years. These are the voices I am committed to listening to, many of them are the TED speakers who have given me so much value over the years - freely, openly and with no expectation of financial return. You're going to hear from some of them in the coming months too.

For anyone else, anyone not in that inner circle already, well I'm sorry but you will have to go a long way for me to consider bumping someone from my dance card for you. So what does that mean? It means that I have already unsubscribed from 10 email lists, that I will not be buying any new courses or material, and I will trust my gut over and above any 'expert'.

What it also means is that I have a renewed belief in my ability to do this without the experts holding my hand. I had an amazingly giving person, who would never tout himself an expert but is; who was willing to share his wisdom and knowledge with me about speaking - it required me to do some work that I struggled with, so I took the easy way out. What I was reminded of is that there is no easy way, I have to do the work. I have to trust myself, and I can make this happen. It was an expensive lesson, but I think that it was possibly the most valuable lesson from the 3 days.

Are you getting disenchanted with the 'experts' who don't deliver on their promises? Or who will give you the secrets if you pay that bit extra for the next level? I'm certain it's not just me, in fact I know it isn't. Bring on the enthusiastic amateurs I say - I'd love to hear your opinion.

4 reasons I hate to ask, and a big weekend that helped me see how I've grown

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 06:07:00 +0000

This is a bit of a long post, but please stick with me, it does come full circle and has a point (as well as some geeking out fangirl moments).

My brief meeting with the exceedingly charming
and multi-talented, Neil Gaiman.

MOFO has just finished here in Hobart. For those of you who don't know what that sentence means, I'll explain that MOFO is short for MONA FOMA (or the Museum of Old and New Art: Festival of Music and Art). Oh, and Hobart is the capital city of the Australian state of Tasmania (which is both where I live and where MONA happens to be).

So, let's get back to the article...

I should start by reminding readers that Derek and I can be hermits - so it is safe to say that even when things like this happen, we often don't end up getting involved. That has improved since moving to Tasmania, but the last MOFO event we attended was way back in 2011. I decided that this year we would break out of that habit, and what better way to do that then with the amazing Neil Gaiman.

Our small island state near the bottom of the world, is one of Neil Gaiman's favourite places. He started coming here almost 20 years ago, and is a patron of the Bookend Trust, with which he is currently filming a documentary on cave spiders. But I digress... Thanks to this love affair with our state, Neil and his amazing wife Amanda Palmer, are semi-regular performers at MOFO. So this year, we decided to take in both of their shows, and this blog post starts as a review of sorts.

Neil Gaiman's The Sleeper and the Spindle
A reimagined fairy tale, the voice of Neil Gaiman, projected illustrations from the book, animations and a string quartet combine to make this a lovely storytelling experience. Neil's book, The Sleeper and the Spindle, is a combination of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, but with all of the quirks and missteps you would expect from the mind of Mr Gaiman.

It was made even more special for us because this was the first time that this work had been performed in this way, and we got to see it first in Hobart, which was pretty sweet. The whole event was made even more special for me, because I got to briefly meet with Neil after the show. See, a lovely friend had passed on some of the Dust of Other Worlds to Neil - a vial and pendant each of Faerie (because it comes from his book Stardust) and Gallifrey (since he wrote an episode of Dr Who) - and I had a quick chance for him to put a face to the gift, and for me to grab a photo with him.

I find it increasingly strange that by moving to this small island state (with a population of about half a million people), I've had more opportunity to meet people who have inspired me, than I've ever had in the much bigger states I've lived in.

Anyway, if you get an opportunity to go and see the performance, I highly recommend it. If you don't get the chance, well the book is excellent anyway; even without having Neil reading it to you.

Amanda Palmer and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
I thought about doing a whole separate post on this, but this is a whole story, so...

I enjoy Amanda Palmer's music, it is a bit quirky and probably not to everyone's taste, but I think she has an incredible voice and is a fantastic storyteller. Seeing her with the TSO was always going to be a little special though, and they didn't disappoint. Most of the performance were Amanda's songs, arranged for the orchestra by Jherek Bischoff (he also did the arrangements and played with Neil's string quartet). There were a couple of other songs; a Lou Reed cover (with Neil Gaiman), a duet with Robyn Hitchcock and Amanda performed John Grant's Glacier.

There are some artists who you 'watch' live, but with Amanda Palmer you are somehow part of the performance - like I said, she is a storyteller who takes you on an emotional ride. And then you are invited to be part of the show, when she performs the Dresden Dolls Sing. It's an experience to be ordered onto your feet and instructed to sing along, but when you give into that (like the vast majority of the audience did) it's wonderful.

Amanda didn't close with Sing though, because she was in Tasmania, and there is only one song she could close with in Tassie, even when she was performing with our Symphony Orchestra. That is, of course, Map of Tasmania - and for those of you who are not familiar with the reference that goes along with this, just Google Tasmania and you should be able to quickly work out what a woman's map of Tassie is.

I completely concur with Amanda's comment in the performance, we do have an awesome symphony orchestra here is Tasmania, and we loved the performance. She is touring with this, using other cities' orchestra's - but I'm sure they will do just as well as ours :-)

Amanda Palmer and The Art of Asking
Okay, so TED had to pop into here somewhere, and that is through Amanda Palmer. She recently released a book called The Art of Asking, which expands on her very popular TED Talk on the same topic.

Amanda gave her talk at TED2013, and it's had well over 6 million views so far. My Year of TED had ended a few months beforehand; had it not, an activity would probably have been developed around this talk. It resonated with me beyond the conversation about music fans and paying for music; it resonated with me because of the underlying discussion about "is this fair" and this quote

But the perfect tools aren't going to help us if we can't face each other and give and receive fearlessly, but, more important, to ask without shame.

Like many people I know, I've always been afraid to ask for help. I've spent a lot of time considering this in the last couple of years and I think it was generally down to a mixture of four reasons:

I didn't want to admit that I needed help, that I wasn't perfect.
I didn't want someone to help me with something that I was then unable to complete or follow through with in some way - I hate disappointing people or feeling indebted to people.
I didn't want to risk being rejected (this probably should have been number 1).
I didn't like to impose on people.

Some of this started shifting with My Year of TED - the perfectionist trait was certainly given a huge kick, and I became far more open to the concept of being rejected, or failing in some way. Then Amanda's talk sat in my brain for a while, and when I started selling my creations at markets it came back to me. I was not a street performer, but I was suddenly standing face-to-face with people, asking them to pay me for the things that I had created - and I spent a lot of time wondering whether the price I was asking was "fair".

So now I ask - because what's the worst that could happen

The markets have definitely improve my ability to ask things of people, and last year I put out a number of asks. What I discovered was that the majority of people were happy to help if they could, and that any rejection I experienced had little to do with me, but more to do with the fact that I was asking busy people who only have so much time to give away. There is a way to ask that doesn't put you in a vulnerable place where you tie all of your value to them saying yes. I will write more about that when I review Amanda's book - because I'm hoping I can find a way to articulate it, or she might have done it for me.

This all leads full circle you know - without Amanda's talk, and how it seeped into my experiences, I might not have had the courage to ask a friend to connect me with a stranger, so I could ask them to pass my gift of Dust onto Neil Gaiman. If I hadn't asked for that, then my friend would not have been able to help me, I wouldn't have made a new friend, and I would not have had the chance to meet Neil Gaiman.

When I took The Art of Asking to get signed my Amanda Palmer after the performance, I thanked her for her wonderful TED Talk - I didn't want to take up too much time explaining what she had started though :-) Neil was there as well, so I took the opportunity to say hello again, get a Sandman comic signed for my brother (who introduced me took the creative genius of Neil Gaiman through that series) and to have a slightly longer conversation about Dust.

He was very lovely and generous, and those stolen couple of minutes would not have occurred if I hadn't learned to ask. I'm still learning, but then again, there are many skills and lessons from My Year of TED, and subsequent TED Talks, that I continue to learn and grow with all the time.

Are you someone who asks other for help or assistance? Someone who asks for what they want or need? If not, what do you think stops you?

2015's Three Words - Build, Strong and Focus

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 20:41:00 +0000

It's that time of year again, well actually it is a few days past that time of year, but who's counting :-)

After much deliberation I've settled on three words that will drive my actions and activity for 2015. Last week I reviewed 2014's words (Brave, Calm, Connect), and I was pretty happy with how well these words helped me define 2014.

So what are the magic words for 2015?
I decided that this year was about building on the successes of last year, improving my resilience and health, and stopping myself from getting distracted by the fun stuff, so...

BUILD(ING)
This isn't just about building dinkylune, although that is a major part of what I am building this year. I will be focused on constructing courses, pulling all of the parts of the business together into a more cohesive offering, and building something strong and viable.
This word is also about building more confidence - confidence in my abilities to create and run a business; and confidence from other people in the value I have to offer.
Finally it is about building a stronger and more involved audience and community. So lots of building.

STRONG
One of the areas I have neglected for too long is my physical health, and particularly keeping my body strong. I live inside my head too much, and I need to change that. So I decided that Strong would be a great focus for my body this year.
It is also important for me to keep myself mentally strong, particularly in relation to my mental health, so that works as well. This also aligns with building confidence, working on my emotional strength and resilience to the difficult challenges I am taking on in my life.
Lastly, it marks a continuation of my journey to live authentically and create a life that strengthens my spirit and capacity for joy in this life.

FOCUS

This is possibly the most important word of the three, because I certainly have not had enough of this in the last two years. I know that it's only natural to be overwhelmed with the possibilities and new ideas that come from starting a new business, but I need to stop and do the work if I want this to happen.

So, this year I will Focus more, and be distracted less. I will do the work of setting goals and planning more. I know that there are three areas of focus that I need to maintain, and I am not going to divert myself on bright and shiny ideas until the work is done on those tasks.

This will probably be the hardest, but without focusing on the doing the work, getting the products out there, asking for the sale - well this venture will never make it off the ground.

So there you have it, the three words that will define 2015 for me. It's funny that this year I found it significantly more difficult to choose only three words, last year was a lot easier. I think it's because there are so many things I've realised I need to do to make all of this work.

How about you? Have you done the three words exercise? Do you know what your focus for 2015 will be? Would you like to share it with us?

2014's words were Brave, Calm and Connect - how did I go?

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 04:09:00 +0000

I had not planned on writing a post like this, quite frankly the next planned post was when I sorted out my three words for 2015 (which may not be until early January at this stage).

Something happened recently that has made me a little more reflective, made me think a bit more about what 2014 has been – and whether I lived up to the three words I set for myself this year. As a reminder, for 2014 my three words were BRAVE, CALM and CONNECT, the post explaining them is here. So how would I reflect on this year in relation to these words?

BRAVE

This was probably my bravest year to date. Starting with my TEDxHobart talk, then launching my business and running my first 90 Days of TEDcourse (I’ll be giving an update about that in January). It is a fascinating process to keep pushing ahead with something when every fibre of your body is screaming out at in you in fear.

What I’ve realised is that fear is just a mechanism to protect me – and it is great that my brain wants to protect me from failure, making a fool of myself, getting hurt, loss etc. But if I don’t do the things that scare me, I will never achieve the success that I want to achieve; I will never get where I want to go. I have chosen a risky path in some ways, and my brain just has to be retrained to get on board or get out of the way.

I’ve gone a long way in that retraining, but I still have a long way to go. So, even though it won’t be a word for this year, I still have to remind myself to be brave – but I think that is true of most people.

CALM

I could have done this a little better at times throughout the year. My ability for calmness improved when I started my own business; gaining greater control over the structure of your day introduces an innate calmness. Don’t get me wrong, that control comes with fear and anxiety over getting paid work, but there is something wonderful in knowing a random SLJ is not going to be thrown over the fence to you without any notice.

There is an aspect of this that will come into my 2015 words as well, because I think I need to put in more effort to looking after my mental health. Although, I still think that the greatest thing I can do in looking after my mental health is protecting myself against people trying to mess with it.

CONNECT

This was my year of networking, online and offline. This year, I connected more with new people than at any time in my life. I joined Hobart’s Live Your Legend get togethers – a group that has allowed me to meet, and develop lovely friendships, with a small number of like-minded people in Hobart. It has been wonderful watching the members of the group change and grow throughout the year – and they are a very positive addition to my new freelancing life.

Talking at TEDxHobart gave me a couple of other new connections, who have become wonderful additions to my world down here. The Ripple community has also added a few people who have become important to my support network. Then there are the two companies that I have started doing consulting/training work for as well.

Online I joined Chris Brogan’s Brave community, did Ramit Sethi’s ZTL course (and trialled his Brain’s Trust as well), and forged stronger connections with some writing friends in the US. The online space also saw the expansion of my dinkylune mailing lists, although I would still like them to grow a lot larger – but who wouldn’t?

As well as all of the new connections, most of my older friends continue to provide me with support, laughter and sanity breaks. This is harder with the ones I seldom physically see, but they have still been there for me, and I cherish that.

So, I think that connection went well this year – combined with Brave it has brought about some lovely outcomes in my life.

What are your reflections on the year that was? Did you do three words for the year or have any goals that you set for yourself? Have you reflected on how well you met, or didn’t meet them?

I’ll be back in early 2015 with my three words for the year. I have two but the third is proving a little elusive at the moment.

The dinkylune 2014 stash giveaway

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 00:35:00 +0000

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who entered the competition. The winners have been notified and we have received one confirmation - Tasha from Tasmania. We should receive the second one shortly, or it will be redrawn next week.

I’ve been making so many wonderful new products for Christmas this year that I decided I should give some of them away – and since I’ve never done a giveaway it’s long overdue.

I’m calling it dinkylune’s 2014 stash, and it is a collection of many of my market products and my ebook. The stash includes one each of the following:

Do-Pad: A notepad for doodlers
Heartfelt pendant (with my favourite inspirations)
Dust of Other Worlds Pendant (you get to pick)
Tin of Jewels AND Tin of Treasure
Booklovers pack (a small handbound journal, 10 bookplates and a bookmark)
Winelovers pack (set of antique remedies tags and 4 wine id tags)
Living with Intent ebook (in PDF format)

Visit the competition page to enter by 30 November - so I can mail them out before xmas. Just answer a simple question about Dorothy and her friends, enter your email and you're entered. Then, if you want more chances to win, share your unique URL with friends.

dinkylune 2014 stash prize pack

Will you have a Great Life - or a mediocre one?

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 21:50:00 +0000

Can you answer that one? Do you even know what a Great Life means to you? Is it fame and fortune? Love and a big family? The ability to impact and influence people on any scale? Or a combination of all of these things?

You might remember the post I did a little while back about Larry Smith's TED Talk (Chances are you will not have a great career, unless...) where he talks about most people being afraid to discover their passion, and few people who discover it being willing to pursue it. Well this question is not about career, it is about your life in general - and it is not necessarily about an arbitrary and external concept of "greatness", but what a great means in the context of your life. In other words, what would an excellent or above average life be for you?

What's this all about?
I ask this question because I have been pondering it quite a bit in the last year. It aligns with the work I've been doing on choices and decision making - which came from the shocking realisation that I had been a passive decision maker in my own life for way too long. Which all makes sense, with no idea what a Great Life would look like for me, why would I take the risks in making decisions when I didn't know where I wanted to go? Surely this is familiar for some of you.

Last night I gave a talk to a small group of mumpreneurs here in Hobart. It was the first time that I had talked about what I've been putting together, and so I thought I'd share a little of it with you today. Mainly what I thought I would share is the page I put together yesterday, my notes for the talk if you like. I decided that the bullet point list wouldn't do this time, I needed to capture it in a different way.

Start with the elements of great and work around clockwise; this is where my brain is currently going with this topic. I found it powerful to understand these things, and knowing it has definitely allowed a shift in my confidence to make the big decisions, as well as my courage to take action once that decision has been made.

Starting to come together
This is all coming together in an interesting way for me, and my hope is that you can get something out of all of this as well. If you've been around for a little while you will know that there is a free resource about helping you become a more active decision maker in your own life (called Positive Decisions) - you get access to it when you sign up to the dinkylune courage newsletter. You also get the dinkylune manifesto, which adds to this discussion as well. You can sign up through the Positive Decisions page, or in the top right of this page.

What do you think about the story in the image? Is there an aspect of it you would like me to expand on? Do you think I'm off the mark? Or can you see how it relates to your life as well?

A reminder about owning my story - a TED Talk you should watch

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 21:55:00 +0000

I was writing up the activity for vulnerability for the 90 Days of TED participants yesterday, and thought I would listen to Eve Ensler's TED Talk on happiness body and soul again. I had used Eve's talk as part of 30 days of Vulnerability, and re-watching the talks has been one of the joyful processes in writing up the material for the course.

Just thinking about what I am going to write here tears me up; Eve's talk is so profound and inspiring. It is what she says at the end of the talk that made me want to include it in my activity in the first place. Of course, if I was doing a TED based activity on vulnerability then Brené Brown's talks would be the basis for them - but the final part of Eve's talk contributed something so profound for me.

What Eve introduces is that ability to heal the broken part inside yourself, and I think most of us would dearly love to be able to do that. This is a summary of the words that have the capacity to bring me to tears, even while writing this blog post:

"...when we give in the world what we want the most, we heal the broken part inside each of us. ...that happiness exists in action; it exists in telling the truth and saying what your truth is; and it exists in giving away what you want the most."

During my reflection on 30 days of Vulnerability this was what I had to say on the topic:

I have realised that the thing I have always wanted in the world is encouragement and support. I have this in my adult life, I have found people who give this to me readily, but I feel that I have missed out on so much because I didn't have this for so many years - for the most important years.

So, what does that look like?
I have kept hold of this feeling, it is part of my purpose and the underlying intention in what I have been trying to create and do since completing My Year of TED - but it has become a part of me now, and so I am often not consciously aware of it. Listening to Eve's talk yesterday brought that awareness back in a flood of tears, along with the feeling that I am not doing enough in that area.

As much as I am realising my dreams, and reaching some of my goals; others remain static. Some of them I cease to think about because I've become lost in how I'm going to be able to achieve them. I remain hopeful that I will, but I know that in this moment I don't have the skill or capacity to hit the mark with it - and maybe that's okay. No, that is definitely okay!

It may be two years since I completed My Year of TED, and that might sound like a long period of time to get everything done, but it isn't. I own my story now, and I'm willing to share that story - I still have to work out exactly what that will give the world. At least I know that I'm on the right path now, and heading in the right direction.

All of this is to say, watch Eve's talk; listen to her story and what she has given the world and then open yourself up to the questions of whether you own your story? And whether you are giving away what you want most? For me, this is a timely reminder of how happy I am that I learned to be self-compassionate - I don't think I'd be surviving this journey without it.

Mid-way through 90 Days of TED - Interview with Ryk Goddard

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 23:22:00 +0000

You might have read the earlier post with my 90 Days of TED interview with Ryk Goddard. Well he invited me back to 936 ABC Hobart the other week for an update on how things were going at the halfway point of the course.

We had a good chat about fashion, slowing down and how the focus is pushing people out of their comfort zones. And yes, I will be going back for another chat at the end, hopefully with a couple of participants.

Revisiting the Lessons - Activities 3 and 4

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 23:14:00 +0000

Better listening - what I forgot
I don't know why I forgot how much I enjoyed the three minutes of silence from Better Listening, or even listening to mundane sounds - but I did. The participants of the course quickly reminded me of how soothing this activity can be, as they all enjoyed trying to improve their listening.

I hadn't forgotten Julian Treasure's work completely, after all I shared details about one of his more recent talks a few months ago. But I had forgotten that daily process of resetting my listening and improving the quality of sound in my environment.

So, as the participants went through the process, I started to focus on mundane sounds and silence again - and I'm trying to keep it in my day.

The three A's - regaining joy
It is far too easy to get caught up in the first world problems of our lives, forgetting just how incredible our world can be. We all do this, it's safe here you can admit it :-)

Engaging with your world like you are experiencing everything for the first time is a great reminder about how amazing things truly are. I found it refreshing to take this focus on again when the participants were Living the Three A's - it does increase your capacity for joy.

Other distractions
The participants are well over halfway through their 90 days now. I had intended to write these posts revisiting the activities for myself on a more regular basis, but there has been a very interesting shift for me this month.

I've been writing up content for the course, and I've been doing my day job - but I have not been inclined to write anything else. It hasn't been writer's block, it's just that I've been busy creating products for markets in the lead up to Christmas.

For those of you who don't know, part of my business is making. You might have seen the page on the Do-Pad - a notepad for doodlers; I also make jewellery, and a number of other products now as well. I've been geeking out and having a wonderful time creating and making some really fun products. While I feel a little guilty for not writing blog posts (or even sending out a newsletter this month), the time spent making has been fun and rejuvenating, so I make no apologies for it.

I do aim to get back into writing more consistently in November, so expect to see more from me. I'll even share some of the nerdy stuff I've been producing (well I think it's pretty nerdy).

A different way of viewing your Inner Critic (and the external ones)

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 08:54:00 +0000

You know that horrid little voice in your head that confirms all of your doubts about yourself and your abilities - it is your inner critic, and we all have one. I don't know about you, but mine was particularly scathing and nasty. She was my loudest internal voice, and she did not miss a beat when she had a chance to remind me how badly I had messed something up.

I've spent a lot of time, since finally learning the skill of self-compassion during My Year of TED, trying to get to know her better and find a way that we can work together. I think I might have mentioned that I did some shadow work with her a little earlier this year, which was a fantastic process.

The thing is that our inner critic has our best interests at heart! As hard as it is to believe, this voice thinks it is doing something positive for us - it just has a weird way of doing it; or does it?

Randy Pausch's lecture
I was making jewellery today, so I took some time out to listen to some TED Talks, and to re-listen to Randy Pausch's Really achieving your childhood dreams lecture. It's been a number of years since I first listened to this talk, and it still makes me cry - I dare anyone to listen to this talk and not tear up a little bit.

Before I go any further, if you have not watched this talk then please consider putting it on your "things I must watch" list. It is an hour and sixteen minutes long, but you will not regret it. He gives you the back story at the beginning; I won't go into any more details.

Anyway, I've watched this talk two and a half times previously, but for some reason this bit leapt out at me today:

When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.

It leapt out at me today because I thought about the inner critic - the role mine thought she was playing, which is likely to be the same role that yours is playing. She thought that being critical was the best way to keep me on track, and to make sure that I didn't become too confident (read arrogant).

Sure you have critics in your life that are not being helpful, their commentary comes from a place of envy and fear - but what if you were to shift to consider your critics as people who care enough to speak up?

When you think of it this way, does it alter the way you view your inner critic, and the external critics in your life? When you realise that criticism is how they are showing that they care about you, and that they still think you're worth helping, does it change that relationship at all? Just intrigued to see if this quote speaks to anyone else too.

Revisiting the lessons from My Year of TED - Activities 1 and 2

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 08:46:00 +0000

We're almost a third of the way into 90 Days of TED, and it's been a fascinating process so far. The participants have had all sorts of interesting insights, some much like my own experience and others completely different. I think that this is the beauty of the content and the structure of the course, it allows everyone to take their own journey, since we all have different trigger points and issues.

Writing up all of the content and discussing these talks and activities with participants has reminded me of some of the valuable lessons from the project that I have casually forgotten. I say casually forgotten because it's not like I have forgotten them entirely, but on a day to day basis I do forget them - I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

So, I thought that I would do a bit of a series of posts about those lessons I am revisiting as I guide other people through this process.

Fashion and pushing outside your comfort zone
I was reminded just how traumatising this activity had been for me, watching other people struggle with shifting their fashion mindset. For me this was all about allowing myself to be seen, the first huge step towards increasing my vulnerability.

Looking back, it's not like the outfits were outrageous or controversial, but they were a change from my 'uniform' of blending into the background. My wardrobe has toned down a bit from that experience, but the concept of it has remained. I am more conscious about the clothes I wear, the outfits I create for myself - especially when I am choosing 'hiding' clothes. Now, if I create an outfit that allows me to hide I know that there is something I am uncertain of, something I need to address, and I do that.

Who would have thought that a six minute talk about Wearing nothing new would have had such a profound impact on my understanding of myself and my inner workings? I think Jessi Arrington might have known, hence the reason she took the stage to share that idea. Thank you Jessi.

Thanking and praising others
The group of participants is an interesting mix, quite diverse in their backgrounds and personalities, which is great. Some of them were always going to find this activity quite easy - but they still struggled with having the conversation about how they want to be thanked.

I can't say that I've perfected that skill, although I have had a couple of conversations since this activity about how I want to be thanked, or that I need to be thanked for something. It is a very strange process to ask for thanks, but I have worked out why I don't like to do it - well one of the reasons. Mostly, I get this thought in my head that I'm still not great at thanking and praising others, so if I ask for thanks or praise then they might throw it back at me that I don't do it for them. Admittedly I could counter with "then maybe you need to learn to ask for it as well", but I know that some internal part of me would start beating myself up for being a horrible, selfish person. So, best not to ask really :-)

Overall, I think that this is still one I need to be more mindful of, I need to get back into the giving mindset - the mindset of "how can I make your day a little nicer".

How about you? Do you thank and praise the people in your life enough? Are you someone who is good at asking for thanks and praise?

Next time... Listening skills and the Three As of Awesome.

Do you want to be a better decision maker?

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 06:47:00 +0000

Decisions and choices are part of everyday life. Some are made reflexively, without much effort on our part - others require extensive deliberations of the possible outcomes. Regardless, making decisions is something you will do a lot in your life, so you need to be prepared to take on that challenge in a positive way.

If you have seen the outcome of 30 days of Choice and 30 days of Being Wrong, you will know that one of the significant realisations of those activities was the discovery that I had actively avoided making many decisions in my life. Not the insignificant ones either, big decisions like relationships and career choices.

What I learned from this discovery is that a lot of people are afraid to make big choices in their lives, they are afraid to own the outcome by actively making a decision. It's one of the reasons we stay in jobs we hate and relationships that might not be healthy for us - as the saying goes "better the devil you know". You might remember a recent post on this topic, Confidence, choices and being an active decision maker - well I have just had another post published on the Cracking the Happiness Code website that is an extension of this.

The reason that I'm writing and talking about this is because I think it is incredibly important that we all become more active decision makers in our own lives. Through My Year of TED, I discovered many things that have helped me become a happier and more fulfilled person. After almost two years living the changes and reflecting on the lessons, I think that shifting my mindset around choices has been one of the most important outcomes. I now have greater control over the choices and decisions in my life; a willingness to accept the consequences of my decisions; confidence in my ability to make good decisions; and, most importantly, I know the direction I want my decisions to take me.

That's why I developed the Positive Decisions resource - because these are skills that I want everyone to have in their lives. It's also this is a free resource for subscribers to the dinkylune newsletter, because I want to share it with everyone. If you are interested in learning more then you can sign up on the dinkylune website - and if you think this is as important as I do, consider sharing it with friends.

Are you an active decision maker in your life? Do you have the courage and confidence to make and own all of your big decisions?

Lessons from my first course launch - or what happens when you think small and don't trust yourself

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 03:29:00 +0000

I decided that I should write a blog post about my experiences in the last month as I launch my first course - 90 Days of TED. In short, I knew that I probably wasn't prepared enough to launch this course, and my suspicions were borne out in the events of the last couple of weeks. The worst part was not the failings in process, but the failings in my own beliefs - but you'll see that as we go through. If you are considering launching an online course you might learn something from this post, or you might just be shaking your head and saying "well duh".

Developing my sales page
In early July, I started the process of changing my Wordpress site over to OptimizePress, because I knew I had to develop better sales pages, and it seemed to offer some good tools for this. Let me start this section by saying that playing around with your website can be pointless busy work, it makes you feel like you're achieving something, but often you are not achieving a lot.

I tried to limit the amount of time it would take to transition, but there were still a lot of hours transferring old content into the new format, and improving that content in the process. I don't think that this time was wasted, but given the fact I would be launching a course on 1 September, and that registrations had to close in mid-August, I probably could have survived without migrating all of the pages as a priority.

Anyway, the sales page development itself was very iterative, and since it was my first real sales page I think I needed to learn as I went. There was a lot of tweaking structure, flow and language as I went along, but again that was a learning process so I wasn't too harsh on myself. The bigger issue came when I started to realise that vital pieces of information were lacking, like the content and timetable for the course for example. I realised that I had not answered all of the basic questions people might have about this rather unique course - I assumed far too much.

Addressing that problem was very simple, so simple that I should have thought to do it in the first instance. So my first lesson was to make sure that the content on the sales page would give potential buyers everything they needed to know - I have no idea how many potential participants opted out because they didn't understand the course.

But that, of course, was not the lesson - the lesson was that I needed to trust what the experts say about this sort of thing, and not my own fears. Even though I thought that the sales page was getting too long, and I feared I would be wasting people's time to have to go through that much detail, it was the detail that they wanted.

Having a promotion strategy
This falls into that category of "things you know you should do but don't." I had structured a bit of a promotion strategy, hell I even wrote a press release for the course launch - trust me that is a huge 'outside my comfort zone' thing to do. But I should have had it better defined, I should have had Facebook posts and Tweets scheduled to go; I should have had a structured message of when I was going to address particular topics.

What happened instead was a little higgledy-piggledy. The press release only went out to a couple of media outlets, which was largely due to fear and an ingrained belief that no one would be interested, that I still struggle to overcome. It did culminate in a radio interview though, which was a fantastic experience. The majority of the promotion was done through Facebook and Twitter, I even started using a dinkylune Facebook page for this promotion. I also used email to get the message out to local people I knew, since the course is being run in Hobart.

What I didn't do was launch to my email subscribers first - which in hindsight I wish I had done, but the timing with my newsletter was all wrong and I decided to hold off until the next issue. I didn't put myself out there with promotional material in local cafes and relevant businesses (this is a very word of mouth city). Worst of all, I didn't offer any webinar or other local event for people to get to know me and know what I can offer.

The lesson here was mainly one of timing - I felt I had to start the course in September, so the participants could complete the activities before the crazy period of Christmas and New Year. But June and July were very hectic months for me, and I was not prepared to do a full launch the right way. So, I put myself under pressure and, as a result, the promotion was not as good as it should have been.

But I also think that there is part of me that wanted the launch group to be small, because there is always a level of fear when you do something for the first time. Maybe this was a subconscious way of doing just that - something to consider.

Testing your technical solutions
I love technology, and for the most part the feeling seems to be mutual. That means that I do all my own tech (website, mailing lists, social media, videos), and that usually works pretty well - usually. Some of you might have the seen posts about the tech fail for the sales page, so I'll explain what occurred. I had set up a new mailing list in MailChimp to capture registrations, since the course material is being emailed out I figured that this was the easiest way to capture their details (course payment was done through a manual invoicing process, since they are all locals).

When I set the first registration point on the page I tested the new list to make sure it would work - and it did. I deleted myself from the list and then set about finishing the page and publishing it to the world. Then I received no registrations through that page; people could also email me to register and there was activity through that method.

On the Friday morning of the final day of registration, I checked my emails and found a simple note along the lines of "Hi Kylie, I registered online for the course and just wanted to check you received it." I had not, and panic set in. I spent 20 minutes checking the functionality on the sales page, trying to resolve the problem, and then removing the registration and asking people to email me their details instead.

Kicking into damage control, I let people know that if they have registered I do not have it - "how many participants have I lost with this f$*k up?!" was the morning mantra, along with "how could I be so stupid?" and other expletive ridden phrases I won't include here. You've been there before with something in your life, you know the drill.

So there is a huge lesson here, check the tech after you go live. Better still, have a friend or relative check the tech from a different location - but whatever you do, check the tech!

Maintaining a belief in your material
The worst part of tech failure was the realisation that not a single part of me had considered that the technology was the cause of my lack of registrations through the website! Think about this for a second - I had received no online registrations at all, but rather than even contemplating "maybe there is a technical problem", I assumed it was all in the material and presentation.

That is the mindset shift I need to make in my life - and I mentioned it a little earlier as well. I need to maintain the belief in my own material, after all I had spoken with a few people about the course before I launched and there was general enthusiasm. Oh I know that does not translate to sales, I am not naive, but assuming that it did not appeal to anyone is not a positive mindset!

The final lesson is that I should have had more belief in my material; given myself the benefit of the doubt and checked all the other variables in the process. It might well have been that no one had registered, but that should not have been my default belief.

But I'm not beating myself up
On a side note, after my initial meltdown and resolving the problem, my inner critic was generally kept in check throughout the day. I was quite calm about everything that had happened, and the focus was more about letting people know (just in case) rather than beating myself up. I don't think I could begin to explain to you all just how huge a shift that is in my life - the old Kylie would still be torturing herself over this failure next week. I am still a little annoyed with myself, but it's nothing compared to pre-MYoT Kylie. Even writing all of this down I am not getting angry with myself; and understanding that I have made that mindset shift nearly makes the failure worthwhile.
[I love this image by the way, he is the image for my Vulnerability activity in the course, so I thought I'd share him with you :-) ]

What now?
On the 1st of September, a small group of eager participants will start 90 Days of TED. They will be guided through a challenging and fun set of activities to help them realise and shift some of their own negative mindsets. I'm extremely excited about the process, and I can't wait to share their outcomes (very generally) with all of you. Then, in early 2015, I will launch the course online, for people outside my small island State to change their lives as well.

But rest assured, when I launch the course for the rest of the world - I will have a sales page that answers all of your questions (well almost all); a promotion strategy that will focus on making this anything but small; tested and validated technical solutions for registrations and management of participants; and, a complete and unwavering belief in the material that I am sharing with you all.

Are you planning on launching an online course anytime soon? Do you think that you are prepared, externally and internally, for the challenge?

Radio gaga? - no, the interview went quite well thank you

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 00:39:00 +0000

Forgive me if this is a little rambling, I have been awake for far too many hours today, after only four hours of sleep (and lunch is still an hour and a half away). Why the lack of sleep? I hear you ask. Well this morning I was interviewed by Ryk Goddard on ABC Local Radio here in Hobart about My Year of TED and the launch of the 90 Days of TED course.

Listen to the interview here

That's right, after far too long for my liking, I have finally finished all of the course material for 90 Days of TED. Very excitingly, I have decided to run it for the first time here in Hobart (that's in Tasmania, the small island state in Australia where I live). It was actually the suggestion of a friend down here that I run it locally for the launch, since it will allow me to run it as a masterclass and I can get direct feedback from participants.

Are you interested in understanding yourself better?

Would you like to become a person who takes action from inspiration?

Are you courageous enough to try on challenging ideas for 90 days?

Are you at a crossroads and uncertain about where you want to go next?

If you tick any of those boxes and are located in (or around) Hobart, then check out the course page on the dinkylune website for more details and registration links.

Numbers are limited to 12 and registrations close on Friday 15 August.

Breaching privacy and a lack of awareness

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 00:05:00 +0000

Dumb Little Man have been kind enough to published another post from me. This one is outside my usual fare, but it is a subject I am becoming increasingly more passionate about. It's called Three reasons I Hate My Facebook Friends, and is the precursor to a more detailed etiquette guide on social media that I am finishing up right now.

The social media etiquette guide will be made available to people who subscribe to the ~~Brian~~ Brain content within dinkylune, you can sign up here and you will get the guide within the next week.

Edit: What the hell is Brian content? This just did my head in, it is of course Brain.

Birthdays - celebration or reflection? Which are you?

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 04:06:00 +0000

Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm turning 42 - which is a little bit exciting since I am a big Douglas Adams fan. For any of you out there who aren't familiar with his incredible five part trilogy, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question on the meaning of life. Now I know that it probably has nothing to do with age, but given everything that has happened in my life over the last three years, that's how I'm looking at it.

I always get reflective around my birthday, I know that there are other people who look upon it as a chance to refresh and celebrate what is about to happen in the next year, but that's not my mode. I tend to think back on what has happened, and lament the passing on another year that I didn't quite reach my goals - yes I did this when I didn't even know what my goals were.

This year I thought I would share three thoughts that have been going through my head in the lead up to my birthday. If you are a reflector like me they might be familiar, if you are a celebrator then this will help you realise the crap the other half put themselves through.

Revealing the broken parts
When my 40th birthday came around in 2012, I was well into My Year of TED. Unfortunately though, my birthday was punctuated by 30 days of Choice and 30 days of Being Wrong. This was extremely poor planning on my behalf, as I was already in a reflective mood about my life because I was turning 40, adding in activities that explored my regrets and how I make decisions was like pouring petrol on a fire.

This was extremely unfortunate for Derek, who took me away for the weekend and wasn't entirely prepared for the revelations that I had begun to experience. He even heard the confession of the worst thing I have ever done in my life - which I am not sharing with you here, that one isn't even going into the book. Some secrets are better kept.

Although it seemed like bad timing, I contend that my sub-conscious planned it to force my conscious brain into crisis - so that I would finally understand my tendency to be too passive in the big decisions in life. It was difficult to learn these things about myself, and I spent the rest of July and August in a fairly bad place emotionally, but I wouldn't change that for the world. My 40th birthday was the day I pulled the curtain back for good, no more peeking behind it and then promptly forgetting - it was time to know and deal with it.

Friendships I let pass me by
As far as birthdays go, my 21st was a high point in their history (long story). My boyfriend at the time, and his friends (who I had known for about two years) threw me a 'surprise' party to celebrate. This was still at a time in my life where I had no idea who I was; where self-esteem and self-confidence were things I struggled with; and where I was under the misconception that I had to rely on other people for my happiness.

Sadly, those thoughts and feelings hung around throughout my 20s and early 30s - and I think they only started being addressed and resolved a decade ago, when I started to take more active control of my life. My Year of TED has allowed me to put a nail in the coffin of these doubts and false theories on life; better late than never I guess.

I mention this celebration because it reminds me that I have had a lot of great people in my life, that brought me joy at various times. Some of them also brought me pain, but I think I probably did that for just as many people as well. And for some reason, this year it feels important for me to acknowledge all of the wonderful friends in my life - particularly the ones from my past who I probably never appreciated enough, and certainly not in words.

If any of you are reading this, there is a huge chance that I cherished you and wanted to keep you in my life more than I ever admitted. I've spent a lot of my life not allowing myself to be vulnerable, so telling you how I felt was never going to happen - but there are a lot of you that I miss, and I wish I'd had the courage to tell you that then.

Half my life is over
Okay, I don't know this for sure - it could be more than half or it might be a little less, but I'm definitely not at the beginning. For some reason the thought that I need to get off my arse and do something with my life hit me hard a few weeks ago. More than ever before, this year I've realised that I'm middle-aged - and that's been a little rough to deal with.

This struck me in the weirdest way, because you have to understand that I have never thought of myself as an attractive person, I am certainly not one of the 'beautiful people'. For some reason though, this year it hit me that I am middle-aged and there is no turning back from here. This is a very random thought because a few weeks ago Derek and I celebrated 10 years together, and I am incredibly happy with our relationship and our lives together - so why should the loss of youth and attraction hit me this year? I think my brain just decided to pick a new way to torture me, because it can.

More importantly, when you realise that half your life is over, you realise that maybe you should have done more with that time. Oh, I know that the first 18 years are school, so what can you really achieve? Then four years at University, which you can only do so much with - so really I've only had 20 years to play with, but what did I do in those 20 years? Okay for ten of them I was busy screwing my life up with two failed marriages, and that takes a bit of focus and energy you know. All I mean is that I could have achieved more with better direction and some confidence.

What's this all about?
This could just be a weird, rambling post to capture my mindset for my 42nd birthday, but I think it is a little more than that. It is a reminder to my current self to stop wasting time with pointless things; to remind the important people in my life that is what they are, important; and to keep pushing forward with all of the tough choices I am making.

There are some lessons from My Year of TED that I forget, from time to time - ticking over another year is a great opportunity to remind myself of everything I learned.

Oh, and don't think I'm in a funk about this - it is what it is, and it is the way my brain works. It doesn't mean I'm sad and I will have a crap birthday, it just means I'm reminding myself to enjoy it even more. So much so that this year I am going out to dinner with a large group (okay 10) of friends to celebrate - which almost never happens in my world.

What's your birthday mode? Are you the sort that celebrates being alive and looks forward to the next year? Or are you more like me, reflecting on what has occurred and what you still want to achieve?

And if you are feeling in a generous mood for my birthday, I'd love you to share the blog with at least one other person. The buttons are just below this, thank you :-)

Confidence, choices and being an active decision maker

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 22:13:00 +0000

I recently asked my subscribers for suggestions on topics they would like me to cover and the resounding answer was confidence and choices - which is great because that's right up my alley.

The response to this is Positive Decisions - a two part resource to help you rediscover your confidence around decision making, and to help you understand what success looks like for you. The idea is that one resource helps you define where you want your decisions to take you, while the other one let's you have more confidence to evaluate the options.

Why Positive Decisions?
During My Year of TED, one of the major realisations I experienced was how passively I had been making decisions in my life - well okay how I hadn't made many of the big decisions in my life. The more I have thought about all of this, the more I have developed a strong belief that this passive decision making plagues a lot of people.

Barry Schwartz recently confirmed this for me when I interviewed about his TED Talks (The Paradox of Choice and Our Loss of Wisdom) and how I used them in My Year of TED:

...there is a temptation to let big things happen to you, because people are so worried about how they'll feel if they take ownership of big decisions and they don't work out. It takes courage to own up to the fact that you're in charge of this and you have to decide, and it's not hard for me to understand why people are sometimes reluctant to do that.
Fear of a bad outcome just completely dominates the anticipation of a good outcome when it comes to big decisions. People stick with their jobs. They stick with jobs they don't hate but they don't love, rather than risking a new job or a new career. It doesn't feel nearly as much of a decision that you are keeping your job as it would feel if you changed your job. And I think maybe the same thing with relationships.

Positive Decisions is about trying to help other people be more active in the choices they are given in life. It contains a lot of the techniques that I have used to become a more active decision maker, and keep the confidence I've needed to take on the challenges of the last few years.

Part One is ready for you now
Part 1 - The Confidence to Actively Make Choices is now available to dinkylune subscribers, if you haven't signed up yet you can do it here. This contains activities to help you shift any negativity you might have about your capability and capacity to make good choices.

Part two will be released in the next couple of weeks, focusing on success statements.

And because life can be full of serendipity, TED put up a talk recently on choices, Ruth Chang on How to Make Hard Choices, which I only watched on the weekend. The last couple of minutes reinforce my belief on gaining control of decisions, it's a fascinating talk.

Do you struggle with the hard choices in life? Do you think that you are active or passive in your decision making?

It was easier before - or was it?

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 05:04:00 +0000

Many of you know that I have been struggling a bit with setting up a business, and pushing through a lot of internal barriers - some of which I never realised I had. Earlier this year I wrote a piece that captured some of the feelings I was experiencing about this. I wasn't sure whether to share it, or how to share it.

I'm not sure why, but in my head it sounded better being spoken, but that seemed a bit of a stretch for me at the time. Today I decided to bite the bullet. The written piece has been posted on Medium (if you like it on there can you click the Recommend button please), and I've created a very simple YouTube video with the audio.

For all of you struggling with change in your lives, particularly big changes like I've gone through, I hope that you enjoy this - and I'd love to know what you think of it.

A simple solution to open plan noise by Julian Treasure

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 23:45:00 +0000

Activity 3 in My Year of TED was Better Listening - inspired by Julian Treasure's TED Talks 5 ways to listen better and Shh! Sound health in 8 steps for two reasons (mainly using the former). When I took on this activity it was mainly designed around improving the quality of my listening, and the sound in my environment. Below is what I said about it in the launch post:

This is about so much more than "active listening", it is about improving your quality of hearing and ability to channel and enjoy sound. Even more than that it's about connecting and understanding your environment and the other people in it.

The challenge for me is to become a conscious listener - to become better connected with my environment and also find appropriate ways to control my soundscape when I need to.

I mention this because yesterday I listened to Julian's latest talk, given at TEDxCannes, The sound of happiness. Julian's progression with trying to get designers of spaces to incorporate sound into their work, as much as light, has been interesting to watch.

Open plan doesn't work
It's fascinating that there is still a lack of uptake in what he is talking about. I worked in open plan offices for most of my working life, I was fortunate enough to have an office for a while when I was in Defence. I bet the majority of you have to tolerate these ineffective working spaces as well.

There is one fact that Julian quotes in his talk that should be influencing everyone who runs an organisation - Open plan offices reduce productivity by 66%!!! So you are two-thirds less productive when you sit in an open plan office than if you were to have your own space, and yet open plan is still the preferred design for most organisations.

Open plan is popular because in outlay, rent and fitout it is cheaper than giving everyone walls. But if it reduces productivity by 66% is it cheaper in the long run?

Controlling your soundscape
If you work in an open plan office you don't need to be told how distracting it is, and how disruptive it can be to your production levels. You know that when Molly picks up the phone you might as well go and make a coffee, because you will not be able to focus while she's on the call. You know that when Jim comes over to flirt with the admin women the most you will be able to do is clean up your emails while trying not to audibly laugh at his banter.

The most important thing I learned from 30 days of Better Listening was that I can, and should, control my soundscape. I started having earbuds in whenever I was doing focused work, so I could block out the various things happening around me. I find that music can be distracting as well, so I used sites that had different sounds like rainstorms and birds singing.

Listening to Julian's talk yesterday, I discovered an even better resource for this. He has helped to develop an app called Study, it's part of Sound Education. It plays 45 of ambient music with birds and other natural sounds, it stops at 45 minutes to remind you to get up and take a break from what you are doing - so that's an extra bonus.

I may not work in a distracting open plan office any longer, I'm lucky to hear anyone's voice during my work day. But I still downloaded it to use when I am in a public place, and even when the quietness of my home office is too distracting.

I've listened to it a few times now and I recommend it - it's a free app so what do you have to lose. Take back some control of your working environment, and if you wear headphones instead of earbuds it might even stop people coming up to interrupt you as often as well (triple bonus).

Do you work in an open plan office and find the soundscape distracting? How do you deal with the noise levels of your workplace?

10 Universal Truths - a guest post on DumbLittleMan

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Fri, 30 May 2014 08:57:00 +0000

There are so many things falling into place in my life at the moment - which unfortunately proves that putting in the work is the only way to make things happen. You'll find out more in the next couple of months.

What I wanted to quickly share was that today I had an article published on Dumb Little Man - 10 Universal Truths That Will Set You Free. These are revelations and realisations from My Year of TED, so I wanted to share the article with you as well. The list contains some very tough lessons, so check it out - and as always, if you find the content valuable please share it with others.

Money, Mastery and Meaning - a great quote from James Altucher

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Thu, 22 May 2014 01:56:00 +0000

I subscribe to James Altucher's Insider's List. He sends some amazingly insightful snippets into my inbox. Today was a brilliant piece about the three ways you can be paid - money, mastery and meaning.

This was my favourite quote and, given that I am about to embark on the challenge of being my own boss, has become my new wallpaper:

Just thought I would share that one with the rest of you. Hope you are all having a 3M kind of day.

How I overcome doubt and write anyway

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Sat, 10 May 2014 02:27:00 +0000

I decided to I participate in the ‘Writing Contest: Overcoming Writer’s Doubt’ held by Positive Writer. So this post is about overcoming doubt in my writing, it would take more than a post to talk about overcoming doubt in other aspects of my life as well.

This article isn't about overcoming doubt it's more about how I acknowledge the doubts and write anyway; I don't think that the doubts ever go away entirely. So let's start with a definition:

Doubt means to feel uncertain, or to fear something and be afraid - that is always going to be part of a creative process @dinkylune

(Click to Tweet this)

Reasons I don’t write
I am a writer – do you know how many years it has taken me to be able to say that and not feel like a fraud? I am a writer, but even though I say that now there are times that I don’t write: and I am not alone. All of you writers out there, you know you don’t write as much as you would like to, as much as you need to.

So what are the four reasons that I tell myself I'm not writing:

Lack of time – with so many priorities in my day I can’t find the time to write. Writing is a focused activity that I can’t easily slot into small gaps in the day. I need to have dedicated periods of time to write, it’s a craft after all.
Writer’s block – I can’t think of what I want to write, it’s just not flowing for me at the moment. My muse isn’t inspiring me and I just can’t settle on a topic: I need inspiration.
Priorities – writing is just not the number one priority at the moment, sometimes it's way down the list. I am able to have thoughts and contribute to the world in a way that doesn’t involve crafting words.
I don’t feel like it – worse than writer’s block, this is “I just don’t wanna do it, ok!?” After all, I enjoy writing and I don’t want it to become a chore.

You get that these are all crap, right? I am a writer, and whilst it requires some inspiration and I get a great buzz from being able to craft a brilliant sentence, I need to make a living from what I do. More than that, I have a compelling need to write just to get the ideas out of my head. All of those reasons above are just excuses that my conscious brain uses to mask the truth.

The real reason I don’t write - doubt
Pretty simple really, and I bet that this is 99% true for you as well. Everything else is a story you are telling yourself to not face your fear. You know the doubts and fears, the things that you say to yourself:

What if it isn’t good enough?
What if I’m just wasting my time and kidding myself?
The last thing I wrote was crap, it didn’t flow at all.
My ideas are crap, and the story doesn’t work.
No one is going to pay to read my stuff.
There are thousands of other writers out there that are all better than me.
I’m a fraud, everyone will realise that and laugh at me.
I have no formal training.
Who am I to think that I can make it as a writer?
But it isn’t perfect.
Add in your own self-limiting belief here...

The problem is that my self-limiting beliefs block my creativity – you cannot create when you are constantly second-guessing every word that goes onto the page (or every brushstroke on the canvas, every piece of ink, every stitch into fabric and so on.) So, if I can’t quiet them down then the excuses above are true – I do get writer’s block, my writing is crap and I am wasting my time.

It is valid that sometimes I don’t feel like it, sometimes I don’t feel like doing anything at all. Sometimes all I want to do is read, and as a writer there is nothing wrong with that. But when my inner voice is like a churlish child that can’t be coaxed to the computer, or a pen and paper, I know that it is because she is scared.

So what do I do about it?
I used to listen to the lies my brain was telling me, I used to believe that all of the ‘reasons’ I wasn’t writing were true – but I call myself on it now. It doesn’t mean I don't doubt myself anymore, I think I am possibly more afraid than I ever was because I know that I will not allow myself to hide behind these excuses.

There is a simple technique that I use now, I sit somewhere quiet and I ask myself what is going on. The excuses come from some part of my personality, and I try to talk to that part about the actual problem. By making myself confront the fear, by realising that today I’m just feeling a little fragile about my skills and abilities, or some other part of my life entirely – I can set myself realistic goals for the day, and relieve the pressure on my writing.

Do you want to know the fun thing about this? By putting less pressure on myself to create it often means that I end up doing more, because once I start writing in those moods I am often prolific. It’s a weird dichotomy, if I can get push past the doubts in my head, what I create is some of my best work. But it takes self-kindness, and the ability to silence my internal critic, so my creative self feels safe – the critic can come back when I'm editing, but remember that she has no place in the writing process.

Do you want to know the other secret? Sometimes I can’t do it, and I have to agree that today is not the day for writing, so I work on other things instead. I’m kind enough to myself to know it’s just not going to happen.

What lies do you tell yourself when you are scared of writing, or scared that your writing is not ... enough? Are you able to overcome those fears and write anyway?

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Progress on 90 Days of TED, and a favour please

noreply@blogger.com (Kylie Dunn) — Fri, 09 May 2014 10:35:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to make radical changes in your life? Do you want to understand more about what makes you tick? Would you like to do something similar to My Year of TED, but don't have the time to dedicate to a whole year?

I'm in the process of finishing a course for you, a three month course that will lead you through the same sort of things I did in My Year of TED. In the course you will do a small part of almost all the activities I did during my year, leading you to discover more about yourself, and just try a few things on for size.

I have spoken to some local people about the idea, and they're keen to give it a go; they will be my beta group later this year. I've also previously spoken to a few readers of this blog about the prospect of a course like this, and they were quite positive. But, before I can turn it from a locally run course, I will need to spend a significant amount of time and effort to get it online.

And the favour...
If you would be interested in doing an online course like this (yes there will be a charge for it), and you are willing to have a chat with me (via email or Skype) can you please email me with your details at kylie[at]dinkylune[dot]com. I'm keen to do some market research using my own audience (that sounds surreal). Please note that talking with me is by no means a commitment to do the course; I would just like some comments and opinions about what you would hope to achieve from a course like this, and similar topics.

Further details will be released about the course in August, once I have a much clearer idea of the structure and when it will be open for applicants. I'm really excited about being able to guide people on the same journey I took, and I know that even a cut down version can have a significant impact on your life.