“If we were REALLY being authentic, we’d admit it hurts like hell.”

In Naomi Dunford’s latest post, she talks about how we (try to) filter our authenticity through ‘only the feel good’ stuff (which isn’t real authenticity at all) and the high cost of being truly authentic when you’re ittybiz’in it.

That last line is what did it for me. I (have finally) found my permission. Not from Naomi but in her demonstration and willingness to take the risk of showing her pain.

And then buried down in the comments is another really profound comment from Mark Silver where he points out that being on the internet, doing the social media thing, there is a level of personal accountability that we are removed from. We cannot see the tears slowly build up in someone’s eyes. We cannot see their brow furrow in confusion. Or even the big huge smile that appears on their faces, let alone hear a beautiful giggling guffaw.

In some strange ways, social media is giving us a vehicle to be more authentic on some levels and then dangerously converse, to hide out, being completely detached, if we choose.

Not that detachment is bad. It can really serve us well when we’re having shoes thrown at us or on the receiving end of a nasty DM or passive-aggressive email.

But detachment when you’re hiding so you can show up in ways where you say stuff you wouldn’t normally say in person is not healthy detachment. It’s showing the world you have a real fear of retribution (maybe because you know exactly what you’re doing when you say it in the first place) and then hiding out behind your computer screen or email inbox. It’s turtling (my new favorite word I first heard used by Charlie Gilkey).

And then the pretending begins. Which makes me want to barf. Because pretending is not authentic at all.

So I’m going to stop pretending right here and now. I am going to get really authentic.

Surprisingly, just yesterday, a client said to and about me that she doesn’t think she’s met a more authentic person. Wow! How do I let that one in? How do I begin to contemplate the truth in that? My stuff. We all got some.

Yet mostly because of Naomi’s willingness to share her uncomfortable feelings in her latest post and partly because of my client’s comment, I’m willing to be a different kind of authentic today.

So here goes…

I’m grieving. And I have been for a while now.

I guess if there is such a thing as a beginning point, much of this began for me earlier this year, in March-ish. I had been working with my business partner Wendy Cholbi for just over a year. In the fall of 2007, I had approached her with this idea (if you want to read the post, I suggest you do it now because I don’t know how much longer it will be available… more on this later) of teaching coaches how to build their own web presence using a blogging content management system.

I had already known Wendy for at least a year, maybe two. She had been attracted to the life coaching work I do, where I help people shift their awareness around fear so they can discover and accept more of themselves.

I trusted her and who she showed me she was. I trusted myself too, my evaluation of what she showed me, my intuition. Trust was and continues to be a big thing for me.

And oh it was so much fun! Working together and creating YourWebCoaches.com. The journey taught me so much. Lots of tears, lots of laughs, lots of hope. Even success as there were people saying yes to our workshop. Coming in, sitting down in front of their computers and allowing us to guide them on a technology journey that is really never about the technology, and all about the “I really can do this!”

Deep reward. Deep satisfaction. And especially hearing our participants express appreciation for what we were doing together, as a team.

And we were both always wanting more. To take it to the next level. At least, that’s what I thought because I didn’t hear anything otherwise.

And in December of 2008, Wendy got some really devastating news. A relationship very important to her was ending. One that, I imagine, defined her up until that time, in a lot of ways. Not totally. But significantly. And in the ending of any relationship is a death. A death of dreams. Of a future. Of a part of us and sometimes it feels like all of us, on some very deep levels.

It was painful to watch and yet I also knew complete liberation awaited on the other side of it. Because I had been there myself. Several times. Probably one of the reasons I sought out coaching and eventually became one. Learning how to deal with the difficult curve balls life throws us while not killing ourselves in the process.

And in the midst of the death and destruction Wendy was undergoing, she and I were also trying to create. Crazy, I know. But that’s just the timing of it all I guess. I mean, how much of it is really in our control?

We were working together with an incredible coach. Charlie Gilkey. I rant about him all the time so if you hang out with me here on my blog, seeing his name again won’t be a big surprise.

Charlie was giving us all sorts of system-y structure stuff to chew on in our business. Basecamp. Consolidating web presences into one so we could leverage our two-being presence. There’s a Wendy and a Mynde. “Leverage leverage leverage this!” he said.

So we did.

We incorporated in early February of 2009 and continued working on our plan to launch another workshop. This time it would be better. We’d have more participants. We had Charlie. We had Dave Navarro’s Launch The Shit ebook which was really about launching ebooks, but hey, I was determined to benefit by it to get asses into seats.

April 1 would be our first 2009 workshop launch date. We both agreed. We met bi-weekly with Charlie. And I Basecamped myself to near death. Wendy was…. well I really don’t know. I can guess, so I will. She was licking her wounds. She was reeling still, from her own dramatic news delivered to her just the day before Christmas. So terribly heartbreaking. But inside, a voice whispered to me and wanted to know, what don’t you see or are you not willing to see when news this terrible just “lands” in your lap?

And it’s difficult to watch someone you love be in pain. Wendy’s humor is incredibly sharp. When she shows it to you. SHE is incredibly sharp, when she decides to show up. I choose not blame her for any of the way she is because she showed this to me consistently, over and over. I knew. But I hoped. I hoped she’d find her self-approval and stand next to me and shine brightly. We’d rock it out and have a good time.

But that’s not how the story ends.

My game plan was to stay open. Keep my heart open. Always go bigger and stretch it… stay open. Be compassionate. You’ve been there yourself Mynde. And Wendy just kept disappearing. Until it was just me, in our treehouse. I was alone. And I was tired. Because I was holding up the treehouse fort. Setting up structures and affiliate programs and writing content and trying to be good biz partner and do my part.

Until that one day March I think it was. I had finally realized I wasn’t honoring myself by doing it all. And every time I thought about the fact that I was going to get 50% of the profits for 100% of the work, I got really angry inside. It was killing me. I had to say something. Maybe she would grab onto our business like a rope and use it re-center herself? I hoped.

I said, “This isn’t working for me. I need a partner. That’s why I asked you to come play with me to begin with, so I wouldn’t have to do it alone. But I’m alone. And I’m sorry you’re hurting and things can’t be timed better and everything else that is out of our control.”

“What do you think we can do here?”

Silence.

The killing kind. The kind that leads to sickness when you don’t speak up.

And we never came back from there.

And both of us confessed in mediated coaching sessions our worst fear was that the treehouse would burn down. Neither of us wanting that to happen and feeling completely helpless. Because it was burning. Burning up. Smoldering inferno.

My coachy conscious said, “Wait. Stay in it. Don’t run. Stay open. Keep your heart open here Mynde. Keep asking questions, gently. Don’t run away.”

Nothing.

And by mid summer, the only communication I have with her now is via a Mastermind group. I’m finding out about her life, her business decisions, about OUR business, via a Mastermind group. I’m finding out she no longer wants to accept one-on-one clients. (Me: “Wow, what else will I have to learn this way?”)

Emails go unanswered. Scheduled calls drop out of reality.

But when she shows up for Mastermindy stuff. She’s chipper and fine and making decisions and learning to take care of herself. And everyone in our group, including us, know we’re struggling with our business.

And within a few weeks, I find out I’m replaced. And oh, she wants me to host our free monthly recurring business call on my BlogTalkRadio channel and give her “new” workshop with her “new” partner visibility, using our lists, our platform, our web presence.

Oh god. I need to puke.

Is this really happening?

And then Paypal. No email saying, “Hey I’d like to pay our LLC taxes.” Just a big fat huge fucking withdrawal. Nearly all of it. No reconciliation of anything.

Panic.

And then, no more author rights to our web presence that I designed. I am no longer an author. I cannot access Wordpress. I can’t even take my fucking picture down or get my content. And she claims she owns the domain, it was never purchased by the business. What?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Let me tell you about betrayal and grief. I’ve been betrayed. My first husband cheated while his daughter was growing in my belling. I know about betrayal.

And the betrayal in an intimate relationship, where sex is involved, is nothing like the betrayal of a business partner. It makes sex feel meaningless in the whole scheme of things.

In a business, your heart, your soul, your money, time, energy… everything is on the line. And I think that’s why it hurts so much more than the pain and loss from a broken relationship. Those come and go. How we earn our living… that is essential to who we are.

And I’m hurting. So very deeply. Broken in tiny pieces.

Really? There was no other way to do this? Seriously Universe?

More mediation. She doesn’t want any kind of relationship with me. Not friends, not anything. Oh, and there’s no animosity. Yeah, fucking right, there’s not!

If that were true, then wouldn’t we have been able to work things out? Renegotiate? Or end things together, the same way we we started it?

So this is my grief. This is the loss that I’m moving through. This is the letting go and excavating and the checking in with my own responsibility in the matter.

And deciding on what my intention is for writing this all out and sharing it.

The big one… to step out of the killer of silence and pretending and say out loud to the world, “I’ve been shit on and it totally sucks and hurts like hell!”

Pretending that “Oh yeah, things just are moving in a new direction… that’s all. We don’t owe our clients/participants or members of shared tribes any explanation. We don’t owe anyone anything!”

Bullshit. Not authentic. At all.

So today, I am scouring my life and asking myself, where am I pretending? Because I don’t want to pretend and coast along as if everything is hunky dory. I want to heal. I want closure. And I want to be and feel clean within myself.

And I’m also asking myself, where am I playing small? Where am I settling for less? Because time has run out on settling and playing small.

And, how do I heal and take care of myself and really let go of all of this?

By allowing myself to feel hurt and sad. Very powerful.

By choosing again. This time, I choose not to refuse myself the hurt and sadness because I want to feel better. I realize the more I refuse my grief and sadness, the more I stay stuck in it. And I acknowledge myself for staying in it. And giving it time. And waiting patiently. And since a healthy sense of closure is something she cannot give, I will get it the best way I know how. I will give it to myself.

So today, I grieve. And let go. And say goodbye.

Goodbye Treehouse. Goodbye Wendy. Be well. I am so so sorry for whatever misunderstanding came between us. And wish you more success, love and cooperative healing relationships than you could possibly contain.

And I am healed and healing, in this transformative alchemy of death and destruction.

Catie Curtis – Ropes Swings and Avalanches

Other Stuff

• Beautiful Friday
• A Time For Letting Go
• Making Peace With Uncomfortable
• To Be A Warrior

I’ve noticed recently in my life and the lives of several clients, a recurrence of the theme of resisting feeling the uncomfortable stuff. For myself, the yearly passage of the Sun through the sign of Scorpio (end of October and most of November) often stirs a great depth and intensity of emotions that usually lie very low throughout the year. I often forget they are there.

Yet one of Scorpio’s primary functions is to bring forward what lay at the depth of us. And because it is a water sign, emotions are linked into this transformative process of death and renewal, reflected by the falling leaves that were only a few short months ago, thriving and nourishing its life support system. Now they surrender themselves, falling away from that comfortable place of attachment, to be crumbled to bits or strewn and scattered like ash in the wind.

It Is A Time For Letting Go

It is a time for renewal, but not the vibrant “breathe of life” renewal of Aries that comes in spring. This renewal comes from a shedding or molting, which is why the snake is often a symbol for this sign’s transformative power.

Understanding the astrological archetypes has helped me tremendously with my own growth cycles. Like life, offering to me opportunities disguised as contrast, I can choose to embrace change or resist it.

For a very long time, I’ve resisted. With everything in me. Just like my recent clients, we box ourselves off from uncomfortable feelings, judging ourselves and the feelings from within a too-narrow focus and cut ourselves off from the awareness of a divine process at work in our lives.

In the exploration of resistance, what actually happens to that emotional stuff that gets compartmentalized as we shove it away? Does it really go anywhere?

It doesn’t really. At some point in our growth process, we’ll get hit by something that triggers the repressed energy into front and center. A Pluto transit maybe. Or, if you’re a nature-loving sign like I am (Taurus) you might already be attuned, watching the skies turn, stepping into the cycle and giving yourself permission and room to grow.

But for some, this isn’t so automatic. And so we rely on the turning of the skies to help us evolve into all that we are becoming. More of our true self. The self behind the baggage.

So why do we have baggage at all? Well, from a very young age, usually before age three, we have experienced enough to teach us that uncomfortable feelings are something to avoid because we hunger so deeply for our parents love and approval.

Herein lies the road to believing our happiness is obtained from some external source. A long road, fraught with expectation; a deep yearning for things to be different than the way they are and certain conditions be met in order for our happiness to be realized.

For many of us, our need for love and approval has conditioned us into compartmentalizing uncomfortable feelings in the vein effort not to experience them. When all they really want, is our love and attention. Just like the children we once were.

When we refuse ourselves the room and spaciousness to actually feel our feelings, we create emotional baggage. Energy fields of incomplete emotional experiences. All nestled up neatly, often out of sight, but there nonetheless.

In every human interaction, we connect to one another at varying levels of intimacy. However, those connections are thwarted by the baggage of incomplete emotional experiences all tied up in our human energy field. We wonder why we can’t connect. Or how to get to deeper levels of intimacy in our most treasured relationships.

The Scorpio energy is probing and goes deep. It has a will and sense of determination unlike any other sign in the zodiac. Taurus, its opposite, is known for its stubbornness, however, you haven’t really encountered stubborn until you meet a Scorpio bent on realizing their goal.

And our emotional baggage is no match for the transformative power of Scorpio. Like a scalpel, cutting deeply, cracking us open and revealing to us that which no longer serves. And then with focused intensity, making available to us a cauterizing effect to reveal what needs to die so a transformed version of our self can be born again.

So our choice is to either turn into this cycle or resist it. And resistance is futile. Nothing can be hidden from the penetrating scope of Scorpio. It embodies the mysterious and like a universal detective, uncovers us for our healing.

Yes healing. Scorpio is an amazing healer. Even though it has a bad reputation for being obsessive and jealous, brooding and secretive and the best-ever revenge giver of the universe. It will lie in wait for the perfect time because in its darkest moments, it seeks death. Again, the transformative powers of Scorpio still at work.

Now is a perfect time to join with the transformative healing power of Scorpio to support you with the hidden parts of yourself, particularly the hidden emotional “pieces” of you.

A Process For Letting Go

One way to help resolve your old baggage is to sit quietly and think about one uncomfortable situation or feeling you’ve been avoiding. Really dare yourself to be fearless like Scorpio and provoke this feeling to the surface. Close your eyes and scan your body for the area where the emotional baggage is stored. Is it pressure in the back of your neck? Does your stomach do a topsy-turvy thing? Does your heart ache?

Once you locate the baggage, using Scorpio’s laser-like focus, feel into the center of the energy field. Like a teacher’s red laser pointer, focus on just the center of the energy field and allow yourself to feel whatever emotion is provoked. Feel it with your whole being. Stay in the center of it…

Two really important things will occur if you are fearless enough to create this experience for yourself. The first thing you’ll notice is that you don’t die. Sounds humorous, but true nonetheless. The second thing you’ll begin to notice is that the feeling begins to dissolve. Like a morning fog burning off to reveal a glistening coastal edge where earth meets sea. It might possibly feel more intense as you start, but if you stay with the center of the emotional baggage, and feel deeply into its center, an amazing miracle unfolds itself in the completion of the feeling. What is revealed… in the absence of the uncomfortable feeling itself, is the overwhelming presence of You.

And now, open your eyes and contemplate the very thing that just previously spun you out. Poke some sharp sticks at it. See if it’s alive, in there. I promise, you’ll giggle and laugh in the amazing realization of just how much larger in scope and nature the presence of your being is and how absent the previous uncomfortableness is.

And one less energetic vibrational bag’o uncomfortableness is now NOT between you and everything life is offering you, whether you are relating with a loved one or client or just being in the world.

If this technique has piqued your curiosity, or you’d like some personal one-on-one support to go deeper with it… please contact me or check out my BlogTalkRadio interview in March 2008 with the technique’s creator Tom Stone.

To fearlessly feeling your way into letting go!

Other Stuff

• Rope Swings and Avalanches
• Making Peace With Uncomfortable
• Fast Pass To The Vortex
• What Are You Asking For?
• Beautiful Friday

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a while. For a long while actually. But holding back for various reasons, a multitude of them. I seem to have an endless supply of reasons “not to” as well as a very bad habit of holding back which I’m working on.

I’ve been really wanting to talk about some very personal stuff. To tell “my part” of a certain story. And since I’m a coach and all that, the first thing I like to do is check my intention. Why do I want to tell the story? Is it really for me or do I secretly have some other agenda… like to make someone pay or eat shit (which is totally not my style) or for some other low-lying fear-based reason.

And then I get an email from a client. About her web stuff. She’s extremely uncomfortable. She really wants to do it (use the web to promote the cool thing she does), but is terrified at the same time. I say, “Hmmm” to myself. But only after totally being blown away by her courage and her willingness and her vulnerability to admit it not only herself, but also to me. She’s uncomfortable.

And I start to remember all the other times in my life I’ve been uncomfortable. And if it was a willing price to pay to get to the other side. And what is really worth being uncomfortable. Are my dreams worth it? Is doing what I love worth it? Is loving who I love worth it? Is being who I am worth it?

All worth it, I realize.

Growing yourself or a business, learning how to be a better you… all uncomfortable. Mostly because there’s a lot of groping and tears and frustration. Flailing in the darkness of not knowing and not knowing how to know. Just. Not. Knowing.

It’s time that we admitted the truth about knowing. It’s highly overrated.

And if you want any of it: your dreams, an online business, to love who you love, to be who you are, you’ve got to get more comfortable with uncomfortable. There is just no way around it.

So I’ve decided I will probably tell my part of the story. Just not in this post. It’s still percolating or rather, I’m still percolating in uncomfortable. At least for a little while longer. And since I know there is no other way around it, there is only through it… I figure the best thing I can do is take really good care of myself while I’m here, hanging out with uncomfortable.

I’m learning how to make peace with uncomfortable. To offer it the best of what I’ve got.

I’m willing to hang out in uncomfortable as long as it takes. I’m realizing that being willing to be uncomfortable and hang out there and make peace with it is risky business.

Just like writing and telling my part of the story. Just like getting up everyday and coming to my Inbox. Just like putting together your thing and getting it online and out there. The journey to out there is uncomfortable. It’s uncomfortable on the way, it’s uncomfortable just before I get there, and uncomfortable when I finally reach my destination. All of it, uncomfortable.

So why not make peace with it now? And learn how to take care of myself better now. What sweeter revenge could their possibly be (if I was a revenge-seeking kinda gal) than to learn how to notice uncomfortable and greet it with an open door. Come on in. Sit down. Stay awhile. Let’s get to know each other.

Uncomfortable. It isn’t really all that horrible now is it?

Other Stuff

• Rope Swings and Avalanches
• A Time For Letting Go
• The First Few Words
• Core Values
• The Perfect Look & Feel

Tech Savvy 101 is a series of posts designed to help demystify some terminology so you can get your brain around what it really takes to start getting your tech savvy on.

Yesterday, I talked about the importance of defining core values early on in the web creation process because it provides an anchor, to help you remember, when things get freaky-deeky. Knowing your own values gives you a rope to hold onto to guide you back to a simpler time… when you were clear about what makes you blissfully happy and why the heck you are doing this in the first place.

This being creating that blog or web site for your business.

And even after you do begin to get into the content of you, by discovering your core values, and you’ve got this nifty anchoring device to help steer you through uncharted technology (and regular life) territories, there is still this issue of your first post (or page if you’re using WordPress)… actually lots of them. Staring back at you. And they’re blank. Stark raving mad white-ass blankety blank!

Or…

Maybe you already have some content. You’ve pulled your stuff together (you remember what that was like the first time?) In fact, you might have pages of good stuff, but you’d like to go a little further with it. Something (not quite sure what) is getting lost in translation somewhere. And the sneaky suspicion, at least one of them, is it might be your content. You ask yourself, “What exactly am I saying here? Who am I saying it for?”

Quick Detour

Search Engine Optimization, sometimes referred to by just its initials, SEO, is basically the steps a web owner gets to take to “prime” his/her web presence to appear in a search engine result. That is, your perfect person types in a search term to Google and YOUR website URL hits them smack in the face (although no one gets hurt).

Right after, and I mean, immediately after creating your first web page/post, you will be thinking about this very topic. It’s the next logical step. How do I get people to see my website or notice me? Right?

However, if you pay some moola to one of these specialized companies who help with SEO implementation and you haven’t gotten your content savvy up to speed, all the traffic you drive to your web presence may not necessarily result in buyers. Or anything really. Just a lot of cattle, moving through. Kickin’ up dust.

Your buyers are looking for your thang, in your voice. Except they don’t know what your thang looks like, exactly. This is why when we start with the writing part, we don’t even really get into the “This Is What I Do” part until after the prospect has some amount of confidence that you can help them with their “situation.”

Your buyers want to be seen and understood. And the only real way to do that (using a blog or website) is via content. Writing about it. Essentially, talking about the stuff that keeps them up at night.

Except as business owners, we’re all ready to tell them about the features and benefits of what we got. We are already in the solution. And our perfect peeps doesn’t even know whether or not what we have is perfect for them. We haven’t given them a chance to make that choice. We are all hot and bothered about how great our great stuff is. And it’s great! I know it is. I got great stuff. You got great stuff! It’s just that my perfect peeps are not showing up ready to buy anything. They want relief. They have a challenge or situation and they are frustrated. So I’ve learned I cannot shove my chicken soup down their throat. No matter how good it is!

But in the beginning, starting out by writing down the “This Is What I Do” stuff is easier. Because we love it and we’ve been eating, drinking, sleeping it; because it’s our business. And our web presence does need this information. It’s critical. But not as critical as going to where your perfect peeps are first… going with them into their challenge and meeting them there.

So don’t go paying for SEO unless you are certain you’re getting your content savvy ON. Otherwise, even if your perfect peeps come your way off a search referral, if you’re still talking about how great your stuff is and not what you can help them with (their problemo)… they’ll miss all your goodness.

Which would be really sad.

Resuming Post Topic

Back to the first few words on those blankety-blank pages & posts.

If you don’t have a clue about what those first few words should be, I can help you with that. If after you get those first few words down and even finish your first post and begin to wonder, what other pages or posts do I need to include? I can help you with that also.

If you have been thinking that you’d really like to get a web presence for that thing you do or book you’re writing, one that’s real and genuine, drawn out of your heart (disguised as values) and built by your own two hands, yes, I can help you do that too.

But only if you sign up for my four-week workshop for women that starts on Monday, October 26.

Check out what I plan to teach during week one or send me an email with your questions or look at some already answered ones (there are a few).

The special gift you have to offer now is presented best by just taking things easily and simply, one step at a time. ~Osho

Other Stuff

• Core Values
• The Perfect Look & Feel
• How To Scare Yourself Write to The Edge
• Making Peace With Uncomfortable
• RSS And Our Friend, Feedburner

Tech Savvy 101 is a series of posts designed to help demystify some terminology so you can get your brain around what it really takes to start getting your tech savvy on.

If you teach a technology workshop and help women find their own tech savviness, why do you begin with core values and not the technology stuff?

Well it’s like this. As I’ve said before, content really is the king, of all of it. And so very shortly after you start to receive the technology “know how” pieces of creating a web presence, you’ll be up against a different kind of question. A few of them in fact. And most of them will stem from:

• What do I put on here? or
• What do I write and say about my me & my biz?

Simple enough questions. Not so much with the answers. Because there’s only one person in charge of knowing what makes you tick.

In fact, all the BEST help I’ve ever received from my own teachers, coaches, mentors was about content. It might not have always been web content. It was usually the content of me. And how I define that. And being clear about what I do and how I help people. And shifting my perspectives around so I could see more of a situation, more possibilities. Like what it looks and feels like from my client’s point of view.

I start with values because it helped me with purpose. All of these types of questions sort of connect back to understanding your Purpose. And if you’re thinking about creating your first web presence or doing better with the one you have, you get to answer the Purpose question for those too.

And Purpose feels so big. Like, it’s the million dollar self-help question. What is my purpose?

Enter Irony Of Life

It’s usually right in front of us. Something too small and insignificant to allow ourselves to recognize it as real value for someone else… (especially not our right people; no, not them) because it’s not big enough. It’s not Save-The-MuthaF’n-World, make-Mother-Theresa-weep and Gandhi-roll-over big enough.

And I didn’t really realize it until I did some work on myself. I discovered the content of me. I discovered what I value, what truly makes my heart sing and juices me up. It’s something that was inside me all along.

Or maybe it was I never found the answer outside of me.

And one day, I was reading a book called Attracting Perfect Customers. Reading a chapter called Be On Purpose To Your Mission. Eek! What was my mission? I had somewhere between no-and-some idea of what my mission was. It was one of those big life questions.

So I kept reading and as I allowed myself to let go of what didn’t make sense or my anxieties about not knowing more than I did because I thought I should or not doing as well as someone else similar to me was doing and instead give myself permission to go with what did make sense… and invest in my right now so I can get to where I’m going.

And I found my core values. The things I know I need for sure, or it just ain’t worth it.

And once I had my core values, I had a clarity. To help me with the next business (or personal) question (because we know it’s all mixed together anyway).

And once I had my core values, I knew what passion felt like. Because I was there… in it. I had to find it to get in it. This was big.

And with clarity & passion, I had purpose. It wasn’t this big thing, and didn’t need to be. Because for now, it is the reason I get up every morning (which is an empowering change all by itself and another post). And that I look forward to that; getting up, working, becoming more myself each day or every time I write something. And that is big enough for me!

So this is why I start with values. Defining my values brought me back to me so I could understand what I need from any situation. And even when I don’t know what I need at the moment, I can look to one of my values for inspiration. A guide for me when, I can’t necessarily see the next step.

Knowing my core values always lets me know if I’m living my definition of personal integrity. And if my business is even close to that definition, or if I want to get closer to it; which is where the authenticity and aliveness lives.

Values. Know Yours?

I’ve just given you a partial overview of week one of my four-week workshop for women, the one that helps women create and be in charge of their own web presence (which could be a website OR a blog, whatever you want). In the first week of the workshop, I’ll take you through a process to help you discover your core values. With a few other surprises thrown in. All for the good measure of helping you build a strong foundation to combine with your new web savvy skills.

Then we crank up the fun and wonder (oh, did I just reveal two my most favorite core values? I think I just did!) to uncover a place on the web for you and your goodness. A place that is your business.

Your very own web presence.

Other Stuff

• The First Few Words
• The Perfect Look & Feel
• How To Scare Yourself Write to The Edge
• Making Peace With Uncomfortable
• RSS And Our Friend, Feedburner

Tech Savvy 101 is a series of posts designed to help demystify some terminology so you can get your brain around what it really takes to start getting your tech savvy on.

Are you letting worry and concern over the perfect look and feel get in the way of getting clear about who you are and who you serve?

When a smart creative woman considers establishing herself on the web, the questions she’ll be answering first or even close to middle way through, are not about the look and feel.

The Look & Feel Never Comes First

Unless you’re a web designer.

So many times I see considerations for look and feel issues take women off track, detouring them into the land of perfectionism.

The look and feel is actually a compliment to, and a part of something else in your web presence. The something else is the part of you (your biz) that wants to be created and expressed.

When you consider large business institutions, its marketing team will frequently re-brand or change the look and feel in order to introduce some freshness. It gives us a sense that the business is actually alive and growing, changing and hopefully, improving! You’ll be doing the same thing with your own web presence.

Invite yourself to see the look and feel as an extension of the greater message and tone of your web presence.

• Who are you here (on the web) for?
• What pain do you help solve?
• What is unique about the way you solve it?
• What results have people achieved as a result of working with you & your biz?

These are the questions we start with… this is the something else referred to earlier. It is the point of you being on the web to begin with. And far more meaningful than a pleasant look and feel is the words you’ll drop onto the each page… the voice you talk to us in.

Don’t get me wrong. If you have a screamingly obnoxious color scheme, the look and feel can become an obvious distraction and may even cause your visitor to leave altogether. This is why I strongly urge you to consider general questions early on in your look and feel development strategy (yes, you’ll have one). What colors please you? What fonts do your eyes enjoy reading? What imagery compliments or enhances the message your visitors will be reading?

I’ve yet to work with someone who said to me the “buy or engage” decision was based on the color of blue I chose for my website background. It’s always the words I put down and my willingness to be vulnerable by sharing more of myself that I hear about. It’s saying something in an authentic way that connects me to you and you to your visitors.

Unless you are a designer like me, the biggest favor you can do yourself in the beginning, is simply pick a place and begin! The good news is you can relax into the process, knowing that because everything changes, (even big businesses get rebranded and redesigned) that nothing you pick today is forever. Even that template, that you’ve been spending endless hours searching for on the web, that perfect one… will change at some point in the future.

• Are you letting worry and concern over the perfect look and feel get in the way of getting clear about who you are and who you serve?
• What feels like more of a risk? Finding the perfect look and feel or developing some chunks of content written in an authentic way?

Be careful that the look and feel of your web presence doesn’t become excuse not to get clear about you and your biz. Give yourself the opportunity to get started doing something more than fret over the perfect template. Go for the risk, it holds greater rewards!

Your biz (and its perfect customers) are waiting to connect with you!

Still needing that thing for your biz called a web presence? You’re in luck. An online workshop where I teach you how to do it begins next week.

Other Stuff

• The First Few Words
• Core Values
• RSS And Our Friend, Feedburner
• Tech Savvy 101: Why Blogger?
• Blog Or Website, Which Is Best?

I love books.

I love the feel of the book store and even the library (albeit it does feel dustier in a library, even when it’s clean and pristine).

I love the spine-crackling sounds of a brand new book being opened and the wonderful smell of it’s freshly inked pages.

I love the anticipation of finding something to sink my thirsty teeth into.

I love reading about and looking at the author’s photo (and imagining holding my own published book in my hands).

I love to be teleported into other worlds; whether they are completely imagined or an inner world being seeded and soon-realized.

I especially love it when I read a book and feel changed. The secret keys, doorways and passages that written words on paper reveal to me.

Here are few that have done just that.

Other Stuff

• Do you Skype?
• Why work with Mynde?
• Loving The Uncomfortable…?
• When & Why to Hire a Life Coach
• Know thy Self

Are you ready to get your RSS stuff figured out (or understand better what it is and why you want to use it)? I’m writing this post just for you (well actually my client Rebecca Morehead who got her tech savvy on with me and created a niche website for her upcoming Law of Attraction book).

She sent me an email asking about RSS and basically wanting to get her head around it so she can do better with it on her web presence.

What It Is

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

It takes lots of information (such a blog articles or news content) and gets it published easily in a common format that requires a reader. Lots of readers are available. I use Google Reader because it’s free and Google’s products are usually pretty easy to use.

What’s Important About It?

It’s an option for your visitors (or readers, sometimes called prospective clients). It helps more visitors of your website or blog get access to regular updates without requiring them to take the time to come visit your website first. Instead, this visitor logs on to their Feed Reader account (like Google Reader) and all the updates for blogs or websites they’ve chosen to receive are automatically fed to their reader. Time savings!

After a while, you start to see other creative ways to use an RSS feed. For instance, you can populate a widget and feed content to your website based on certain keywords (like sports, astrology, cooking). I have even burned a feed just for posting a mobile picture to my Flickr account.

Burning A Feed With FeedBurner

Did you just say “burn a feed?”

Yes. You can make a feed for just about anything as long as it’s submitted in the right format. Feedburner makes it super easy to do and manage multiple feeds if you need them. Most blogs have an RSS feature built in, so you will get to figure out what your original RSS feed is and then turn it into a Feedburner feed. This way you can also leverage Feedburner’s cool tools for analyzing and managing your feeds and subscribers.

So I got my blog feed burned, now what?

The other cool feature about Feedburner is it has an option that allows you to offer your web visitors a method to subscribe using email (you can see mine in action in the far-right hand column at the top just under the big picture). This is a great option for your less techie visitors but still takes advantage of the same great idea. And that is, instead of relying on your visitors to check for updates and new info on your blog, they can sign up to receive automatic updates in their Inbox using a Feedburner gadget you install on your blog.

So RSS is basically a way to reach your web visitors in a more efficient way… and that is after you post something new on your blog. RSS updates your visitor’s feed reader (where multiple feeds are gathered) or issues an email that is the content of your latest post directly to your visitor’s Inbox.

It’s an essential component for your blog once you’re up and running, especially if you plan on building relationships using your blog. Each time you post on your blog, you are reaching out to your visitors and reminding them of your products or services. It’s a much more proactive way to use the web as opposed to putting up a static website and waiting for your phone to ring.

Special Video Bonus

Hey! Guest what? So I’ve talked a lot about the cool technology I use that helps me help you get your tech savvy on. And to show you just how awesome it is, and how possible it is for you to do it too, I’ve created a short 5 minute video explaining how to install that Feedburner email capture form to your Blogger blog (and in case you have WordPress, it’s basically the same process and I did include a few tips in video.)

If you’re reading this post in a feed reader, you’ll want to visit http://screencast.com/t/T4klXYjI to see the video.

Finally, for more info on Feeds, Google does a great job at explaining the nitty gritty.

Enjoy!

Other Stuff

• Tech Savvy 101: Why Blogger?
• Blog Or Website, Which Is Best?
• Tech Savvy 101: Web Hosting
• Tech Savvy 101: Domain Names
• The Perfect Look & Feel

Spontaneous posting inspired by the fourth principle of fun in @BoxofCrayons’s short video featured to your right. (If you don’t see the video, click the title of this blog post once!)

I’ve noticed this thing, it’s in me and a lot of the wonderfully creative ambitious women I talk to everyday, this idea that we need permission.

Permission to be ourselves. Permission to follow our hearts & dreams. Permission to receive and allow in the giving from others. And when it comes to our technology and getting our blogs on, spattering pages of words with the juice of our hearts or giving ourselves permission to write.

Mark Silver from HeartofBusiness.com is pretty much rockin’ my world these days because I’m participating in his Business Momentum class. One of the things I love about Mark is how tender he can be at giving instruction about how to do things better, especially when it comes to writing.

Writing is soooo personal. I think this is why it’s also so scary. But at the same time writing can be so liberating, but it’s a freedom you cannot discover until you push through the insanity of needing permission from yourself first to do it.

In this week’s class with Mark, he was layering on the tenderness, giving us feedback on one of the most important aspects (for me) of writing which is using your words to reach your customers. Layer upon layer, reminding us never to stop… keep reviewing this process he shares in the class, keep circling back and answering more of the questions he asks. Don’t give up… keep writing.

And it just struck me so clearly… that this process is about the activity of writing, not the outcome of it. The more you write, the better it gets and if you have your vision focused on “being done or complete” with the writing, well those are directions to insanity.

I’ve learned a lot in the last three years about writing. More so in the last year, when I’ve had the opportunity to meet amazing people who have supported my writing growth, sometimes intentionally, but not always.

Havi Brooks from FluentSelf.com helped me give myself more permission to be more me and allow that through in my writing. After 20 years of corporate service, my writing was primed for stale and emotionless marketing messages. What I saw (and felt) after reading a post from Havi was the freedom of self-acceptance in all her writing. She gave herself permission to insert silly quirks and special Havi-isms into her posts and her personality shines brightly. I thought, “I want to do that!” and so promptly opened up a Word doc and began typing.

Charlie Gilkey over at ProductiveFlourishing.com, well I just can’t shut up about this guy. He’s an awesome coach and now dear friend whose wisdom I absolutely cherish (even for his ripe old age of 29, or is it 30 now… can’t remember only that he’s having his Saturn Return which I like to scare him with). Charlie has seriously been my #1 fan this year. Helping me look at writing for my blog in ways that really help me throw my sails up.

Here’s one of the juicy ones from the awesome sauce that really helps me step up to the edge and take the scary right out of writing. He says, In the beginning, your blog is your primary product. It’s ok to just focus on that… making your blog a product. And, every single time you sit down to write, it’s an investment worth at a minimum, what you charge a client for time with you during a session. It has the same exact value!”

So consider what you charge for a moment, especially if you’re a coach like I am, and now imagine every time you press publish, you’ve just earned your hourly coaching rate! Magic, isn’t it?

Naomi Dunford is a Marketing Genius with a potty mouth. Gotta love it. Naomi tells it exactly like it is. And she’ll tell you in a way that absolutely splits your sides with laughter… and sometimes even your heart open to her real genuine humanity. Yes underneath all that Sailor Genius is a very big generous heart and it shows up in her writing all the time. Reading a Naomi post is another way I put some gas in my car and race up the publish button in Wordpress.

If you are new to the blogging world, just beginning to figure it out or actually considering what it would be like to “get in” and start doing stuff with it, don’t miss Charlie Gilkey’s latest posty gem called Becoming Yourself and Growing Your Blog. You’ll see that I riffed off of him, sorta got psychically imprinted with the style of his post, of which he stars along side of other starry persons I’ve already mentioned here (paragraphs just preceding). The real moral of his blog post is right in the title, but I still insist you head on over and read it immediately.

But before you go…

I’d love for you to consider what habits you have that end up scaring you away from writing. Is it something you think about yourself, your ability? And have you ever wondered how to make it fun instead?

• How do you scare yourself away from writing?
• If you had permission amnesia, what would be different for you about your writing habits?
• Can I nurture my writing by introducing more fun and therefore more posts?

To be on the web for your business and do that thing you do, you must be committed to writing. So here is to playing more. To loving more. And to writing more!!!

Other Stuff

• The First Few Words
• Core Values
• Making Peace With Uncomfortable
• The Perfect Look & Feel
• RSS And Our Friend, Feedburner

Tech Savvy 101 is a  series of posts designed to help demystify some terminology so you can get your brain around what it really takes to start getting your tech savvy on.

No matter if you’re just starting out with your web presence or wanting to do better with, using a blogging platform to do it really is smart, whether you want your web presence to look like a traditional website or you are actually considering doning the title “blogger.” Today we explore more about content, blogging and getting your tech savvy on!

Where You Are Now

You are comfortable with sending/creating email, downloading attachments, working with your browser (maybe even using multiple tabs), cutting and pasting content in a Word document and uploading images to Facebook (ok, maybe you still need some help with that).  You need cost-effective website that you can update and maintain yourself.

Yet when you think of doing anything remotely technological in nature like getting your web presence on, something in your brain goes haywire (thank you fear) as a mania of thoughts… that lead to questions, and more questions, many of which you cannot answer. Eeeek!

Luckily for you, I hand you my “Get Out of TechnoRut-No-Webbo-Stuffo Jail Card” that says, in tiny printing on the bottom, “eLearning for smart ambitious women who have something important to give the world and need a web presence to do it with!” Optional is this paper bag  to help keep you from hyperventilating because your spazzed out mind chatter hijacked reason and self confidence and has you thinking it’s impossible to even consider this.

So deep breathing, in, out, into the paperbag…

Blogger is best because it will loan you a domain name and host your web stuff for you, (for free)! All you need to do is write your content (no unfortunately, it doesn’t do it all).

Content

Imagine having all your web-how-to stuff just not be an issue any longer. Then what would you focus on for your self or business and your web presence?

Everyone needs content for a web presence (no exemptions: beginner or intermediately tech savvy). And having a place to gather it all up and get it smoothed out is a huge creation step in creating your web presence.

Content is the most important part of getting your web presence on. Learning to write it and write it well, so your people resonate with it when they read it. It becomes an art after you do it for a while. You just need some support to get started (and probably in the practicing department too). And even if you do have an idea of what to say, once you write it a thousand different ways and practice putting your heart and soul into (like MarkSilver at HeartofBusiness.com is teaching me) and pressing the publishing button over and over, you grow in ways you couldn’t imagine.

Special Bonus: Bloggy Training

Plus, Blogger is like a blogging training ground. Learn all the nuances of getting your blogging on like creating content, moving things around on your pages, maybe even selling your products or services. All the tools & skills you learn you take with you if you decide it’s time to stretch your tech savvy skills again… in the very near future. Because you and your business do keep growing.

What If I’m Intermediately Tech Savvy, And Not A Beginner?

The tools and skills you learn to get your Blogger on are going to transfer to getting your next Tech Savvy thing. If you feel like Blogger isn’t offering you enough customization and options, you can graduate to the creme-de-la-creme of getting your blogging on which is, in my humble opinion, Wordpress (specifically using the seo-ready theme Thesis).

Don’t worry though. All the content you create using Blogger can be brought over via import. Select content, click Import. Hard as it gets.

Saying Goodbye to Your Web Creation Woes!

On October 26th, I’ll be teaching an online workshop for women, showing some do-it-herself tech babes how to use Blogger to create a web presence that is fully extendable (grows with you).

Here’s why I think Blogger is a great place to start doing that:

• Save on domain name and hosting costs because Blogger handles both for free.
• Learn how to be in full control of all your content creation.
• No programming languages to learn, no professionals to hire (whoops, except me!)
• No content? No problem. I can help you figure out who you serve to how to say that effectively with your words.
• Working with gadgets and designing your pages – or moving important pieces of information around on your web presence
• And after the workshop? Once you’re getting your tech savvy on, I’ve got options for continuing to upgrade yourself (and web presence) like:
  • Get paid with Paypal. Learn how to use Paypal to send invoices and install “Buy Now” buttons on your website.
  • Get clients. Offer a newsletter subscription or other product and build a list that helps you establish and build relationships with people interested in what you offer.
  • Plus 9 or so others.

So that is my Why Blogger. And I heart Wordpress too (you are reading this very post on a Wordpress blog, just FYI). And not everyone is ready for Wordpress right away. They need a little smaller step first. That really contains one of the biggest steps you could ever take for your web presence, which is creating the content, or writing.

October 26th. Four weeks to your own web presence (at least the beginning). With lots of “Yes it’s true! You really can do this!”

Other Stuff

• RSS And Our Friend, Feedburner
• Blog Or Website, Which Is Best?
• Tech Savvy 101: Web Hosting
• Tech Savvy 101: Domain Names
• The Perfect Look & Feel