Liz, Author at Successful Blog Page

How to Be Bigger than Fear and Get on with Success

November 15, 2011 by Liz

FDR Was Right

When I told the story of my mom yesterday, friends and colleagues commented on my courage — courage in telling my mother’s story, courage in putting down my cigarettes, courage in sharing out loud what might be choices that other folks don’t see as I do. I wasn’t afraid to tell the story. I had already lived it. It was true.

The thought kept occurring to me that every time people have accused me of courage has been a time when in my mind I saw no other option, a time when my answer to act was the only right answer I could see.

I don’t know that I know much about courage. Rare has been the moment that I had to muster up the nervous energy to take on a cause that I didn’t believe or to face a giant who would crush me to smithereens.

What I know about in these years of taking on the responsibilities of a family, a mortgage, a business, and decisions that would affect other people’s incomes is more what I’ve learned about fear.

And what I’ve learned about fear is that FDR was right.
And that understanding fear is the key to success in business and in life.

Be Irresistible and Fear-Less

We’re facing times not unlike those that followed the Great American Depression. If history repeats itself, it’s worth paying attention to what happened then, when my dad started his business, when FDR gave his First Inaugural Address and said …

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itselfânameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

FDR’s words resonate for me. In times of learning to build a business, in past worries of whether I’d be able to pay the rent, fear was the enemy that tried to undo me.
Fear of failure.
Fear of losing.
Fear of doing nothing and doing the wrong thing.
Fear that I might spend a life telling the truth to everyone, but lying to myself.

Fear of finding my best efforts not enough paralyzed me. Fear of commitment enticed me into procrastination. Fear that the world I believed in and the person I was might not exist confused all of my decisions.

Carrying that fear wherever I went was a burden bigger than any one person could manage.
Slowly that fear broke down the integrity of the person carrying it.
Fear made me give away what I valued as if it were worthless.
Fear made me think that givers never get and getters forget.

Survival instinct says if the situation isn’t paying off, it’s a good time to move.
Fear wasn’t getting me anywhere.
I didn’t like where I was or what I saw around me.
I didn’t like the kind of people my fear attracted.
I didn’t much like myself.

I sat down and did the math.
I figured out that fear and trust don’t exist in the same space.
I looked my fear in the face and waited for it to devour me, crush me, embarrass me, or shun me.
It didn’t.

I studied my successes. I saw that I’d never carried fear into my success. I’d always gone in knowing I would be, do, and achieve what was needed to finish ahead. It wasn’t that I was stronger, better, or particularly more clever. It was that it crossed my mind that another option existed, except to come out ahead.

I calmly decided I was better than any fear I could dream up.
I knew that I could out breathe any fear and build something better instead.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
— the Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert’s Book Dune:

I don’t know much about courage.
I know enough about fear to watch it, learn from it, and let it pass.
Like the litany says I let it pass over me and through me until only I remain.
Fear can’t stop me from telling the hard truth gently, pursuing a quest I believe in, or trusting in myself.
And I’ve learned to recognize my friends by how fearlessly they won’t allow me to fail.

If “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes” has become a problem in your business or your life, breathe deep. Speak the truth. Trust your instincts. Believe in who you are. And surround yourself with people who will fight you for the right to not let you fail.

Be irresistible. Be fear-less.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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When My Mom Died and Who Saved My Life

November 14, 2011 by Liz

When My Mom Died

Please know that no one asked me to write this blog post.
This story is mine and no one could buy it … not even my son, a client, and a friend who saved my life.

I always thought it was very cool that I was the same age when I had my son as my mother was when she had me. That meant the whole time he was growing up I could look at him and look me and think “Oh, so when I was his age this how old my mom was.” It gave me a new kind of perspective on my life and hers.

Maybe that was more important to me because we never had that close mother-daughter thing, though I think we both tried. I was never quite sure I belonged. She could never quite connect to my dots.

I had followed a girl baby who had lived nine days before she died. The longer I live, the longer I try to understand what that loss must have been, the more I realize it would have to be inside our relationship — how could it not?

As much as I’m like my father, anyone who knew my mother would say I am her too. Yet, all through my teens and twenties I went out of my way to deny any similarity. She kind of did too. Whenever anyone would remark on how much my face is hers, she would say I look like my father.

So, because my mom smoked BOTH filterless and menthol cigarettes — she kept a pack of each in three strategic places: in her purse, on the kitchen table, and by her place in the living room — I made it a point never to go near a cigarette.

Then when I was 25, I was living with a keyboard player in a rock band — which meant whole weekends in smoke-filled bars with smokers. We often become what we look at most. I became a weekend smoker.

Ironically, a few months later my mom was diagnosed with oat cell carcinoma — the fastest growing cancer they said. It started in her lungs and moved up to her brain. There was no point in her giving up her cigarettes.

The first week that I visited her in the hospital, she kept telling me to go back to work. My boss said stay with her.
The second week, she started ordering foods I like from the hospital menus so that she could share.
The third week, we started telling real stories about ourselves.
One afternoon she said …

You know, you were the best thing that ever happened to me. I went into the hospital to have one baby and three years later I came home with you. You saved my life. I love you.

That short speech recast the entire story of my life.
It was also the first time, I heard her say, “I love you.”

We had that conversation and others like it over a cigarette. I was 26 when she died … the same age my son is now.

Who Saved My Life

My son doesn’t smoke, but until 3 weeks ago I still did. And for a while I’ve been thinking that …

If history repeats itself this could be the last year my son would see me alive.

… I wondered whether my son was thinking that too.

Then a few weeks after my son’s 26th birthday, he and I were having a conversation with Angel Djambazov at SOBCon NW. We talked late into the night about everything from movie scenes to chocolate to Dungeons & Dragons. I asked Angel to tell my son about how he met John Cameron — Hollywood executive and younger brother of James Cameron [Avatar, Titanic]. John had hired Angel to work with an impressive team on a product called the SafeCig.

In the course of that conversation, Angel explained the tobacco-less electronics, the delivery of nicotine in water vapor without acetone, carbon monoxide, tar, ash etc, and offered to send me a sample. What flavor would I like? My son and I engaged in the idea of choosing between spicy, sweet, woody, and one other. My son offered his mischievous take on which would most fit my personality and why. The repartee was both fun and affectionate. Angel said, “I’ll send you more than one. See if you like it.”

I did.

Then I met John at BlogWorldExpo and immediately took to him as well.

I was already using SafeCig. I had already decided to work with him. But after hearing his stories, I realized his cause is mine. He’s client and a friend, but that’s not why I’m telling you this story.

I’m telling you because I believe my son, John, and Angel saved my life.

My son is delighted that I have removed those carcinogens from my life.
And every time I think of him, my mother, or the rest of my life, I am too.

If you have a story, please share it.
If you want to lose your tobacco or know someone who does … watch, like, and share John’s YouTube conversation about it.
If you that’s not you either, you can always go read The Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life.

Be irresistible and stay alive.

Liz

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If you want to know more of John’s story and why he decided to do this …

If you want to know how the device works, this is the one …

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–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Thanks to Week 317 SOBs

November 12, 2011 by Liz

Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

How to Recognize and Recover When You’ve Started Believing Your Own PR

November 8, 2011 by Liz

The Universe Falls Out of Balance …

Communities grow and change. We do too. It would be unrealistic to expect that a community of people would stay static. Would we really want it to? It would be hard for us to grow, innovate, and build new things without the dynamic change of a community’s ebb and flow.

But it’s a sad and serious thing when a community starts to lose the energy and interest that made it a community. It’s even sadder when that happens just as things start going good.

It can happen to anyone — you, me, our best friends. We’re on a team and a great thing happens! We get some applause and attention! New “friends and followers” start showing up and new opportunities start appearing. Strangers start joining in the fun. Then, our favorite people quit showing up.

What? Right when things start going good, the good ones start going?
Really … well, sometimes yes.

But you can bet it’s not them, its us.
When that happens more often than not, we’ve quit thinking about the community and they’ve noticed.

When the world starts to revolve around us, people move away and the universe flies out of balance.

How to Recognize and Recover When You’ve Started Believing Your Own PR

In the fray and frolic of good things happening, we can grow faster than fast. Networks explode and bandwidth becomes slim. All at once, a mother lode of new expectations and rewards are sitting within reach. Possibilities and potential are right there, but … they require new discipline and focus.

People don’t decide to make the world revolve around them. People decide to take the new work, the new calling seriously. We forget that if we focus too hard on the work, we can make it more important than the people the work is meant to serve. Most of us would be embarrassed to think we ever did. Most of the people we know won’t tell us if that’s the road we’ve landed on.

So, how do you recognize and recover when you’ve made yourself the center of the universe? How do you win back the folks who’ve decided that you’ve gone to the dark side of believing your own PR?

When you ask people about their business, their life, their goals, does everything they say come back to a story about you? People who live in the center of the universe are self-focused. Name an event from the Big Bang to a cat that had kittens. People in the center can easily tell you how it proves or illustrates something about them. To recover: Care more about why someone is telling you a story than what you might have to say in response.
Do you have the same conversation with everyone? If you’re bringing the same story to every conversation, you’re not considering the person who is listening. Folks like to talk about beautiful ideas and compelling stories — things worth sharing. Conversations are meant to be an exchange. To recover: Listen more than you talk. Give people a chance to ask how you are and they’ll be more inclined to care.
Have people stopped listening when you talk? It’s the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Folks figure out that people in center of the universe are stuck inside the stories they tell. They don’t bother, because they know a person has to want to leave the center of the universe. To recover: Find the rewards for being part of the world where everyone interacts and come back.
Does it seem like people only want, want, want? Do you feel surrounded by people who take and people who feel sorry for themselves? Misery loves company. Winners form a circle. To recover:Wire your head back to your heart. Be the kind of person you admire and want as a friend and supporter.

We don’t need to “believe our own PR,” when we really know who we are.

Success is about helping other folks reach their goals.

The universe does fine without us — the people we serve are the reason to be us.

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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If You’re Still Asking What Business You’re In, You’re Ahead of Them

November 7, 2011 by Liz

Questioning Success

Possibly the smartest businessman I ever met is a guy named Ed. He is the key partner in a prestigious equity firm on Park Avenue in New York City. I met him in a meeting to discuss a company he owned. He ended up hiring me to conceive and drive the strategy to turn that company around.

It’s no wonder I think he’s smart. But truly other folks think so too.

After I’d worked at the company for almost 6 months, I realized something about how Ed was seeing this company that he owned. Because all of his other companies were publishing magazines and newspapers, he figured our book publishing company would work the same and grow the same as those he already owned.

But book companies are significantly different from magazine and newspaper companies in the fact that the Inventory investment — books — lasts so much longer. A newspaper dies within a day. A magazine is done a month later. A book can live for years. What that means is that a mistake in a book is far more costly because it represents inventory that can’t be fixed until that huge investment on the shelves in the warehouse has been sold or burned.

Ed didn’t realize that simple difference until I said it.

I didn’t realize until that moment that Ed didn’t know what business we were in.

From that moment decades ago until this moment now, I’ve made it a mission to start with the idea that everyone I work with needs to know what business we’re in. What I’ve experienced is that from entrepreneur to CEO of huge corporations, those who truly know what business they’re in are fewer than I’d imagined.

Some had lost sight of their actual customers.
Some saw their value proposition differently than their customers did.
Some were trying to reconfigure their customers to fit their idea of what business they were in.
Some thought they were smarter than their customers.
Some were trying to be the business they had always been.

Some never had asked the questions, “What is our business? Who do we serve and why do they care?”
Some had asked those questions and answered them. Then the business changes, the economy changes, the customers change, and they forget to ask again.

And as a result here’s what I saw happen over and over and over again. The little company who still asked the question would get the customers. They’d have the 10-foot booth at the big trade show (think CES) one year. A few years later, they’d have a 60-ft booth at the trade show. Not much later, they’d have a 90-foot booth at the trade show and be looking to their corporate partners and possible acquisitions to grow <-- losing track of what business they were in.... and while they were looking at other businesses, another little company who still asked the question was talking to their customers from the 10-foot booth right next to them. The biggest mistake a successful business makes is to quit asking the questions that got them there.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a small business, or a corporation, if you’re still asking what business you’re in, you’re ahead of them.

What business are you in?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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