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- Without them
- Is Your Office Job Killing You?
- How To Land In Your Sweet Spot When The Life You Planned Falls Apart
- How Word Seeds Make Word Trees
| Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:00 AM PDT
Well, you can fail by going along with that and not doing it, or you can do it, cause a ruckus and work things out later. In my experience, once it’s clear you’re willing (not just willing, but itching, moving, and yes, implementing) without them, things start to happen. People are rarely willing to step up and stop you, and often just waiting to follow someone crazy enough to actually do something. I’m going. Come along if you like. Photo Credit: mosilager  |
| Is Your Office Job Killing You? Posted: 28 Mar 2012 03:00 AM PDT Read on to discover what the health risks of office work are - perhaps you'll end up considering a change of career!  |
| How To Land In Your Sweet Spot When The Life You Planned Falls Apart Posted: 27 Mar 2012 02:00 PM PDT
Her story is delightful, harrowing and inspiring all at once, a perfect example of the path so many people take into their Sweet Spots. It’s rarely (if ever) a straight road, and those on that road often can’t tell why things are happening the way they are, or where it’s all leading. Yet something inside whispers “Keep going…” and for those that listen to that whisper instead of the terrified voice of doubt, the rewards are super sweet. At the age of 29, Carrie had just been hired as Vice-President of marketing and communications for one of the world’s largest advertising conglomerates based in Paris, France. She had a passion for Paris, and it was literally her dream job. The visa process was slow and delayed her move overseas. While waiting, Carrie kept up a gruelling travel schedule between Toronto, London, New York, Boston and Paris – often in the least travel-efficient, most body-taxing order. She clued in pretty quickly that the relentless travel would continue even after her move, a distressing fact considering she got to the point where she literally had to consult the newspaper one morning to figure out what city she was in. Carrie was already exhausted and missing the connection with friends and loved ones, as well as with herself. Then her boss left the company, which meant the loss of a cherished mentor and a key aspect of the “dream” part of the job. When she subsequently got extremely sick with a contagious eye infection and had to work from home, she knew it was time to go. There were just too many signs to ignore. Carrie wrote her resignation letter without knowing what she was going to do next. When she went back into the office, before she even had a chance to turn in her letter, she was informed that she was fired. A terrible blow to her over-achieving ego since she had succeeded at everything she’d ever done, but divine intervention nonetheless: now she had a compensation package instead of leaving with no financial back-up. Yet it was a hard turning point in her life, and despite the financial cushion, she says:
Despite lots of fear, tears, and no clue what to do next, Carrie decided to do something unprecedented and choose in favour of her joy:
Carrie came home after her European tour of joy and founded Pink Elephant. The company now has two business arms. The first is Pink Elephant Creative, described on her web site as “crafters of smartly designed, elegantly written, love-is-in-the-details websites and other marketing things for inspired small businesses.” The second is Pink Elephant Academy for entrepreneurs, which offers “budget friendly workshops, workbooks and website love for DIY marketers who don't love marketing (yet).” You can take a free assessment quiz of your web site’s home page there. When you do that, you’ll also receive 6 Ways to Attract Clients with Kindness, the Academy’s mini, feel-good marketing primer. Carrie’s focus this Spring is on the Pink Elephant Academy bookstore, where she currently has two digital workbooks: How to Write a Lovable Homepage (her most popular product) and the new Selling Sweetly: How to Write an Effective Sales Page Without Feeling Dirty, Greedy, Pushy or Gross. She’s working on her third guide for writing the ‘About’ page because so many people struggle with that and yet it’s the second most important page of the website. She is also in the process of turning her very popular Home Page writing workshop into a teleseminar so that participants can take her class from anywhere in the world. Lots happening over at Pink Elephant! There are many critical lessons embedded in this abridged version of Carrie’s story, but here are the Top 5 biggies that I want to highlight:
By the way, Carrie also met and married the man of her dreams shortly after getting home and starting Pink Elephant. I don’t find that to be a coincidence, and it’s one more biggie lesson to mention … there’s something magical that happens as soon as you have the courage to get to know, and deeply honor, your unique and joyful self.  |
| How Word Seeds Make Word Trees Posted: 27 Mar 2012 10:00 AM PDT
Word seeds are what I’ve used for years to blunt the fangs of any writing tiger, and make that kitty end up purring in my lap. Word seeds are in essence quick notes—and sometimes a single word—that vividly capture a concept. They are the pre-writing batter that makes the best cakes, because their ingredients are structural elements—ones that can grow to make the sum of their parts a sweet, risen whole. Say you are supposed to write the elements of a complex landing page for a marketing campaign selling shoes for poodles. Do you try to write the whole cussed thing in one setting and watch it die a’borning? Do you even want to risk trying to get the headline and first paragraph down in one run, fail, and rail against the cosmos? No, you use word seeds. You scribble something like: Curly toes to match curly fur? Tie them with teeth Velcro Matching capes Athletic and evening wear And so on. Word seeds supply you several benefits: listing terms and phrases in pre-composition sticks them like a swizzle stick into the soft folds of your mind. Believe it or not, they have that oyster/sand/pearl effect. Even if you might not feel them, they are scritching and scratching in those soft folds and changing from seed to sprout. Going back to them after a day or two has always proven fruitful for me. Review the seeds, and then sentences or entire paragraphs will appear fully formed, the whole cloth made of the thin threads of your notes. Another benefit is that writing down quick notes provide the security that you are moving forward in the project (and indeed by such notes you are, simple as they can be). Plus, reading them provides a prompt that spurs new seedings. You can later organize them in a raw order of how the piece of writing might unfold, and that act too almost always spills new seeds from your fervid brain. So:
I am currently writing a novel by writing only a half-hour a day. I seed the end of one day’s writing with a few words that are scene prompts—they caffeinate the next day’s work. This very post is self-referential: it sprung from a few phrases I’d dashed off days earlier. Thus, use word seeds: scrawl them on a napkin, scribble them on your palm, write them in melted chocolate. Verily, they will grow. Photo Credit: Alice Bourget  |
One of the most common things I hear is, “I’d like to do something remarkable like that, but my xyz won’t let me.” Where xyz = my boss, my publisher, my partner, my licensor, my franchisor, etc.
When you begin a writing project, business or not, the blank page can look like a yawning abyss. You don’t even want to approach the edge of that first line, because all that emptiness reminds you of how far you have to go to get to the other side. Despair sets in, the mind reels, the writing well goes dry. But there’s a way any writing project can go from bud to blossom to bouquet: word seeds.| You are subscribed to email updates from Upmarket To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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