Articles
Fear on this gorgeous day
Today’s a gorgeous day. Perfect late summer kind of day. Bright and warm, but with a crisp breeze at just the right moment. My daughter’s home this last week (as in, not overscheduled as she has been all summer) and I’ve decided to put work on hold as we fête the waning days of vacation together. Seriously: if it’s not fun, it ain’t on the menu. (Every once in a while, I am THAT mother.)
So to give me the space to get the last bits of work handled before I go off-line for the balance of the week, I booked a playdate with her bestie here to keep her occupied and happy.
Twenty minutes into the playdate, I received a call.
The call display on my handset showed that it was from my home number. The very phone that was ringing. Curious, I picked it up. There was a pause, then I heard an über creepy voice leering: “let’s play a game”. And didn't wait to find out what the game was. I hung up. Ran downstairs to make sure the girls were okay (they were), and promptly got on the phone with my phone service provider. Surely if this was a common prank, they would know about it, right? 40 minutes of my life later, getting bounced around, I was informed that this “shouldn’t have happened” but it “will be resolved” (code for: beat it Psycho Lady, and get another cat).
When things go wrong, I unplug ‘em. (I’m kind of a Luddite like that). I took the landline off the hook. If nothing else, we’d not be bothered with such creepiness for the balance of the day. Though, of course, I was.
How can there be such a gripping fear in my chest on such a gorgeous day? Scary shit is supposed to happen during storms. In the dark. Not when the ice cream truck is happily playing its love song to the children of the street.
In the midst of this, I came across Naomi Dunford’s post about receiving death threats. DEATH THREATS. Are you KIDDING me?????
The end of MY story is this:
As a courtesy, I called the mother of the girl who was here to tell her she’d not be able to reach me via landline. And I told her why. Genuinely distraught, she called me back saying it was her 10-year-old son who made the call. Apologies all around. I still don’t know how he did it, but I can guess why.
Relief in my chest. No one is out to scare me or my family. Or worse.
But they are out to scare Naomi. And worse. And other women bloggers. On this day. On this very gorgeous day, there is hatred in the hearts of those who wish to silence people trying to make a living on-line. This is wrong*. So very wrong.
Please read her post, and share it.
And as often as you may have read the following words over this past week, please reread them:
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
-Jack Layton
* Also wrong, I hope it goes without saying, is the millions upon millions in this world who suffer at the hands of oppressors, bullies, terrorists, and haters. It makes my heart drown in sadness and helplessness. And resolved to be even kinder...it's what I can do.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Persist
My husband recently brought an exquisite blog to my attention: Letters of Note - "Correspondence deserving of a wider audience". (Damn near impossible not to appreciate the eloquence of the mission, isn't it?) The day I’m writing this, the letter of note is one from Fellini to Kubrick… sigh. The letter that brought him to Shaun's site was one written by Pixar animator Austin Madison to encourage aspiring animators to persist in the face of creative dips. It was written as part of the Animator Letter Projects, a collection letters of advice for hopeful animators, collated by Willie Downs. (Damn near impossible not to appreciate the delightful intention of Willie's project, isn't it?)
Read on.
(Damn near impossible to not appreciate the heart in this letter, isn't it?)
Do you feel the resonance of Austin's words in your bones? They hearken back to Steve Pressfield’s "Do the Work".
Writers write. Animators animate. Coaches coach. Runners run.
Yes, persistence can FEEL hard. That’s it and that’s all. Like dieting, or working through it, or training for that marathon…no one promised this would be fun.
And the pay-off? Potentially huge.
Persist. It takes courage…and you have that in great abundance.
Oh yes you do.
************************
PS - I was invited to say more about courage over here at my friend Kate Swoboda's blog.
PPS - Dyana and I talked about the Dastardly Dip a long while back. How do YOU get through the Dip? Would LOVE to hear your words of wisdom in the comments, please and thank you. They will serve to inspire others.
(Image courtesy of Willie Downs' Animator Letters Project.)
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
AND the winner is…
Thank you all, for being here…for coming to my housewarming party with full hearts and REALLY warming this joint up. I so appreciate you.
I also so appreciate the earnest group of women who dove into the "Step into your starring role" challenge and pushed aside any reservations they had about putting themselves out there. All stars, each of Harley, Kandice, Teresa, Jessica, Christina, Leigh, and Theresa.
Please find these women and marvel at what they’re up to. Each one is a new and massive source of inspiration for me now, and I’m excited to see what’s next for them.
And finally, I must acknowledge my appreciation for Danielle, Dyana, Pam, Jen, Jamie, Michelle, Tara, Amanda, Carrie, and Kelly for donating so generously with the intention of someone fully stepping into the starring role of their life. Cool beans from cool women.
More in this video…including, zee winner of The Swag Bag of Magnificence, Magnified.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Your people
When you fully step into the starring role of your life, start sharing the full expression of who you are and the important work you’re creating, lots of magical things start to happen. It’s inevitable. What’s also inevitable is that some people in your life may not really understand it. And, this will likely sting a bit. No matter how self-possessed and assured we are, it will matter, even as we know it “shouldn’t”. It just does.
Your work will be in being okay with it.
They just don’t get THIS PART of you. I know how huge this part of you is. How transformative and important your work is. And how it could, quite possibly, change the world for the better. But they don’t get it.
And there’s a spectrum of not-gettingness.
There’s the “I want to get this and support you, but I don’t get it”.
Then there’s the “I don’t really get this, nor do I need to ‘cause you SEEM to have a good handle on it, so I’m not going to bother.”
And finally there’s the “I don’t get this, and never will get this and think you’re a lunatic for wasting your life in this way. And I’m going to tell you so, liberally, frequently and with derision”.
You get to choose how you want to be with these people.
You may decide to be patient with them, recognizing that you’ve been preparing for this role your whole life. They haven’t caught up. Yet.
You may decide to change their minds. You may decide to confront them and filibuster for their support.
You may decide to call them out for their derision. You may decide that this latest display of disrespect is the last in a long history of sucking your energy dry and to let them go.
However you deal with these folks, remember one final inevitability that WILL occur as you step into the starring role of your life and do your important work:
The people that GET it will show up. They are your fans, your champions and your new source of inspiration and motivation.
A couple of weeks ago, I had challenging conversations with two different people in my personal realm about my life’s work as a coach. Both conversations left me feeling isolated, a little bewildered, and admittedly, pissed off. That my work was so misunderstood, seemingly irrelevant and trivial. And then, I came back to read this post about the value of coaching from one of my beloved clients, wherein she states:
I could have named this article “Top Ten Reasons I Love Tanya Geisler.”
Validation. Blissful, important validation. Right or wrong, it felt fabulous. And it reminded me, of course, how I am indeed on the right path.
And it made me grateful. To the champions in my life. Of which I am blessed to have many.
And gratitude made way for more gratitude. As I allowed my irritation to get swept away by Dara’s generous kindness, I discovered that I was feeling grateful to the people in my life for showing up where they are, and for serving as models for how I want to treat (or not treat others) others as THEY step into the starring roles of their lives. To be more curious about other people’s work. I may not always be as sensitive as I like to hold myself. And I will continue, patiently, down that path myself.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Relearning my own lessons about Asks, Action and SNAFUs that yield to bliss
I love throwing parties. I love bringing people together. I love signature cocktails, the excuse to arrange lavish floral arrangements, and ironing the white linen napkins. I love planning the cheese tray. I love the loot bags. So yes. I love throwing parties. And I’m told by my friends that I’m pretty good at it.
It’s in the details. And possibly, the love.
Lead With Your Strengths. In All Things, Including Launches.
So, when Kelly and I discussed how to launch my happy new site (that she and Amanda done did as red+purple), she answered simply (and with what I make up would have been a “duh” expression in her eyes): throw a party.
You heard the “duh” in that too, right?
Yup. Got it.
One slight problem: how do you throw a party with no cheese tray, flowers, white linens, or cocktails?
Answer: loot bag!!
Goody goody good good. I love giving stuff away.
Problem there (party-planning’s all about problem solving, turns out): I have a pretty happy busy coaching practice and not a ton of time to give away (like I did last time). It’s a champagne problem and a reality. I have no products (yet) other than my beloved Joy Pages.
Kelly patiently pointed out that in addition to giving good party, I also make good friends.
And?
"Generous friends.”
Huh?
“Generous friends who have products.”
Blank stare.
“Generous friends who have products that your readers would want to have.”
Crickets.
“Jesus, Tanya. Ask your generous friends with products if they would give you a copy of said digital product for Swag Bag of Magnificence and then give it away to one super lucky person!”
Why would they want to do that?
“Woman. Read your own words on the topic: people want to help. ESPECIALLY your generous friends. Hell, I want to help and you haven’t even asked: so you can have a Red Shoe Blogger session”.
Right. I know this to be true. I see it time and time again.
So I write what I hope is an elegant ask of Danielle, Dyana, Pam, Jen, Carrie, Tara, Amanda, Michelle, Jamie, and Kelly. And then hold my breath.
10 asks. 10 effusive yes’s. Over $1100 of digital gorgeousness.
How did I get so lucky?
Carrie: “You got so lucky by being you.”
Stunned.
So, with the Swag Bag of Magnificence, Magnified secured, off we go our separate ways: Amanda designing, Kelly writing, Tanya party planning (and nail-biting: “what of no one shows up?”). Launch date: July 26th 2011.
Wherein the Best-Laid Launch Plan Goes Awry
Then, on July 7th, T minus 20, it happens: kablooey. My existing site blows up.
Well not really, exactly. But kinda sorta.
Let’s just say the email that I received at 6:30 that morning while at the gym read:
We are very sorry to hear your 'public_html' folder has been deleted. Unfortunately, we do not keep a backup of your files. You would need your webmaster to manually restore those files. In the future, please ensure you run the 'Backup Wizard' on a regular basis.
In other words: kablooey.
Once it’s established that no one died (this is good), and the tears and expletives have subsided, we are left with this: I am a coach without a website. There is only one solution that we can entertain: launch the new site, stat. Two weeks earlier than planned.
Did I mention Amanda 9++ months pregnant and days overdue?
Didn’t think so.
A three-day workback is drafted. It must get done. There is no time to iron the linens - paper napkins will have to do. There is no time for fear no-shows. There was no time to even get in my own damned way. The SNAFU made sure of that.
Funny thing about urgency: it tames fear and strips back to what’s essential.
And Essential is Excellent
Between Kelly, Amanda, my Rock Star VA, and I, we get it done. Amanda fixed code during contractions. I couldn’t make that up.
And it launches. And they come. BOY, do they come.
It’s a party of epic proportions.
Loving emails, tweets of congratulations, Facebook “likes” and phone calls flood in.
The results: My cheeks hurt from smiling, “thank you” has started to lose all meaning and my heart feels like it could burst. In other words: it was pure bliss.
I am grateful. I am radiant. Like my girl Kelly.
And so I’m reminded:
Ask – Clearly, sincerely, respectfully and nicely. People want to help.
Launch – Wherever you are at. Throw open the doors.
Ask – With your heart and then launch with your heart. It never fails. Nor will you.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Regiving Kindness and Laughter
To me, kindness and laughter make this gorgeous orb go round. And I suspect you believe the same.
So you KNOW that I jumped all over the chance to talk about both when the wondrous Amanda Oaks of Kind Over Matter invited me answer the following:
What small act of kindness were you once shown that you will never forget?
What was one of the funniest experiences of your life, one where you laughed from your core?
The result is a gorgeous compilation of 30 stories each of kindness and laughter (60 in all) peppered with beautiful and inspiring art. It’s called “Regiving”. Can you imagine two things that are more wondrous to regift? Me neither.
I am beyond honoured to be included in this book. I mean really…the contributors’ list is a who’s who of marvellousness. I’m in there with 29 other writers I dig and admire (like the sublimely hot-in-every-way Dyana Valentine, breathtaking Julie Daley, lustrous Jamie Ridler, sparkling Tia Singh, awesome Fabeku Fatunmise and jubilant Michelle Ward to name but a few. Seriously…I could go on: Jonathan Mead, Ev’Yan Nasman, Goddess Leonie, Susannah Conway, Kate Swoboda. Ok, ok...I’ll stop, even though I reallllllllly don't want to).
Go on and grab your copy of Regiving {affiliate link…I love it that much}.
AND, if you are so moved, in the comments below, please share YOUR never-to-be-forgotten kindness story that helped shape who you are today AND one story of laughing so hard you may have even peed (quite a common side effect, it turns out - you are not alone).
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.