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Sometimes entrepreneurs need to slow down to speed up – #GeniusShared

May 18, 2016 by Jane Boyd

A picture I posted on Instagram 2 years ago -- I was on my way to the airport to pick up Liz Strauss in Vancouver. (No I was not driving when I took this.)
A picture I posted on Instagram 2 years ago — I was on my way to the airport to pick up Liz Strauss in Vancouver. (No — I was not driving when I took this.)

Two years ago yesterday I was heading to the airport to pickup Liz Strauss here in Vancouver. During her week long visit, we conspired, we planned and we pushed through a ton of things to build the foundation for what now exists between us — and for what we want to build through GeniusShared over the long haul.

Today? Well — today we are in the midst of reviewing the galley proofs for her new book – Anything You Put Your Mind To, which is set to publish September 21, 2016 through GeniusShared Press. And we are getting ready to roll out several other initiatives too.

When you’re an entrepreneur, speed matters — but so does taking your time. And when you’re used to moving at the speed of light — well it can be tough to slow down. And to build carefully. But — it matters — because when you slow down for the right reasons, with the proper care and commitment and with the best people — it can make a difference. And in the end — that can be your difference — personally and professionally.

I balance my need for speed with also slowing down every single day — and I tell you this — never, ever — EVER — underestimate the good that can come from putting the time, effort and energy into building the right relationships. Relationships that are based on truth, trust, vision and connection — because — when you get that part right you build foundation — which means everything else comes so much easier and faster.

Sometimes you need to slow down in order to speed up.


Jane Boyd is a Partner in GeniusShared. She is also the CEO of 45 Conversations Media & Education Ltd, a Canadian education and training company based just outside of Vancouver Canada. She works with educators, business, community and government in the areas of early learning, work-life, community development and employee engagement.

Filed Under: P2020, Sharing Genius Tagged With: entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, Jane Boyd, Liz-Strauss

Wisdom from Liz Strauss

December 17, 2015 by Jane Boyd

Liz Strauss, CEO of GeniusShared is well known for her incredible wisdom and business insight. Here’s a Liz quote worth thinking about.


Universe - Liz quote

Filed Under: Sharing Genius

Trust is being who you are

October 19, 2015 by Jane Boyd

There we were at my dining room table, discussing the future of GeniusShared — it was a conversation that was one part ideation and another part candid truth. While I absolutely excelled at the ideation part of the conversation, I failed miserably at the candid truth part.

Liz said “You don’t trust me!”

To which I replied “Yes I do — I just don’t trust myself.”

Liz said “You don’t trust me enough to hear yourself argue with me.”

Liz saw me hiding my truth and she called me on it. Kindly. Gently. And firmly. After all, trust is the hard truth spoken gently.

I just wasn’t getting it — so I asked Liz “What is trust?”

She took a deep breath and summoned her patience to say – “Trust is when I don’t need to think about who I am with you. And you don’t need to think about who you are with me.”

You see — it was the part of the conversation that required me to trust beyond Liz. Yet for a million reasons, that today no longer seem to matter, I chose to hide. The reality was that I needed to trust myself too. To trust that my ideas were good enough, that I was smart enough and to believe that my voice was an integral ingredient when it came to the partnership we were building. And because I did that —  my voice couldn’t emerge.

It sounds so easy — but it wasn’t. At least not for me. The simple reality is that it took me months to see it. And to understand the power that comes from trusting myself enough to share my own truth.

Today, we have lots of different conversations related to GeniusShared, life, friends and the world. There’s never a shortage of areas for us to cover — and we have some of the most amazing discussions. Guess what? I no longer hide my thoughts during our conversations. I share them — without thinking about who I am. I just share myself. I do this because I know the difference it makes. And I’ve found my own way of saying what trust is — You need to be who you are and know that I’m not going to walk away because of it.


Jane Boyd is a Partner in GeniusShared. She is also the CEO of 45 Conversations Media & Education Ltd, a Canadian education and training company based just outside of Vancouver Canada. She works with educators, business, community and government in the areas of early learning, work-life, community development and employee engagement.

Filed Under: GeniusShared Newsletter Read, Sharing Genius Tagged With: trust

Showing up When Folks Fall Offline

September 7, 2015 by Jane Boyd

Sunrises captured by Liz StraussSunrises & Silence

If you have been online for a while you may recall when Liz shared early morning lake view sunrise pictures with the world on social media. For more days than I can count, my Vancouver day started with a Chicago lake sunrise. Sometimes there was a short chat on Twitter with Liz too. Appreciating Liz’s sunrises somehow made things right in my world. And by watching the way she interacted with others, I learned a great deal about building community in the online world.

And then one day there were no more Chicago sunrise pictures. No lake. And no Liz. Just a suddenly silent social stream. For days. Weeks. And eventually months. The sun may have still been rising — but it certainly wasn’t rising in quite the same way anymore.

In the case of Liz — after many missed sunrises — I decided to act. For me –  anything less just would not have felt right. So I took the old fashioned approach. I wrote Liz a letter and sent it in the mail. That’s right — I headed down to the post office and put something in the mailbox. That letter reached Liz at a time when social was no longer part of her world. In fact, it reached her as she was quietly beginning Cancer treatment. It was my way of showing up for her. And she felt it.

Liz’s Experience of Falling Offline

“What did it feel like to suddenly step back from the online space?” I asked Liz as we were texting back and forth a few weeks ago. It was late in the evening, two years post her final Cancer treatment. I was in a hammock out on my back deck. Liz was in her condo — overlooking the lake of sunrises.

“I was thinking about that today.” she texted back, “I guess it was nothing like I imagined. I got so very sick so very fast. I had to give up my whole online life and parts of what had defined me all my life. At first I was too sick to care.”

As I read her words, I began thinking about that time too. Lots of people had noticed she was suddenly missing from the social space. And a great many were concerned. There was a flurry of backchannel conversations — to say the least.

“Too sick to care.” — those words stood out the most to me as I read through Liz’s reply. I knew Liz had been sick…but imagining her not caring told me a whole lot more than I had ever really understood. As long as I have know Liz, she has always cared. Not having the energy to care told me just how sick she must have been.

Liz went on to to tell me about how the online community began coming back to her mind as she slowly regained her strength after her treatment.

“It started as moments. I’d dream about someone offering me the support and friendship I’d known before I got sick. Once I even wrote a dear friend an email about how a dream of his friendship gave me hope. But mostly such moments were fleeting.” she wrote. “Twitter didn’t stay part of my life very long. And you’d be surprised how many people I knew who didn’t notice I was gone.”

I was surprised by that. Everyone I knew had noticed that Liz was gone — but I guess the online world is a pretty big place. I told her about someone once telling me how they were frustrated that she had not shared more online about her illness. This person had felt strongly that many would have done more — if they had known more.

“Sometimes in life and in business you have to be selfish, knowing that you’ll lose something in that act, but also knowing there’s not enough energy to do otherwise.” Liz wrote. “I couldn’t eat because my mouth and throat were covered with sores. I had NO voice — could not be heard even if I was calling for help. Typing was out of the question. I guess I hoped for compassion knowing I could do nothing else.”

Liz on Relationships

Liz went on to explain.

“I’ve always been a person who prefers to interact with people one-to-one and I was a paid writer over a decade before there was an Internet.  I think that is why I took so well to interacting online — because people knew I was really talking to one person at a time. To my surprise online they were talking back.”

“My experience is that when we’re young we try to fit in — in the family, the neighborhood, at school, and as we grow up our universe gets larger so it becomes easier to find the folks with whom we fit.  The beauty of the Internet is that it is the ultimate universe. You can find folks like you there for sure.”  

“But relationships need care and nurturing and sometimes that’s easier to do when we’re in the same room and engaging all of our senses.”

Online or Off It’s about Showing up

Liz said that when she traveled for business, she learned (and still believes very strongly) that you had to show up in person or you invite room for doubt. “A sort of we versus them thinking creeps in.” Liz continued texting.“Falling offline to be sick brought some of that. And the relationships that remain the strongest are those in which people didn’t just expect me to show up without showing up themselves.”

In Liz’s case, many of the people who chose to show up were the very same people who later worked together to bring the first GeniusShared retreat to life last year in Chicago. And those same people are the ones that we now consider to be core members of the GeniusShared community. They continue to show up in ways that never cease to amaze us.

There are so many ways to show up for others. Social provides endless opportunities to reach out, to connect and to build relationships. In many ways, virtually anything is possible — including watching the sun rise over a lake in Chicago — all the way from Vancouver.

But — it’s about so much more than that too. Showing up is very much about the choice you make when people who matter to you suddenly fall offline. It’s all about what you do next. So listen to your inner voice – it knows exactly what you need to do.

What Do You Do When Others Fall Offline

People are funny — many don’t know what to do when someone disappears from the online space. When a sudden social silence sets in, it can be a worry. Especially when that silence comes from someone you have been building an online relationship with. In many ways, it’s as if the internet is still trying to figure out the cultural norm for moments such as this.

Every situation is different.  Over the years I have seen many people fall offline – for days, weeks and even more. I have seen people come and go from the social space. Every time silence emerges I have consciously made a choice about how I responded. From these experiences I can say that my greatest learning has been this —

Most Importantly Listen to Your Inner Voice

You must always listen to your inner voice — not to what other voices are saying. Quite simply — you do what YOU think is right. And if your gut is telling you to reach out — then you do it. Without hesitation or question. You ignore the rest of the noise that surrounds you.

To me, it’s the difference between stopping to offer help at the scene of an accident vs. rubber necking as you drive by ever so slowly. If you choose to stop and help — you are making a clear choice to be there. To show up fully.

And believe me — acting can change everything in your world — and in the world of the person you choose to show up for too.


Jane Boyd is a Partner in GeniusShared. She is also the CEO of 45 Conversations Media & Education Ltd, a Canadian education and training company based just outside of Vancouver Canada. She works with educators, business, community and government in the areas of early learning, work-life, community development and employee engagement.

Filed Under: P2020, Sharing Genius Tagged With: being off social media, build relationships, offline

Co-authoring and Sharing Genius by Text

August 24, 2015 by Jane Boyd

A Glass of Wine Conversation

One night last week, Liz  and I were having a text conversation about GeniusShared. It’s something we often do — talk via text instead of by voice. Over the last few years, we have come to work very well this way. Given that I’m in Vancouver and Liz is in Chicago, it’s a convenient way for us to connect with ease and frequency. It also allows us to talk even on days that Liz’s voice isn’t as strong as we might wish.

You could say it was a glass of wine sort of conversation. I was reminded of a conversation Liz once described in her post What Is Trust? We were were discussing business plans for the GeniusShared community and the shifts we see unfolding in the social and entrepreneurial spaces.

Picture two introverts not concerned with sharing thoughts aloud … a no-filter conversation. — Liz Strauss

Only this conversation was over text — instead of face to face.

Co-Authoring by Text?

The next morning Liz messaged me wondering if maybe there was more to all of our text conversations than basic business planning. Perhaps, she speculated, we were actually co-authoring blog posts without realizing it.

“Wow — what a concept!” — I thought as I read her text. And then I thought — “Only Liz would see this!”

That’s because seeing things is exactly what Liz does best. She sees things that others totally miss — in people, in moments and even in the clouds. It’s her greatest secret power. And she’s exceptional at it. Liz applies this skill in ways that even I can’t quite figure out. (Believe me — I’ve tried!) It’s simply a Liz thing. She has used it to help a great many people and businesses over the years.

And after all of that — I finally thought — “This makes so much sense.”

You see — we both want Liz to start sharing her voice once again in the online space. She still has a lot to say about personal growth and business growth — despite her virtual silence in the online world over the last two years. What’s more — when we exchange our thoughts on the many topics related to personal and business growth  — together we come up with solutions, approaches and ideas. It makes sense that we share these things with Successful-blog readers and the GeniusShared community.

Sharing Genius

Moving forward — we are going to be co-authoring a new “Sharing Genius” series here on Successful-blog — using our text conversations as the very foundation for those posts. We think it’s fitting that two entrepreneurs who have lived online more than 10,000 hours would choose text messages to write collaboratively about how personal growth fuels business. We will also share news about upcoming products, gatherings and other plans for GeniusShared. Most importantly though, we will be exploring ways to spotlight readers. After all, we believe that every viewpoint carries it’s own bit of genius.

Join the GeniusShared movement. Share your experience and genius with us.

Filed Under: Sharing Genius

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