Blast O' Joy

Happy For No Reason?

So what’s a gal who’s all about living your joy have to say about a book that calls itself ‘Happy For No Reason?” Good things, that’s what!

As a professional Joy pusher, I was happy to find Marci Shimoff’s book. In it is an interesting point about how we all have a preset ‘happiness set point’ … that place where we intuitively stop when things get ‘too’ happy. Sound familiar? The book proposes a very organic 7 step process to moving you out of that stuck place and into a deeper experience of your own authentic happiness. I was really struck by some of the ideas here … I think you’d probably love ths book. I did.

And right now, not surprisingly, it’s at the top of Amazon’s best seller list – awesome! Jump in and join the wave … and get happy!

April is Officially ‘Fun Month’

My good friend Andrea Lee has a theory – that you can earn twice as much in half the time, if you’re smart about how you work. She calls it ‘unworking’. For too long I’ve been in ‘nose to the grindstone’ mode … and frankly, I’m just not going to do it anymore. I’m going to test Andrea’s theory for the month of April, and officially give myself a whole lot more time for fun, R&R, and creative chilling out.

And then, when I sit down to work at my computer, I will design my time to work smarter, spend less time and accomplish more. Not sure HOW this will happen but only that it must, cause I’m just not having quite enough fun in my current mode.

On the books are two weeks away visiting New York , Philly and Boston . An acting lesson for my Serenity Hawfire character in New York (fun work), the launch of my new coaching program complete with fun free teleclass (watch for details here and via email), a little family vacation time in NYC , and a week of going around to interactive theater pieces, getting inspired for my Serenity project with official Friends of Serenity. No suffering here, that’s for sure!

Thrown in will also be some time spent playing the piano (if I can find one on the road), going to Bikram Yoga classes, and thinking about how the Serenity script must morph and develop. Oh yeah, just for extra fun, I may tweak some of my sales pages and do some coaching here and there.

And how are you going to max your work time, cut back and have what my old coach Rich Schefren called ‘Miller Time”? I know it’s going to make me more efficient and creative … so how about you?

Shared Joy is Double Joy | Here's to Friendship!

Pssst --- over here.  Shhhhh.  Suzanne's on holidays.  Or, er, that's vacation, rather, since she's American.  Hey, I know!  Let's talk about her while she's gone, shall we??  Hehe!

As readers of 'The Joy Letter' now know, I have the distinct pleasure of joining Suzanne as writer-in-residence, contributing both to the bi-monthly letter and this delight-of-a-blog. 

Who am I? My friends call me 'a,' short for Andrea (Lee), and I'm a writer, or at least I like to think so, most days.  And I'm a business coach and consultant too.  You know, it's what pays the rent.  But in this first post the thing I'm most identifying with is the word friend. 

I know friendship is an old-fashioned word these days.  We don't talk about it much at all, especially on a business level.  But what's bringing me immense joy these days is exactly that - friendship.

Have you thought about friendship lately?  Do you have great friends?  Any new ones, along with the ones that go 'way back?'  How about in your work - have you risked becoming more than just 'work people' to anyone lately?  Like the seasons, I think every year should bring a new crop of friends, ones that reflect back to you where you are in your life - how you're growing and changing with the days.

As a business owner, this is a new discovery for me.  It used to be that I thought friendship belonged in partitioned-off section of my life, designated for 'after hours' when all the work was done.  But here are two things I've learned of late about friendship:

(1) You can mix friendship with work, for surprising effects.

Miuch like when you add the pinch of salt to a meal, a good friend in your business can make everything come alive.  The problem is, many of us don't use friendship as a guide in our work.  But what if we did?

What if this week you decided to follow the energy of friendship in your work - gave a real smile to a customer as you said hello or asked a genuine question with a desire to find common ground?  How about pausing to connect on a human level with a joint venture partner before diving into the nuts and bolts?

The thing about Suzanne and I, in our new business partnerships...is that I liked her from the start.  We began as strangers, drawn to share desserts and tea a couple years in a row, and followed that friendship energy, not any sort of business agenda really.

But it's a funny thing - based on a foundation of friendship, we've found all sorts of wins in our work that we couldn't have predicted.  My energy to expand on Suzanne's great work on Joy allows us to keep this moving - where previously it may well have disappeared.  Suzanne's affection for what I do for coaches makes it possible for me to take a break - grow myself creatively.  Shared joy in this case has really become triple and quadruple the joy, not just double.

So who's a friend you think you might like to do more with, perhaps on a project, as a business partner, or on a shared dream?   How could a new purposeful activity embellish your already joyful friendship energy?

Who's someone you're working with and how might you enrichen your relationship by exploring a friendship? 

For those of you with websites and ezines, what if you treated the people who read your newsletter, or blog, or listened to your podcast, as sincerely great friends?  Look out for your readers by recommending fabulous tools and resources, just like a friend would.  Point out possibilities and make connections, as a friend would.  Even helping out when times are tough, and ask the tough questions, the way a great friend would.

(2) The quality (number, type, etc.) of your friendships can tell you a lot about yourself - where you are right now, and where you're going.

I don't know about you, but I just love the way Suzanne has helped us all navigate using Joy as a guide.  We really *can* live the life of our dreams using just five simple words: 'I want to feel good!'  (Thank you Wayne Dyer!)

But that's the thing - sometimes former friendships can start to *not* feel so good.  They are constraining instead of opening; they small-ize us because of what these friends think of us, instead of giving us permission to do and be anything we dream of; sometimes these outgrown friendships even begin to feel like anchors around our neck - they sap our energy.

Are there friends in your life right now that are doing these things to you? 

What if there was a way to say a graceful goodbye, and free your energy up to become the next iteration of you?

Shedding old friendships and the growth of new ones is a reflection of our growth.  When the energy in a friendship becomes misaligned, the relationship becomes heavy.  Perhaps you've come to value different things.  The things you find important aren't even on your friend's radar.  How can you continue to have a thriving energetic communion if this is the case?

Just as your tastes change and you throw some clothes out after awhile, you begin writing a new genre, or paint in a new medium, friendship has a life cycle.  If you look carefully at your past relationships, I'll bet you discover that your friendships were a reflection of where you were at, in that moment of time.

Accordingly, let's be happily purposeful about our friendships shall we? If you've been feeling at all lonely in your life, make a pact to get out into new social circles and pay attention to who you're drawn to...again, this is a reflection of you.

Maybe you've never been attracted to the very ambitious type - successful and surrounded by others admiration.  But now, maybe this person is fascinating to you - the chemistry is right - you click and a new friendship - suitable for the you of today, is born.

If you let it, this kind of 'follow the friendship' energy will lead you to more joy and give you more energy.   

So do we have a deal?  Will you make a point to consciously allow more friendship into your life? 

I can hardly wait to hear how friendship has changed your life.

And hey, Suzanne?  You're off on vacation awhile, but when you're back, I know you'll be looking for how I christened this new beginning on Blast O' Joy.  I hope you like it, and you know what?  I meant every word:

Shared joy is double the joy and I thank you so very much for your friendship. 

Recommended:  Take 5 minutes to try the Likeability Factor quiz by author Tim Sanders and see just how friendship-ready you are.  It's a great one to send to your friends too.

P.S. Until we figure out how to activate my guest author status, I'll post under Suzanne's name. Ha, I promise not to smear your reputation, S.

How to Make the Most of Your Lunch Hour, Part I

What did you have for lunch today?

Was it a container of yogurt and half the contents of your 'in' box? Maybe you took in a meeting and skipped lunch altogether, until you lifted your head at 3:30 and ran downstairs for a candy bar and an apple (your nod to nutrition.) Or was lunch yet another escape from a job you hate with some fellow disgruntled employees? If so, was vitriol served alongside the hamburgers?

On the other hand, maybe you used your lunch hour to chip away at your dreams. I've recently taken the somewhat dangerous position that one of the best times of day to do the work of your dreams is during your lunch hour. While the concept may seem radical -- What? Do my painting/practicing/blue sky brainstorming right here... at my DESK? You godda be CRAZY! -- there is a certain logic to it.

Look at it this way. If you are like some people who read this blog, you work all day and then come home too tired at night to really put that much energy into your dream. Or perhaps you get up at the crack of dawn, all set to write or compose or paint, and suddenly a child appears in the doorway, wanting an especially early story read to them. On the other hand, lunch hour is technically your time, and it's purpose is to stop, take a break, and refresh your spirit.What better way than to spend your lunch hour than on the work of your soul?

Now you may be involved in something like tap dancing or chain-saw sculpting that could be a tad disruptive at work. No problem. Find a nearby place to do your work. Major cities have rehearsal and even art studios to rent by the hour. Suburbs have church and temple halls you can usually borrow if they're unused. The key here is to be resourceful and use your imagination. Let your mind wander to the place or the means to do what you've got to do. A friend of mine used to use an unused furniture store room at his company to practice tai chi every hour at lunch. Or use the lunch hour to do the quiet work of your dream -- the planning, the research, the marketing, etc..

Technorati Tags: Time management, creativity coaching, living your dreams

A great source for layouts of all kinds

I just found out about a really useful resource for all kinds of affordable layouts for your marketing materials -- StockLayouts.

Got a workshop to promote? A business to network? An ezine to send out? Get a really interesting and well done selection of pre-made templates from StockLayouts - they cover everything: Brochures, Newsletter, Flyers, Ads, Postcards, Business Cards, Letterheads and more.

You can download free sample templates which help you see how the process works, then pick from a wide array of possible designs for purchase. Templates can be customized, which is critical - and they work in just about any design software system you've got from Quark to Word. 

No one less than the Duct Tape Marketing guru, John Jantsch, says "There are lots of templates available but nothing, in my opinion, compares to the quality you get from StockLayouts." What I love about them is that look especially slick because they have royalty-free images and graphics in them … so they really are 'agency quality.' And prices are darn reasonable!

They even have templates for specific industries such as construction, financial services and real estate. Cool!

Technorati Tags: Graphics, custom templates, marketing brochure

Dare To Be Heard, Part III

This is the final excerpt (a continuation of yesterday's post) from my 2000 book, How Much Joy Can You Stand? (Ballantine) which I'm about to re-release on the Net as a free ebook. (Watch for details here.)

The point is this: no matter what you take on, insecurity is part of the job description. It's not possible to blaze new trails and forge your own path while remaining on familiar ground. If you want to start a business, you take on financial risk. If you want to move to another part of the country, you plunge yourself and whomever is attached to you into the unknown. If you want to try any endeavor you care about, you're going to have to kick it out of that cozy little nook it has carved in your soul. And you're going to have to stand there and watch your dream as it takes its first baby steps. This is not an experience for people who crave comfort.

Writer Raymond Carver likened publishing his stories to riding at night in the back seat of a driverless car with no lights on.

And yet, such vulnerability can be a valuable part of the creative process. An acting teacher I once knew insisted that serious doubt is actually a very good sign, a signal that you're being completely honest and vulnerable in your work.

Mark Twain said of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , "I like it only tolerably well... and may possibly pigeonhole it, or burn the manuscript when it is done." As for me, I only know that I got through the first novel I published by convincing myself no one would ever read it. I was sure that this was yet another little piece of my own personal weirdness that no one would ever have to sit through. And yet, a major publisher actually bought it. 

Daring to be heard, then, is simple. It's recognizing your cascades of self-doubt for what they are: a whole lot of hot air you've cooked up for absolutely no good reason at all. Then, it's mustering up the courage to trust yourself for five minutes anyway, because maybe you really do have something important to say. And,  ultimately, it's having one of those defining little epiphanies and saying, "What the hell."

Daring to be heard means recognizing that if you put your voice out there, all you're going to get back is a yes or a no. The days of public stoning are long over; so is being pilloried. In fact, a large part of the world won't even be paying attention, no matter how loudly you scream.

Daring to be heard, ultimately, is something great you do for yourself. It's giving your poor, withered soul some fresh air and sunshine. Daring to be heard means stretching out languorously in the luxury of a strong opinion, or basking in the joy of planning an endeavor you've always wanted to start. No matter what your medium, the dream is yours and yours alone to realize in your own particular way. With the dream comes the chance to represent yourself in the world in a way that truly matters. Daring to be seen and heard becomes the chance for perfect freedom.
It becomes your chance to fly.

Try this ...

Take a pad of paper and a large, fat magic marker (big, black and permanent works wonderfully well.) Unplug the phone, get family and roommates out of the house, and close your door. Then spend the next half-hour gloriously scrawling out whatever opinion or idea or invective you've wanted to hurl in your life but didn't. Scribble it all out on that pad, as fast and furiously as you can. Don't stop. Don't judge. Don't even think. Just spew. If you run out of paper, get more! Just keep on going until you've said everything you had to say. If you find yourself crying, yelling and pounding the pillows on your bed, all the better.

I find this exercise to be particularly useful after stressful family visits or bad days at work.

Technorati Tags: Joy, creativity, motivation

Dare To Be Heard, Part II

This is part 2 of yesterday's post, excerpted from my 2000 book, How Much Joy Can You Stand? (Ballantine) which I'm about to re-release on the Net as a free ebook. (Watch for details here.)

I will never forget the first time I performed my cabaret act -- a two-woman show in which my partner and I wrote and sang all our own music. For months and months we'd worked on the act, composing, harmonizing, writing lyrics, choreographing moves, all the while convinced that what we were doing was good but strange. No one in their right mind was actually going to like this stuff, though we might get some polite applause. In fact, we only kept going because we were having fun.

Then, our opening night rolled around. As we stood on the stage singing our first number, a curious thing happened. People began to smile. They nodded, and sat up a little straighter as if they were actually listening, and then a miracle occurred: they laughed. All of them. Loudly, even. The audience got the first joke in the lyrics, then another, and another. They laughed in places I hadn't even anticipated. Like some fantastic flying machine lumbering into that sacred moment of lift-off, the act was working. At that moment, I fully understood the impact of what my partner and I had created and it shocked me. I was someone worth listening to. People actually wanted to hear what I had to say.

The common disposition among us is a painful sort of shyness. People get embarrassed when called forth to be themselves for even a millisecond in front of others. The core belief is that since nothing I say matters to anyone, I will end up looking like a dork. This is the precise feeling that keeps people from feeding their dreams.

Oddly enough, that sniggering voice of doubt never really goes away. Years go by and you get somewhat used to it, as you learn to test the waters more and more, and eventually the voice slides from an obnoxious bellow into more of a background drone. Witness the famous acceptance speech Sally Fields made on winning her second Oscar: "I guess you really do like me, don't you?" Observe the fact that Truman Capote was once quoted as saying he'd never written anything he thought was really  good. Not even "Breakfast At Tiffany's." Jane Austen wrote of her work, "I think I may boast to myself to be with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress."

Can you relate?

Technorati Tags: Joy, creativity, motivation

Dare To Be Heard

This is excerpted from my 2000 book, How Much Joy Can You Stand? (Ballantine) which I’m about to re-release on the Net as a free ebook. (Watch for details here.)

So, you want to be a venture capitalist, write a screenplay, or open a Victorian tea garden like the one you visited once in London and never forgot. So, you want to do anything slightly risky that demands a personal vision.

          You? ... You?  says the voice, as it collapses on the floor in gales of laughter.

          Who do you think you are, anyway?

For many of us, this is where the conversation about pursuing our dream begins and ends. Because, let's admit it -- we're sensible people. We’re not the sort who takes huge, wild risks. We’re not the slightest bit visionary. We don't have a lot of high-minded thoughts that keep us awake at night, and God knows we don't know the first thing those other, more successful people must have known before they set off to realize their dream. We're just ... us. Basic. Flawed. Certainly nothing special.

Actually, when you get right down to it, we think we don't really even deserve to have a dream.

Still, we do have this niggling idea that keeps surfacing and resurfacing, begging to be explored, teased out, played with, and realized. We otherwise staid individuals do have to admit to oddly ambitious stirrings we don't completely understand. So we do what we have always done: we ignore them.

After all, we're just not the kind of people who go off half-cocked after some so-called dream. Right?

The truth is that people with creative impulses need to create, no matter how "uncreative," sensible, logical and otherwise unimpulsive they consider themselves. People with a pressing idea have an obligation to express it. And yet we almost never do. We subscribe to a weirdly common belief that no one wants to hear what we have to say.  No one wants to know about our great new idea, patronize our business, attend our productions, or give us any kind of a break. No one.  We feel as if the world were just waiting to flatten us with some great, universal sledgehammer.

This is the soft, dark underbelly of all dreams, the part that's hovering in the shadows, hoping to derail you. And, this is the first and seediest demon you will have to confront. The really annoying part is that the demon is you. All that imagined rejection is nothing more than your own twisted imaginings. When examined in the cool, rational light of day by other, more benevolent people, your own contribution usually merits a much greater response than you could ever imagine.

Technorati Tags: Joy, creativity, motivation

How to Make Time for Your Soul, Part II

This is part 2 of a list I excerpted from my 2000 book, How Much Joy Can You Stand? (Ballantine) which I'm about to re-release on the Net as a free ebook. (Watch for details here.)

• Multi-task.  Fold nurturing practices into your routine, such as meditating or praying while you walk, or practicing an instrument while dinner cooks. Rather than stare at work on the train, take a book you've been wanting to read. Books on tape are especially good for this.
• Rethink your routine. Jot down your daily routine, then reevaluate it. Does reading the newspaper cover-to-cover do as much for you as working on the furniture you keep wishing you had time to refinish?
• Cut corners cooking. Take advantage of gourmet take-out and grocery-store fast foods, such as prewashed salad, precut vegetables, and premarinated chicken.
  Let the answering machine pick up. Better yet, get on-line and encourage friends to e-mail you, instead of calling.
• Create your own sanctuary. Make a room of your own, preferably with a door. Hang a Do Not Disturb sign on it, and don't let others interrupt you. Family and friends will honor your request to have some time for yourself only if you do, too.
• Quit volunteering so much. Cut your list back to only those things that truly enrich you. Give other people a chance to do the rest.
• Divide up the housework. Hand over the laundry and vacuuming to your mate. Teach your children to do dishes, cook meals and mop floors. And be willing to give up control of the end results. Read Patricia H. Sprinkle's book, Children Who Do Too Little ; Why Your Kids Need to Work Around the House (and How to Get Them to Do It)  for terrific pointers on how to make this happen.
• If you can't relax your standards, delegate. Hire local teenagers, professional housecleaners, or even a temp service to help you clear out your desk, answer correspondence, pay bills, organize closets, walk the dog -- whatever you can give up that makes more time for you.
• Do something you truly love. Once you've created this time for yourself, use it wisely. Take on the challenges and dreams that really will improve your life. Chances are that once you start, it will be very hard to stop.

Technorati Tags: Joy, creativity, motivation

How to Make Time for Your Soul

This is excerpted from my 2000 book, How Much Joy Can You Stand? (Ballantine) which I'm about to re-release on the Net as a free ebook. (Watch for details here.)

• Unplug your television. Even better, completely remove it.
• Cancel your subscriptions. Get rid of anything you don't read.
• Make regular 'soul' time every day. If you're a morning person, get up one hour earlier and dig into your projects. If you're a night person, stay up one hour later.
• Say no to your boss. Leave at 5:00 or 5:30. Chances are, you'll find you're more valuable than you thought you were. Also, you'llp robably find you work with increased efficiency. Offer to come in one hour earlier, if need be, to leave time for your evening classes, projects, events.
• Don't waste your lunch hour eating. Bring lunch to work, eat it briefly at your desk, and then get out there and do what really matters to you.
• Stop agreeing to do things you don't truly want to do. This includes volunteering, meeting friends and family, and serving on committees.
• Redesign your work schedule. Create one day or several  afternoons a week to concentrate on the things you really want to do in life. Explore flex-time alternatives in your workplace. Consider telecommuting, working from a home office, or going free-lance with your company. If giving up corporate benefits seems impossible, get in touch with self-employed advocacy groups like Support Services Alliance, Inc., to find out about their various insurance plans for members.
• Put the kids to bed earlier. Establish 'grown up' time, a time zone when all children are in bed (even if they're only looking at books or listening to tapes before going to sleep) and the adults get to have a little room to breath.

… to be continued tomorrow…

Technorati Tags: Joy, creativity, motivation