Successful Blog

How Might a Promise Like that Change a Life?

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What if you took yourself seriously?
What if for just one week you

  • . . . saw your strengths and not your weaknesses?
  • . . . did the work on your projects to your highest standards?
  • . . . gave yourself the respect you’d give to the holiest, most whole person
    you might meet?

What if you made a promise, swore to keep it, and only told it to yourself?

Would you take an extreme challenge to treat yourself as the best you — not the one you take for granted. Have you done so already?

How might a promise like that change a life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

YES WE DO! How Will You Begin?

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Hope They Do Too

Last night at Open Comments we were sharing quotes. I came across one I like so much I posted it on Twitter as well. This is it.

Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.
–Sigmund Freud

RobynMcMaster responded by sending me this: @lizstrauss You said “Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.” It gave impression you were inspired to write poem.

and so for Robyn, for Lucretia Pruitt, who surely would have written far better sonnet had she chosen to, and for all of us, I did.

YES WE DO!
When, in wonder of new life in my arms,
I looked upon my sleeping son,
And called angels down to keep this heart unharmed
To hold him whole, what fate might come.
Passing time finds a boy to his full height
Earth-tied like me, his world light years from mine.
Far from my mom’s eyes on me at night
Audacious hope harbored also in her mind.
When I think upon changes in that short span
I forgive the broken promises and loved lost prizes
And hear a two-year-old’s “YES I CAN!”
From White Houses to world spaces of all sizes

The awe of “YES, WE CAN!” is “YES, WE DO!”
Hope lives in places where they love their children too.

–E Strauss 01-21-09

Success requires work to realize that hope.

How will you begin?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

The Mic Is On: We're Talking about Quotes and Song Lyrics

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Where’s Robert Fulgrum When We Need Him?

  • or the Beatles
  • or Ghandi
  • or Mother Teresa
  • or Mark Twain
  • or you?

And, whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey . . . and flamenco dancing (because we always get off topic, anyway.)

Oh, and bring example links.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
image: sxc.hu
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Jim G, Mr. Detroit, and a Saloon Fight: What Makes You a Fiercely Loyal Customer?

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I grew up hearing fiercely loyal customers tell stories about my dad. Other such stories I lived myself …

I was about 20 years old, home from college for the weekend. I stopped by the saloon to see my dad. All the guys were razzing him saying things like, “Close the cash register, the Boss is in town.” I was grinning back, “A smile from my dad is all I’m after.”

Some guy from Detroit swaggered in like this was any old bar, and he was some hot stuff. The big spender sat down and ordered a 50-cent, 8 oz. draft beer. He chose the red stool to Jim G, a guy about my age, who saw my dad as his surrogate father.

I had just thanked Jim G 83 times for fixing the flat tire on my boyfriend’s car — he’d driven out 17 miles to help me when I was stranded on route 80. We met for the first time by the side of that highway just 18 hours earlier.

I didn’t notice the Detroit stranger order his beer. I never served drinks there. Everyone knew my dad didn’t want me to. By the time the guy got it, I was teasing my dad and talking to a Joey D. He was an old guy who knew me since I was still sitting on the bar with my feet hanging.

Next thing you know, Mr. Detroit threw a fist in Jim G’s face. They were having it out right there in seconds. My sixty-something dad flew over the bar, pulled the guys apart, and handed them over to a couple of friends. Then, as a deputy of the county, he called the cops to pick up Mr. Detroit for visit to the local jail.

It was then that I heard the story. Mr. Detroit had asked Jim for my name. Jim said, “I told him ‘You wanna know, ask her or ask her father.’ I wasn’t going to tell him if you didn’t want him to know.”

Later that night, my dad bailed Detroit out of jail, took him to breakfast, and sent him on his way.

In a small town saloon, personal and business relationships can’t be separated. You throw guys in jail and you bail ’em later. You feed ’em and let ’em know you’ve been there.

My dad cared about the people who were his customers and so they cared about him. He looked out for them and they looked out for him. Investment made investment returned. It’s the ROI of relationships — in spades. For me, it was like church, family, and Mark Twain to be there. Lots of others felt the same way that Jim G and I did.

What makes you a fiercely loyal customer?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Cool Kids, Granny Dresses, and Back Channel Intercoms: How Do You Trust People You Can't See?

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I Heard Them Laughing

I was 13. What an awful age, but one for learning human dynamics.

A bunch of clueless moms had arranged something, a sleepover of about 8 girls. Who knows why they thought this group belonged together? We were mismatched in maturity, in intelligence, in interests, and most importantly in that sacred cow of 13-year-oldness … popularity. I dreaded going.

Additional humiliation. We all had to wear granny gowns.

Everything went in the awkward and tensely exciting way things do when you’re 13. I was mostly listening. Mostly everyone was mostly nice to mostly everyone. We ate. We talked. We listened to music.

I was the first in the group to use the facilities up the stairs. The group didn’t realize that a heating vent connected the party room to the bath room. That vent also served as a back channel intercom.

I heard them talk and laugh. They were talking “cool talk” about how cool they were and how cool I was not. Peer pressure and insecurity drives that sort of stuff. When you’re 13, finding who’s the coolest is the coolest thing of all.

Back downstairs, I didn’t let on. Other girls left the room. Other girls heard things. I saw it on their faces.

Before I went to sleep I vowed a 13-year-old’s vow that I’d never be a smiler who talked mean on a “back channel intercom.”

Air and Empty Shoes

Now, I send you a tweet. I write a comment on your blog. You answer.

I can’t see you. You can’t see me. That can be a scary feeling.

I have to use what you give me to decipher whether you mean what you say. Who knows? You could be laughing behind the screen. You could be back channeling messages. You could contradict what you tell me when you’re with cooler kids than I am.

But then offline life is like that too. . . .

Trust doesn’t happen spontaneously. We can’t engineer a community by inviting 8 pseudo friends to the same party or dressing in the same clothes. And as a species, it’s our nature to have all too many back channel intercoms.

I can’t see you. You can’t see me.
If we’re invisible, so are the things we stand for.
Can’t build much that lasts on air and empty shoes.
But we can let ourselves and our values shine through.
Integrity, consistency, and trustworthiness show up equally as whole and as frequently as we do.

Community grows from what we see, what we are, what we imagine together.
And the more we show up, the more we find in each other.

How do you trust people you can’t see?
People ask me that all the time. Now I’m asking you.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!