I know, I know… I haven’t blogged in a while. But there’s a really good reason, honest.

See, I’m in the process of tearing down a bunch of stuff that has never really worked for me, and building up a bunch of stuff that will – work for me, that is.

But more importantly, it will work for YOU. Way better.

In the past three years at the helm of Makeness, I have been constantly reinventing myself and my business, in an effort to find the very bestest and mostest awesomest way to serve the people I WANT TO SERVE in the best way possible.

That’s you. And You.

And You.

[In case you were wondering.]

I love people that are trying to make something where once there was nothing.

I love being able to offer help where once there was none.

I love being the place people come when they have business questions and don’t know who else to ask, because they know I’m happy to help.

I love that.

I want more of that, and so do you [I know this because I read every single thing you tell me]. 

So, here’s what’s happening…

Phew.

So, there’s that.

For all of you that just scrolled here because you can’t possibly think about producing one more piece of anything right now, I love you and am wishing you all the peace in the world as we plow through the holiday season. I can’t wait to show you what I have in store for you in January.

Chances are good that you will not hear from me again until post Xmas, as I will be working my toosh off for the rest of the month to make this all happen.

So, be nice to each other this holiday season, and don’t drink too much egg nog.

- illana

P.S. – Please share this with anyone you think might be in to it. I would be delighted to get piles of random emails from from people from all over the business world looking for some free promotion. How often does someone say THAT?!?

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Your readers are not your audience.

You are not on stage.

They do not clap.

You are not in costume.

They do not dress up in their Sunday best just to watch you do what you do.

And chances are they do not come to you for entertainment alone.

They are not an audience at all.

Likewise, your Twitter followers and Facebook likers are not potential customers.

They are not window shopping.

They are not anxiously awaiting your next thing.

And they are definitely not following you in hopes that you will sell them something.

Your readers, your followers, and your likers ARE your customers.

In our little sub-economy that is online business, they pay you for your services with their attention and interaction.

That means that when you piss them off, you owe them an explanation – the same way that if you bought a screw gun at Sears and it broke, Sears would owe you some accommodation.

In lieu of an explanation or accommodation, you owe them the right to yell from the rooftops that they are mad at you.

Macy’s doesn’t go and chase down and brow-beat the millions of people who complain to their friends that Macys’ service blows.

Customers don’t want to be told that they are wrong, nor do they want to hear you defend yourself.

They want you to make it right.

And/or they want the right to shop elsewhere.

If they want to go, let them.

But if they’re right, improve, thank them, and ask for another chance to knock their socks off.

Related Posts:

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Last week, I wrote a post about ethics and legality in small business, and how a couple of A-listers made some whale-sized mistakes in that department. When I wrote it, I expected a sizable response. Naming names tends to do that. I also expected a lot of that attention to be negative, because usually, A-listers are called that for a reason; a lot of people love them and are fiercely loyal to them. In addition, I knew a lot of my readers love them and pay close attention to their every move.

I spent two solid days on that post, with very, very little sleep. I read and re-read it and sent it to trusted colleagues for input [something I almost never do]; I wanted to make sure it struck the right tone. It HAD to strike the right tone. I knew it needed to be more thought and less gut, or the message would get lost in the anger. Which was hard. I was really, really angry when I started writing it. The first draft had a lot of bad words and exclamation points, and a heaping dose of sarcasm. It was really funny and probably would have gotten a ton of attention too. But, it would have been more the, “Look at that chick blow a gasket!” kind of attention, which was not what it needed to be.

What I wanted was to inspire thought. I wanted readers to see that following anyone blindly is a horrible business plan, and that there are no magic beans out there that will get you from, “Holy shit I just started a business!” to “Holy shit I am still in business and can feed my family, pay my health insurance bill, AND go on vacation occasionally.” You just have to trudge through the crap like everyone else.

I wanted to use this deplorable example of an ethical and legal fail to remind you that most of what you need to know about business you already know. And it’s not in your brain, it’s in your gut. You either have it or you don’t. The core of doing business is really really simple. You learned it in kindergarten: Treat others how you want to be treated. The rest is all semantics and tactics and skills. Don’t fuck over your clients or friends and they won’t fuck you over. Don’t litter the internet with useless garbage and people won’t associate you with useless garbage tossing.

If, however, you DIDN’T learn that, or you think you did but you still treat some people like crap and rationalize that they had it coming, then you don’t actually have it at all.

I’d like to think that I have it, which is why I thought hard about that post. It needed to be insult-free. It needed to be about behavior, not personality. And it needed to speak to the right people – the people who might have responded to an ad that would put them in a position to be taken advantage of.

You don’t need Marie Forleo or Derek Halpern or me, for that matter. We can’t teach you how to be a good person, or how to have a good business or a good life – but when we stand above you and tell you what to do, we absolutely have the power to show you how not to be. When someone models bad behavior from a place of success, it validates that bad behavior as acceptable. We business teachers can’t teach you how to be in business, we can only teach you what to do in business – which is obviously valuable – but when we suck at that and tell you to do the wrong thing, someone needs to speak up.

Several people asked me why I didn’t send Marie and Derek a direct email telling them that what they were doing was wrong. It’s a valid question.

Here’s why I didn’t do that:

a. I am not the business police, nor do I want to be. This is a conversation about ethics. I am not in the business of finger-wagging.

b. They are in a position to know better. They both have lawyers and accountants and hold themselves up as business teachers. They should know better. They have the resources to know better.

c. Me telling them that they were wrong  privately gives them the opportunity to craft the message – to make a statement about learning from their mistakes. Which is good – if they actually do LEARN. But offering them the opportunity to carefully craft a public response in marketing-speak felt wrong too.

d. There is a generally accepted rule that you don’t name names publicly because it’s petty or something. I don’t actually believe this. So I don’t have to play by that rule. Why don’t we want to point out who we’re really talking about? Who wrote that rule? Perhaps if we did a better job of spreading the word about unethical behavior, there would be less of it out there. Big business CEOs get called out by the media all the time. Why should online business be any different?

e. The people that follow the big people have the power. I believe that if I want to make a difference, I should talk to them.

I have no idea if either of them read my post. And frankly, I really don’t care. Getting to them wasn’t the point. Getting to YOU was.

You are the important ones, because you will be the next generation of leaders.

Online business in the form it’s taking now is still really new – we haven’t really had a lot of time to see if there will be sustainable success to be had here as solopreneurs.

What I am seeing over and over is that many of the people who have achieved success in the past couple of years, have done so by modeling traditional corporate business trappings while preaching new paradigms.

They are modeling the same predatory, manipulative behavior that got those people camping out in tents on Wall Street all riled up. It’s elitist. It’s hypocritical. And it drives me bonkers.

They are not selling skills, they are selling tactics – for getting a lifestyle, a vibe, a flavor.

It’s like selling the bun and condiments without the hot dog inside – from the outside it looks all yummy and full of extras and goodness and everything a hungry belly would want. But then you take a bite and realize you would have to eat a whole lot to feel full. And you would never actually get the stuff that fuels you and keeps you going [let's pretend that hot dogs are actually fuel here for just a second - you are welcome to rage about diet in the comments later].

I work online because the freedom of it is fantastic. I thank my lucky stars every day that I live in a time where this exists.

The democratic nature of the space is phenomenal. And the people here are smart, driven, and incredibly creative. There is a culture emerging here that is built on trust, transparency, and helpfulness that you simply don’t see in traditional corporate business. We are allowed to be more than just business owners here – we are allowed to be people.

I value these ideas higher than just about anything, because I know how precious and fragile they are.

If we don’t guard this culture and defend it, it will succumb to greed and ignorance, just like everything else.

Two themes came up again and again in the response I got from last week’s post: Fear and Guts.

Several people expressed that they thought I had serious guts for saying what I said, and many of you emailed me directly with words of support – quiet support, because you were afraid of the possible repercussions of commenting publicly. A couple people mentioned that they thought about writing something similar but didn’t. And the whole time I was reading all this, I kept thinking, “Why is this, THIS, so scary?” I wasn’t afraid of being crushed by Marie’s stilettos when I wrote it. On the contrary, repercussions never really occurred to me. I wrote it because I thought it was important and needed to be said. And honestly, I was pretty damn surprised that I was the only one that did.

I mean, what is so scary about discourse? Why should it take guts to point out something so clearly wrong? What could possibly happen that would be so catastrophic?

Nothing. The answer is nothing. On the contrary. That post got a 100% positive response. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. I didn’t even get one single angry email. Not one.

I did get new subscribers. And new friends. And invites for interviews. And more attention for something I have written in a long time. Which was bad-ass.

Here’s why it worked:

1. I included facts. If you don’t have those, people will crucify you.

2. I didn’t make it personal. If you do, you have sucked the wind out of your point and people will crucify you.

3. I did it because I hoped people would pay attention, not because I wanted to get attention. People can tell the difference. Get it wrong and people will crucify you.

4. I was really prepared for responding to comments and emails. Hot button issues need fast and thoughtful responses. Ignore people and they will crucify you.

I’m glad my work inspired the response it did. It felt great. Do I think you should write a post like it? Only if it’s for the right reasons and you do your homework first. Don’t be just another blogger with a chip on their shoulder and a bone to pick. Decide what you stand for and defend it like your livelihood depends on it. Because it does.

Related Posts:

• Crap I Hate Doing: Goals. Goal-setting is lame.
• Crap I hate doing – Section 1: Intro
• Why you have a responsibility to not be an asshole when you’re in the business of selling your expertise.

It’s not a new story. Gurus emerge over and over with shiny, fabulous “new” approaches to the same business problems that entrepreneurs have grappled with forever. They are wrapped in pretty new packages and have splashy new graphics and clever new titles. Good people – aspiring to find a way out of whatever box they find themselves in – grab on in hopes of following those fabulous footsteps all the way to their very own villa in France.

Making money off of the hopes and dreams of others is not all that new or hard. Doing it responsibly and ethically however, is [apparently]. Keeping track of what’s really important while basking in the warm glow of oncoming dollar signs seems to be next to impossible for some.

My list of how to not be an asshole when you’re in the business of selling your expertise:

1. Teach real skills, not pretend ones.

2. Never capitalize on fear and yearning.

3. Admit your motives. Tell people why you really do what you do. It’s ok to say, “I became really knowledgeable about X because I wanted to make a lot of money.” 

4. Your right to make a decent living is not a good reason to create fake scarcity or call something an opportunity when it’s not. It’s a digital product. We know that there is more then 3 left, and if you really wanted the maximum number of people to be able to participate, you wouldn’t close the shopping cart after two hours .

5. Do your homework. Don’t teach people [either by intention or behavior] anything that is illegal, unethical, or otherwise dishonest.

Which leads me to what got me all fired up today.

[SPOILER. In the next line, I'm going to criticize someone you might love. Breathe. It will be ok. Try not to dig your heels and get mad at me just yet. I am not doing it to make you mad. I'm doing it because I think that to not do so would play into the generally accepted thought process of 'not naming names out of fear of pissing people off' that I find counter-productive to overall growth.]

Yesterday morning, I woke up to an email from Marie Forleo. It was a job posting. It basically read like an overly-hyped list of mundane tasks [great opportunities!] that she didn’t want to do, which in and of itself violates rule #4. It is not an ‘opportunity’ if all you get to do is bitch work while making her look like Wonder Woman.

This in and of itself was not enough to make me rant. Annoying as it was, not rant-worthy.

The rant-worthy part came at the end: 

“You will need to be available between 9am and 6pm Pacific Standard Time and you’re required to own your own Mac computer and have a reliable phone and internet connection. This will be a full time contractor position at first with the intention of moving to full time employee status in 2013.”

When I read that, my first thought was, “Well, THAT’S illegal,” but I wasn’t certain, so I checked with a colleague of mine [Erica Cosminsky, HR Consultant and general employment badass at theinvisibleoffice.com] who was kind enough to point out that Derek Halpern just sent out an almost identical post a few days ago. [Note: I am not linking out to Marie or Derek's posts for pretty obvious reasons. If you want to find them, I'm sure you will.] We discussed it a bit and she gave me permission to share the following from our exchange:

“I cringed when I saw these emails in my inbox. The moment you set hours, the person you hired is instantly an employee. It doesn’t matter if you have them sign an Independent Contractor’s Agreement! It’s fraud in the eyes of the IRS. They will fine you and it will not be small fines. Plus if ICE finds out you’ll have thousands more in fines on top of the IRS fines.

If you are noting in your Independent Contractor Agreement that you are setting their hours and want them to suspend the right to Social Security payments, insurance and other benefits (maybe not in so many words), they have a legally signed document stating you knew you were breaking the law.

Many business owners see hiring contractors as a way to save money. You have to very carefully walk this line. Because the state sees it as cheating them out of payroll taxes, and cheating people out of their basic rights such as benefits, minimum wage, and overtime payments. The fines don’t stop with overtime and benefits payments, they will also force you to pay for lost lunch breaks, unemployment tax and workman’s comp insurance. The Department of Labor publicly posts legal cases regarding Misclassified Independent Contractors that go over a certain amount. You can see that page here: http://www.dol.gov/whd/workers/misclassification/pressrelease.htm#.UH79NMXA_qA.On average each of those cases results in $1900 a year in back payments to the “employee”. (That figure does not include any legal fees or fines, IRS fines, ICE fines, etc.)

Working with others in your business is hugely rewarding and necessary, however, you have to educate yourself. More of my new clients are businesses who have just gotten notification of a legal case or investigation than any other kind. Educating yourself will save you thousands of dollars and pain, because trust me, you might not get caught but there are many government departments cracking down on this sort of behavior.”

Setting the legality aside for just a moment, I kept wondering, why – if your target market is entrepreneurs –  would you send out a job posting for a position that says it, ”…is not for you if you have personal drama or you want a side job so you can ‘start your own thing.’” [quoted from Marie's post]? 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have no problem at all with putting out a job posting for doing stuff you don’t want, or have time, to do. My problem is with the way that both of them presented this to a pool of people that are presumably still working at making a good living, and the hypocrisy and lack of integrity implied in how they offered it. They had to think that someone on their existing list would jump at it. To me, that feels a lot like they are taking advantage of the stature they have in their circle to leverage the skills of someone who might otherwise be trying to make their business happen for themselves, but who would be willing to set that aside for regular income at the feet of their idol.

How does that align with Marie’s message of helping people to have a business and life that they’ll love?

They turned what could have been a great opportunity to give good work to a good small business into a demanding and unreasonable popularity contest – as if one fortunate soul would be chosen from the masses to do the transcendent tasks of updating WordPress and answering emails for the great ones. In addition, the language and tone presented [...because of the volume of responses, we won't be able to respond to everyone....] was designed to make applicants feel lucky if they so much as get an email back – an easy way to get out of common courtesy and respectful communication.

They could have so easily avoided all the legality and ethical issues that made their actions a lightning rod if they would have just chosen to tap their lists with a more thoughtful and strategic approach. Rather than attempting to wedge a contractor into an employee role, why not send a request to some qualified virtual assistants who are well-equipped, highly skilled, and hungry for this type of work?

Instead, their behavior says, “Your time means nothing to me. I need you to be at my beck and call for whatever comes up, and I have no intention of allowing you the time and space to have other priorities. If I get my act together to pay you benefits sometime in the next 18 months, then yay for you… but don’t hold your breath. You’ll love this job because you can say you worked for ME, and that should be enough of an incentive to jump at the chance.”

How is that any different or better than the starched suits in the corporate world that so many of us have run from?

Easy. It’s not.

But, it could be. WE could be.

After all, our economy is changing.

Employment is changing.

And yes, MANY people would LOVE to have these jobs.

I’m asking though, why not at least ATTEMPT to be better than the last generation of business owners?

Why ARE we doing this, if not to be a part of some significant shift towards more value[and values]-based business?

I don’t want to be rich, happy and hot. I want to be fulfilled, stable, and healthy.

I want my business to fuel and inspire the creative work of others. I don’t want to manipulate buyers. I don’t want to take advantage of striving spirit and desperation. And I will never, ever tell people that it is OK to take advantage of others or circumvent the system we all live in. Be smart, yes. Find loopholes, yes. Question, yes. Violate, no.

I hear people go on and on about how we all need to take more responsibility for ourselves. How about we take some responsibility for the way that we are in the world while we’re at it? For the fact the people listen to us. For the fact that our list is not just an ATM or a worker pool. For the fact that the people listening are paying attention, and that we all – as an industry – should be setting the bar a lot fucking higher than the one that’s set for the greater business world.

After all, we are supposed to be the smart ones, remember? We are the cool kids that figured out how to buck the system and work from a beach in Fiji.

Aren’t we?

We have a responsibility to not be assholes

Because if this big, beautiful, brand-new sub-economy we all currently occupy is full of a bunch of spoiled toddlers and corporate-trained vampires who just want to suck others dry and prey on their weaknesses, then what did we all work so hard to escape?

I’m here because I think humans, in general, deserve a higher standard and I want to be a part of that. I aspire to put quality out into the world. I want to make you laugh and cry and feel great relief and joy after working with me.

I move that we let hypocrisy, disregard, unreasonable requests, impersonal demands, and dehumanizing treatment be the domain of those that loom over the unfortunate cubicle-bound, and we set a higher standard for ourselves.

You in?

**************************

If you could [oh wait, you totally can!] set standards for behavior and ethics among the micro-business/online marketer/ solopreneur community, what would they be? In the comments, please share what you would add to the Microbusiness Credo.

Related Posts:

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• Using launch powers for good {a sort-of case study}.

This one goes out to the overachievers out there. I know you have the attention span of a two-year-old, but if you can stop multi-tasking for like five whole minutes, you might actually like this.

Ever wonder why you’re stressed out all the time?

Ever wonder why you feel tired and anxious all the time?

Ever wonder why you feel inadequate?

Ever wonder why you don’t have everything you want?

Ever wonder why you never feel like you get the support you need?

Ever wonder why you never seem to have time for yourself?

Ever wonder why you’re not doing what you love?

Because you don’t remember how to relax.

Because you spend all day on Facebook and Twitter comparing yourself to other people.

Because you haven’t gotten it yet. YET.

Because you spend all your time convincing everyone around you that you don’t need any help. And guess what? They believed you.

Because you don’t make the time and you have not given yourself permission to tell all of your other obligations to fuck off. And you’re probably a little bit of a martyr about it.

Because you’re busy doing a bunch of other shit that you feel like you have to do, but really, you probably don’t. It really is that cut and dry.

Because you don’t know how else to be and no one is giving you permission to slow the fuck down.

Brilliance takes time. And pressure – applied at only the most critical points. And passion – applied liberally and with great abandon.

True vision takes a clear day. And a lot of gazing into the nothing.

Love takes good work. And good work takes love.

The cure for a headache isn’t always an aspirin. Sometimes it’s loud rock and roll on a school night.

Inspiration doesn’t come from pain or force – but growth does, if you let it.

Telling someone what you want doesn’t mean you’ll get it.

But it’s a start.

Ignoring your needs will not make them go away. And it will tell the people around you that they can ignore them too.

Ideas that are truly great will take your breath away. You can ignore all the others.

Sometimes the best way to start something is to stop a bunch of other things.

Loosen up.

Quit something.

Stay up late.

Let your kid stay home from school and eat candy all day.

Say yes to something you wouldn’t have yesterday.

Blow off work.

Thank someone for loving you and then tell them to go away.

Do something bad for you and enjoy every minute of it. If you do, it’s probably not that bad for you.

Use a taboo word at an inappropriate moment. Vagina. 

Tell only dirty jokes.

Admit that you like Journey.

Take off all of your clothes. Right fucking now.

Let out some of those inner demons to play once in a while. They usually know where the best parties are.

And above all, loosen the fuck up and let someone really, completely see you. All of you.

You are worth the view.

Related Posts:

• How to make a brilliant decision – With Chris Guillebeau
• What the first year of solo business REALLY looks like.
• Do EVERYTHING. Be great. Screw decisiveness. Change your mind.

Fucking stellar design?

Check.

Brilliant content?

Bam!

Fab photos?

Presto!

Premium WordPress theme?

Duh!

SEO sexyness?

I’ve got meta tags for DAYS!

Subscribe box?

Wait… what now?

RSS?

Does anyone else hear crickets?

Yup. This is what happened to me with a client the other day. She is brilliant. Like MAD brilliant. Style and smarts ooozing from like everywhere. This woman did her own design (which kicks ass) – she’s building a pretty solid number of page views, she’s even figured out advertising on another bigger blog. But somehow, in her months of meticulous prep and research, she just plum missed putting in a place for people to subscribe, and instead just left the default subscribe link that came with her theme – which she hadn’t really tested, nor did she really know what it did.

And guess what it did.

Yup. Nada.

So this got me thinking – if this savvy businesswoman missed something that huge, what might I be missing? 

And that got me thinking about THIS:

How do you KNOW what your customers are experiencing?

How do you KNOW that the systems you set up work for them?

How do you know when you’re missing something?

Do you have someone you trust that points out the oncoming truck that resides firmly in your blind spot?

Better yet, how do you spot opportunities amid the noise of all the problems and fires and immediate shit you have to clear out of the way in just to make room for that thing that’s been on the back-burner for more time than you’d like to admit?

Do you have a system? Or, do you rely on the  brilliant idea that you will remember the important stuff and that you are smart enough to see good stuff coming at you ['cuz you're not, by the way - in case the snark left some room for ambiguity]?

Being a business builder can get lonely. Losing perspective is all but assured.

Talent, potential, and/or experience are not indicators of your capacity for success, nor will they help you avoid an oncoming train or see your ship rolling in on the horizon.

[Read that last sentence again. It's important.]

For that, you need one thing.

No, not money.

No, not education.

No, not [fill in with whatever the voice in your head is telling you that you're lacking].

What you need is Patience.

Yes. Patience.

Patience with yourself to learn what you need to learn.

Patience through the process of building something.

Patience with the people around you who don’t understand what you’re doing.

Patience in the moments when you stop working, take a deep breath and look – really look – at what’s happening in your business, your life, your world.

Without patience, three things happen:

1. You rush IT. You take shortcuts to nail down success on unreasonable terms and forget about examining what’s right for you.

2. You take unnecessary risks based on rationalized logic. No, you don’t need a new _________ to have a successful business.

3. You burn out. Turns out, you can’t always do everything all at once.

When was the last time you saw a brilliant just-right-for-you opportunity emerge from the ether when you felt burned out, unsure, backed into a corner, and in a hurry?

More likely, those are the moments when that careening truck, driven by a texting teenager on their way home from a 12-hour Twilight marathon – cracked out on a Robert Pattinson-induced hormone rush, whose trajectory you failed to consider, blindsides you.

See, to have stable success, you need balance. You need to be able to look at what you’re doing from every angle [not just the one that you think will make you the most $$ fast], and you need to understand the importance of doing so.

All that takes a fuck-load of patience and daily reminders to make decisions that consider the many stakeholders that your business effects and the implications of missing even the smallest of details.

So, let’s talk about this more in the comments: How will you slow down and think about the small stuff today?

[for those reading in your inbox, click here to join the convo]

Related Posts:

• Why it is absolutely essential that you find YOUR place in the world.
• How to make SMART growth decisions – With Ashley Ambirge
• Humanity vs. Professionalism – Why it’s so easy to forget that there are real people behind all the blogging and tweeting and posting.

I’ve noticed an emerging trend happening out there:

The little guys are growing up and becoming the big guys.

Online entrepreneurs are renting offices.

Solopreneurs are becoming agencies and collectives and are all about playing big – bigger – BIG BIG BIG!

I read a post recently by a minimalist who was talking about how to be epic. Epic.

Epic? Really?!?

Can you even be an epic minimalist?

Where is the hero’s journey in minimalism?

“I Own One Shirt: The true story of one man’s quest into the search for a gentle laundry detergent that he can also use to wash his butt.”

I digress.

Three years ago when I started Makeness, small was in. Way in. Everyone was all about how to get out from under the thumb of The Man. We were proud of our ability to work in our jammies, travel the world, and do pretty much everything on our own terms.

But the climate was different then. Jobs were scarce. Corporate distrust was at an all-time high. And now, here we are – three years later – and the little guys are wanting more from their businesses. Beyond the desire to get out from under jobs we hated, now they want to lead. Now they want to change things for other people – lift them up – create jobs. Now they want to become them.

Them=The movers and the shakers.

Them=The difference makers.

Them=The leaders, the generational voices, the money makers, the people that leave the BIG marks.

But how? Why? Why give up the freedoms of being a couch-surfing entrepreneur to dive headlong into rent-paying and suit-wearing?

Because it’s effective. That’s why.

Because people take you more seriously when you have a conference room and an office that has a land line.

Because whether we like it or not, potential clients still feel better knowing that they have a whole gaggle of people toiling away just for THEM, instead of one really smart introvert who lives and works in their laundry-day underpants.

But is that the only way?

What’s wrong with small?

Isn’t it the work that matters?

Why does size matter?

Better yet, who gives a shit?

WHY do we start off liking small and wind up wanting to be big?

WHY do so many of us inevitably decide that we are ready [and supposed] to make our little thing into a big thing?

Small is lovely. Small is nimble. Small means you can change – adapt – grow – shrink – learn – fail – succeed – all from the comfortable place of knowing that you are safe in your creative bubble. Safe. Oh… that dirty word we are all supposed to avoid. When did safe become a BAD thing?

I don’t know about you, but I got pretty tired of hanging over the financial ledge by the skin of my teeth when I was like 19.

Safe feels pretty damn good these days.

Beyond the debate of small vs. big is the question of why, as business people, do we feel the need to tap into one or the other? Why do we have to build bigger or stay leaner? Why can’t we build leaner and stay small? In our little/big sub-economy, why is the biggest indicator of success still all about size? Number of Twitter followers/subscribers/readers/page views/clicks/etc… has become how we measure our reach – and thereby how we measure who is the biggest, brightest, smartest leaders out there.

It seems so adolescent to me.

Shouldn’t the measure of success be our level of happiness, our positive impact, and our fucking bottom line?!?

I know lots of people who make a lot of cash and are really happy and no one has ever heard of them. Their blogs are ignored. Their websites suck. They don’t have signs or suite numbers or VA’s. And I know plenty of people who have massive numbers and who make less than your average Gap employee.

So why do we spend so much time worrying about numbers that don’t matter? Or do they matter? Should they matter? No idea. Really. I. Don’t. Know.

I do know that I’m pretty sure that if Warren Buffett was starting out today, his number of Facebook friends wouldn’t be his measure of success. But if Martin Luther King Jr. was having a dream a month ago, he sure as hell would be sharing it on Twitter.

So why talk about all this? Because it’s a topic that’s on the top of my mind – and the minds of many other people I’ve been chatting with lately.

Since I’ve moved to a new geographic [and psychic] location – a lot has been churning in me, and in my business. As my landscape changes, I feel more and more in tune with the general and constant movement under my feet, and around me, in the little corner of the business world that I occupy. That churning sparks questions for me. Questions spark debate. Debate sparks ideas. Ideas are my stock and trade.

This big/small debate is just that. A debate. A step towards ideas and visions and changes. I don’t know the answer.

Some days, I want to hire people and rent a big loft and paint all the walls white and buy fancy computers and sit on big rubber balls and use crayons for brainstorming all my big ideas.

Other days, I look down at my cat and feel totally blessed that I do not, under any circumstances, have to put shoes on today unless I reeeeealllllyyy want to.

We are living in interesting times. We are part of what feels like a gold-rush of new ideas and ways to make a living, and we are filling up this boundless online land-grab with trendy choices that change faster than most people are able to process.

So, I’m asking. Big or Small? Fast or Slow? Is there a *right* way to be brilliant and world-changing?

Really, I’m asking. Use the comment space to share your thoughts. Tweet this. Share this. I really, honestly, am trying to get a read on what YOU think.

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This weekend was Chris Guillebeau’s aptly titled World Domination Summit. 1000 people descended on Portland for 2+ days of delight, inspiration and other shenanigans. I probably don’t really need to tell you about it because like, everyone else is already talking about it. 

Which is really the point.

See, even though I just moved to Portland and had events stacked for three straight days, I got the flu instead and missed the whole freaking tamale.

And yes, this sucked a LOT.

However, circumstances forced me into a position of observation – which is really my favorite place to be anyway. From my sofa, covered in flu-goo, I got to watch from afar and see what really rose to the surface as the most salient points and moments of the weekend.

And believe me, when you combine a weekend full of world-class speakers, hammocks, meetups, Bollywood dance-offs, and Fleetwood Mac singalongs – oh and a room full of 1000 people who are obsessed with social media, you get a perfect storm of really fascinating noise.

[and a lot of bullshit - but the good kind... so it's ok]

And honestly, until about 8pm Sunday night, it really all felt like just that, noise. Cool noise. Enviable noise. Noise that I really wish I had been in the middle of, but noise nonetheless. And the thing about noise is that it tends to quiet down pretty quickly.

I was looking for the thing that would rise above the noise.

The thing that would last. The one crystal clear note that would rise above the love fest.

That note came in the form of a fast parade of tweets that said things like, “Yup, rumors are true, Chris Guillebeau gave every single attendee $100 to reinvest in being great.”

Yeah.

You want to make news, don’t launch a new thingamajig. Give away $100,000.

Now THAT is a high note.

In the last 24 hours the noise has turned from thank you’s and hugs to stories of what people are doing with their new-found fortune. From one woman that gave hers to a cab driver on the way to the airport (in addition to the fare) so he could start a community garden with it, to the MANY people that pledged it to charity… I was totally blown away by ripples that are already beginning to happen.

Then I thought about how many companies spend ten times that much on PR, all to talk about insignificant bullshit. What if they gave it away? What if companies stopped telling us what to think, and started giving something cool to think about?

So…

What are you doing right now that makes your people think and gives them something great to tell their friends about?

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I just moved from Northern California to Portland, OR.

Yup. Another blogger in Portland. Try to breathe through the shock. 

Before I moved here, I had this vague idea that Portland was my kind of town. Rainy, brooding, granola-y, snobbish. Check, check, check, and check. I knew that it would be awesome to get perfect cappuccinos on every corner. I knew that it would rock to be able to eat amazing French food out of the back of a school bus. I even knew how awesome it would be to be able to meet and hang out with people who actually understand what the fuck it is that I do for a living.

What I DIDN’T know was what it would feel like to truly belong in a place, and the value that would have in my life and in my business.

See, I am not what you would call a joiner. I’m the girl that shows up a half hour before everyone else at a party, and who leaves twenty minutes before it turns into the greatest night ever. I was raised by an artist in a really conservative mountain town. In fifth grade, I wore a different hat to school every day for a month. Let’s just say I have always felt like a bit of a square peg in a round hole. Even in college in San Francisco – I always felt like I wasn’t quite weird enough, or creative enough, or stoned enough to really belong. For the last decade in Sacramento, I’ve been dubbed the coffee snob, the wimpy drinker, the one that looked down her nose at all the suburbanites (which I kinda did… I mean how DO people live like that anyway?!?). My friends always looked at me with this, “We love you but we kinda don’t really get you,” look. I think part of me stayed because I felt like I was somehow fighting the good fight – bringing a new perspective to people that actually like Olive Garden. But you know what the problem with fighting the good fight is?

You are always fighting. You are always exhausted. And everyone will think you’re a bitch. Because you are. Why in god’s name did I think it my job to make people care about the difference between a traditional cappuccino and the crap they serve at Starbucks? Who was I to judge? Who the fuck did I think I was?

I loved California, sure – but I never really felt like California loved me back. 

I’ve been in Portland for nine days now and baby, I feel the love. I’m no longer the snob, I’m just yet another Portlander that cares about quality. I don’t have to fight anymore. I’m not the lone greenie… we have curbside composting. I mean, FOR REALS!?! I used to be super-productive at home because I was so bored with where I lived that work seemed like more fun than play. Now, I find myself so inspired by everything around me, it’s like new ideas are growing like weeds. 

I had no idea that this is what belonging felt like. If I did, perhaps I would have had slightly less disdain for people that joined clubs and went to networking breakfasts (naaaa, probably not. People who are able to make sentences and talk to strangers before 8am still freak me out).

For so many of you, the online world is like this window into all the things that are possible for yourself. It’s like a taste of what can be, and is a place where you can find your people. But, if you are at all like me, when you close your laptop for the day, you still have to look around at the physical world and confront the dings and dents and things you procrastinate changing. Maybe it’s a job you hate. Maybe it’s the town you feel stuck in. Maybe it’s a relationship that’s sucking you dry. Whatever it is, so many of us found our way to online business as a way of freeing ourselves of something that wasn’t working.

It took me two-and-a-half years to move.

It didn’t happen overnight. I set goals and benchmarks and do-or-die dates and missed them again and again. I got close a few times and life got in the way. It took a ton of work and was one of the most stressful and difficult things I have ever done.

Peeling away the layers of crap that you have built up on yourself is fucking hard work.

It doesn’t happen out of split decisions and grand proclamations. It happens by putting one goddamn foot in front of the other every day, no matter what. 

Any you know what? It’s totally worth every step.

Finding the place where you belong in the world means that you have support around you.

It means you only keep the people that make your life better and let go of the rest.

It means that you get to be one of those rarefied souls who actually enjoys their life.

It means that you can put all that fire and passion and fight into doing something amazing, instead of into hating all the stuff that’s in your way.

Real belonging means everything.

Finding it is the keys to the castle baby.

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You made a plan.

You mapped it all out.

You found the right help.

You paid through the nose for rock-star graphic designer and genius copy.

Your auto-responders are all set.

Videos look fucking awesome.

Guest posts are ready and waiting.

Affiliates are ready.

You tease it out to your clients.

A bunch of people express interest your cool-whatever-ness.

You’re all a-flutter with anticipation…

Bamo! Launch day.

First thirty seconds pass… no buyers.

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Fuck. Refresh. Fuck Fuck Fuck.

Paypal shut down your account.

You forgot to upgrade to merchant status.

Website crashes for half your visitors due to traffic spike.

Fancy video fails to load.

Sales page has big grey box instead.

Buy Now button doesn’t work…

…your assistant forgot to connect the purchase link.

Annoyed potential buyers take to Twitter…

“Wish I could buy… oh well, guess @Yourname’s Cool-Whatever-Ness. Oh well, probably wasn’t worth it anyway.”

Email box reaches capacity… you recall your web guy saying something about increasing storage a while back. It was on your list… somewhere.

Breathe. You can do this. One thing at a time….

Fix video.

Connect Buy Now Button.

Upgrade Paypal.

Cross fingers.

Hope.

Hope more.

Tweet apologies. Assure world that Cool-Whatever-Ness is ready and waiting for them to get all excited again and buy! Buy! Buy!

More hoping.

More refreshing.

More tweeting.

More hoping.

Fingers are blue from all the crossing.

….

…….

………..

Moment has passed.

You sold two.

Let the tears commence.

Hope is dead.

Replaced by self-pity.

Now what?

I have had some WHOPPER failures. My first [as a business owner] was when worked on a course for three months solid. Selling it would pay my rent and bills for the next several months. On launch day, I was down to $11 in my bank account. It HAD to work. There was no Plan B.

I had several hundred people on the pre-launch interest list, and a lot of buzz. I did all the right stuff… creative launch, lots of build-up. My business coach was on-board. I wasn’t even a little bit worried.

I sold none.

ZERO.

Zip.

Nada.

And nothing actually even went wrong… I just totally misjudged the whole tamale. Most likely it was too expensive, too heady, too confusing… too something. The point is, we ALL get it wrong sometimes. I got cocky. I thought that I had hit the point where at least some people would buy whatever I’m selling. It took this experience to realize what a fucking pile of poo THAT is. It’s not real.

If you don’t put out the right stuff for the right people at the right time, it will fail. Period. It doesn’t matter how big or small your list is.

So what did I do next?

I ran away like my hair was on fire. I hid under a rock for a while. I cried. Like stupid, irrational, self-pitying ugly crying. And I whined – A LOT. Not my proudest moments.

But, these ARE the moments that separate people who were made for entrepreneurship from those who aren’t.

A lot of people quit when they have their first epic fail. The crying/depression and self-pity only ends when they submit to the Craigslist Gods to help deliver them back to the safety of a cubicle.

Instead, I reminded myself that I swore when I started that it was WORTH THE RISK.

FAILURE IS THE RISK.

No one, and I mean NO ONE who has reached a point of success has gotten there without at least one catastrophic failure.

So I decided, I’m either a hypocrite or I’m in business.

I chose business.

I embraced my meltdown as the keys to Entrepreneur’s Castle.  I had earned my stripes. I was part of the club. I tried, failed, dusted myself off and started again.

 So tell me… how did you earn YOUR stripes? What was your first epic fail?

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