Gotta Get Goals — Yeah!

March 26, 2007 by Liz

Sit Up Straight

Alex Shalman and I have been talking by email. He’s a most engaging blogger. He seems to have a new idea every ~~week~~ minute that involves other bloggers interacting with him.

He’s the real deal about what he’s doing. I know, he’s managed to survive a whole string of emails with me. This morning even survived a phone call. Then IM’d me that I’m hilarious. Go figure!

Now, I’m doing a meme . . . because with three blogs of my own, two more that I write for, three important clients, several writing students, SOBCon 07, a book, the 200 Outstanding Blogs Project and another start-up project . . . I’ve been feeling like, a bit of . . . . um er, . . . . a slacker.

Alex started this project, but apparently he got Aaron involved. Aaron thought I

So, Aaron, here they are:

Build something that makes a difference to humanity.
Write something that moves people to realize their potential.
Learn something that pushes my thinking deeper and truer.
Dance more. Laugh more. Inspire more people, including myself.
Finish the amazing and fun book about Larry and the dog.
Gather enough money of my own to help anyone I want to help whenever I want to.
Be extraordinary, live in extraordinary circumstances, do extraordinary things, without worrying about it.
Fly around the world once a year again to see my friends.
Give away everything that I know.
Earn a 7 figure salary by serving those I love who love what I do.

I was going to tag some other slackers like me, but I think you all know who you are. So if you gotta get goals, spread some link love while you figure out the path to your dream. Don’t blow this off . . . having goals is the first step to getting there.

One little goal is enough for now . . . gotta get goals.

It doesn’t hurt. I promise.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Believe in a Dream

March 26, 2007 by Liz

It’s Hard to Believe

I once worked for a woman who believed that if you got great grades at university you went to an easy school.

Every choice she made included taking the hard way. Somewhere in her thinking was a fear of being accused of taking the easy way. Even when the “easy way” was the most efficient, the smartest way, the best ROI for the company, this vice president had to be convinced every way to Sunday that it wasn’t a way to get out of doing the hard work that “should be” done.

This same person didn’t suffer dreamers. Dreams were for sleeping and children playing games of imagination. Sadly, she had been trained as a teacher. She taught me discipline with the details — I’ve lost some of it since. She taught me patience.

She taught me that some people can never make a dream happen. . . . because they think dreams aren’t real and they think being a dreamer is easy.

Dreams, hopes, goals are within our reach.

Why is that so hard for us to believe?

We can believe that the other guy will win, but not us. He will be the President, the rock star, the artist. She will be the CEO, the actor, the international lawyer. But it never crosses our mind to aspire to that path.

Have the big kids taken so much and told so much that they’ve wiped the stars from our eyes?

Believing in a dream is hard. Look at me. Go ahead, tell me I don’t know.

Believing in a dream is hard, because it’s saying out loud, “Here’s what I’m going for.”

Everyone knows it’s way easier to sit right here and say nothing at all.

Unless you just can’t.

People who have dreams. They don’t let go until they make their dreams happen. They fall down, but they get up and they keep right on going. They see that dream as sure as you see these words here.

It’s a little house.

It’s learning to read.

It’s building something that no one has ever seen.

It’s seeing peace in a family.

It’s seeing peace on Earth.

Believe in a dream, please.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
______________
If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

Change the World: The Power of Conversation

March 25, 2007 by Liz

Hey Lisa and Doc, How Can We Change the World?

In the last two days, two people I respect, Doc Searls and Lisa Gates, have written about a subject we all care about — People talking to people. — conversations and relationships.

Can you have a meaningful conversation when only one person is talking?

Isn’t every conversation a relationship?

Conversations and Relationships

Words by Doc Searls and Lisa Gates

These were the kinds of conversations people have been having since they started to talk. Social. Based on intersecting interests. Open to many resolutions. Essentially unpredictable. Spoken from the center of the self. “Markets were conversations” doesnÃÂ¹t mean “markets were noisy.” It means markets were places where people met to see and talk about each otherÃÂ¹s work.

Conversation is a profound act of humanity. So once were markets.

For businesses that require no live communication with customers in the course of everyday work, markets are conversations means simply that the company still shouldn’t isolate itself either from talk within their marketplace or from talk with customers when the need arises. In other words, it should still be ready to Get Real when the time comes for real conversation. —Doc Searls

Doc Searls and Robert Scoble and Shel Israel told us that markets are conversations. So we all started blogging. Then, Seth Godin told us to be remarkable. So we all started showing up with a unique, inspired footprint. Along came Liz Strauss who told us that it’s all about relationships and relationship blogging. So we all started talking, showing up for each other, and supporting each other’s remarkable, outstanding work.

Remarkable, outstanding, conversations happen inside [TADAAA] RELATIONSHIPS! . . . . What you get from going, participating is–like life–entirely up to you and what you put into it. —Lisa Gates

Conversation IS profoundly human. Boy, Doc, do I agree.

It’s that profoundly human conversation that starts a relationship.

A conversation is potential energy — if I talk to you, you might listen and talk back to me.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.

One Question, One Answer

March 24, 2007 by Liz

You Might Recall

Tully said on the phone last night that people do things and then sort of hold their breath waiting to see whether Liz would let this one go through . . . Oh no!!! I did it again!

You might recall that last week, it was Tuesday. Tully posted a meme that was astoundingly clever and stunningly well-thought. He had found a way to get bloggers to ask relevant questions in such a way that the question would be answered by a blogger who knew the answer, and the answer would be written on a blog where such an answer belonged. That’s no small feat if you think about it.

Without planning, some guy might ask a question, the blogger who answers would write the answer on his or her blog. How likely is it that the blog will be about the same topic as the question? Not very likely considering how much bloggers like to help.

Ah, but Tully figured how, in the construction of his meme to avoid questions being asked of a blogger who had a blog where an answer didn’t belong. Voila!

I only had one problem. I needed the directions called out. So I sent a question back to Tully in answer to his question. I know, you’re not supposed to answer a question with a question. Sorry. It was called the One Question, One Question blog. Tully answered with the One Question, One Answer – How To

And now that I know how to . . .

I move the One Question, One Answer meme further along.

My Question, My Answer

The question that Tully passed me is a good question, I think. You’ll understand why I say “I think,” and not “I know” when you read my answer, well sort of.

Tully’s question:

Liz, as a full-time/professional blogger, a great deal of your day is spent reading other blogs (direct or via RSS feed), commenting, and blogging – you no doubt have a system that you have been developing for some time now that works well for you.

What ADVICE would you give to relatively new bloggers who are feeling swamped yet only have limited time to read, comment, and blog?

My answer:

Wow! There’s a hidden assumption in that question. It’s that the bulk of my day is spent reading other blogs. I don’t know for sure that I can say that is true, It’s certainly not true every day. Some days the bulk of my day is spent talking to bloggers via voice. Hmmmmm.

Where do we get this notion that we have to read every good blog? I can’t read every great book ever written. I can’t listen to every wonderful piece of music ever composed. I can’t watch every play, see every sunrise, enjoy every movie, attend every concert, taste every wonderful wine, or meet every person I might want to meet before my time is up. I’m only one person and to try to do more than one person can do is silly at best and leaning toward downright disastrous if I tried.

Writing is my work. I build my day around that. I pick the times during the day that I write most effectively and that’s when I write. I keep a list of a limited number of bloggers that I find inspire me. I read them in between the articles that I write. On Thursdays and Fridays, I read all of the posts of the week from many bloggers — it’s more efficient than switching from blog to blog every day. I often read late at night when all of the bloggers have long since gone to sleep.

I only comment when an important thought comes to me or when I have something I want to communicate. Sometimes what I might have commented turns into a post that I link back.

There you go, Tully. Not the answer that you’d expect, but then you expected that by now, I suppose. 🙂

My turn to pass on a question and the How to rules to the next blogger.

Roger von Oech You are Tagged

Here’s what you do.
Read Tully’s how to rules for the One Question, One Answer Meme and then if they work for you link to them when you answer this question for me.

How do you feel when you are in a place where you cannot be creative? What do you do to keep your spirit going at times like that?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Spring on My Bike

March 23, 2007 by Liz

I wasn’t much of an outdoors kid, really. I lived in my head. My imagination was plenty. I could find worlds there that kept me busy for days. I could find castles and dragons, and knights and ladies — except on the first days of spring, then I was torn away.

On the first days of spring, I was on my bike seeing how the neighborhood had changed.

There was something about moving from the blacktop of Main Street to the bricks of Congress Street over by Washington School where the kids were playing again. There was something about feeling the change in vibrations through seat of my bike as I made my way there.

I’d stop by the swingset. I’d give it a try one more time. Nothing like a swingset to make a kid feel like she could fly. Then back it would be to my bike to see where the neighbors had been all winter and what they’d been doing.

There’s something about that first real weekend of spring that makes the whole world feel new again.

On the first day of spring, I didn’t even mind homework. . . .

I’m not the type to ride a bike in the city, but I sure am the type to enjoy a spring day — or even a day that reminds me that spring is coming.

This morning, I look out the window and see a blue, blue lake. The harbor is blue and so is the lake beyond it. Any minute now the sailboats will be returning.

I’ll be having that spring bike-riding feeling all weekend, because I can’t help but enjoy being alive when I’m thinking that way.

Change the World: Just Show Up . . . BE There

March 22, 2007 by Liz

Meet Me for Lunch Tomorrow?

When I went to the UK for the very first time, it was on a business trip. It was escorted from publisher to publisher by a dear friend I’d known for 9 years a that time. He was a buttoned up Brit. I was an American with too much personality. He was my credibility with the rest of the British citizens and publishers I was meeting along the way.

I was such an interesting experience to spend this time with a friend of so many years and so much time spent talking on this side of the water. I knew him well. We had many times over cognac figured out how to solve all of the problems of publishing and the greater world. We knew each other’s foibles, idiosyncracies, and downsides, and still loved each other.

He knew how self-conscious I was about folks who pick up me at the airport. I knew that no one ever saw him in a shirt without buttons up the front.

Still it was revealing to see him in his natural habitat.

On the day before I left the UK, he dropped me at my hotel and said, “Shall we have a leisurely lunch before I take you to Heathrow tomorrow?”

I said, “It depends on who comes to the door.”

A slightly sad, shy smile crossed his eyes, not his mouth. He’d said from the day we met he loved the American sense of irony. That was his way of saying he liked the way I told him the truth.

“And what would the lady prefer?” was his answer.

“I’d like YOU to SHOW UP — all of you. Not that guy in the tie I’ve been with all week. If HE comes, I’m closing the door, eating lunch alone, and taking a taxi to Heathrow. That guy is boring.”

He said, “I understand.”

The next day, a man with a grin showed up. He was live, wearing a sweater over his buttoned up shirt. We had lunch at a bistro that served the most wonderful fruit brûlée. I can’t tell you what we talked about. I don’t remember, but I remember we laughed a lot.

He was there. It was real. It was what friendship is about.

He showed up and he has ever since.

I can’t tell you how my world has been better because of it.

It really means something when you know someone will be there.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.