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Where the virtual meets the irresistible force of Liz Strauss

October 20, 2020 by Guest Author Leave a Comment

Terry and Liz - SOBCon

Terry “starbucker” St. Marie shared his thoughts about Liz during “Gathering Stardust for Liz Strauss.”  You can watch the video of the gathering here. Terry also sent us a copy of his speech so that we could share it with you here on Successful Blog.

 

Hi everyone, I’m Terry “starbucker” St. Marie talking to you from smoky Portland, Oregon.

I was blessed to go on a 7 year journey with Liz as a business partner.

Liz inspired me from the very first time I read her blog way back in 2006.

It was a post entitled – “The Ferrari Analogy for Organized Writing”.
In it she said,

“A great blog post is like a car date. We spent time together sharing your view. I follow your logic and then, if we connect, we talk about it.”

I was intrigued to say the least by this very unique insight, so I very shortly thereafter participated in one of Liz’s Open Comment Nights

It was classic Liz, Macguyver-ing her comment box into a real-time communications platform and inviting everyone to join the spirited conversations, led by her selflessness, kindness, and passion for learning & growing as a human.

This was before Twitter or Facebook mind you, so as usual she was way ahead of her time.

We quickly became online friends and as one lively comment night led to another, in late 2006 someone put “it” out there.

The “it” was a simple musing – “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if all of us could get together in person?”

That was the official birthing of what became SOBCon – the Successful and Outstanding Blogger Conference.

Because with Liz, it couldn’t “just” be a get-together. She figured, if people were going to spend money to for travel and lodging they should get something more than just a few happy hours. “We should teach them something meaningful, and we could all teach each other”

So we somehow, someway cobbled together the first SOBCon in May of 2007. Some of you were there, and I’m sure you felt the same way I did after it.

75 people hung out together for a weekend, and talked about their craft, their passions, and their lives.

It turned out to be magical. Trust was high. Candor was abundant. Egos were checked at the door. There was a depth to the dialogue that prompted many to declare how “life changing” it was.

There were no barriers to learning. And it was good. It was magic.

And where did this magic come from? Who was capable of conjuring up the ingredients of this potent mixture of trust, humility, and candor?

It was Liz, who lived and breathed those qualities. She deeply believed in the basic generosity of the human spirit, and the magic came from her belief.

When she entered the room at that gathering in Chicago, and every other single SOBcon after that – and we did 10 of them, in Chicago, Boulder and Portland – something wonderful happened.

She was the catalyst of a powerful enabling force that unlocked that same generous spirit from everyone there.

Liz Strauss WAS SOBCon – I just had the unique opportunity to be her partner in the venture and have a front row seat for all that magic.

It wasn’t all a walk through the park – putting on conferences was a bit like walking a tightrope without a net. But somehow, Liz would rise to the occasion and just in the nick of time pull in one more sponsor, or sell a few more tickets, to get us to the across the chasm and to the finish line.

I learned SO much from her during those 7 years, and also had so many laughs and experiences. Our SOBCOn parties at South by Southwest were absolute blasts.

But what was always extraordinary to me as I went on this journey with her were the one on one conversations she would have with people that could leave such a deep mark.

I lost count of the times friends, and total strangers for that matter, would walk up to me after having a “Liz Conversation” and tell me that their minds were blown – for the better.

She just had that way of clearing through all the clutter that most humans put in front of themselves and getting right to the heart and soul of the matter.

And she was relentless in wanting to make sure that every single person who attended an event of hers was going to get something meaningful out of it.

And she was relentless as a business partner in pushing me to help her succeed with that goal.

And you know what, I believe she succeeded, hundreds and hundreds of times over.

That was her supreme gift, her superpower – helping others find meaning in their lives, and be, in her words, “irresistible”.

The tagline for SOBCon used to be “Where the Virtual Meets the Concrete”

That was wrong, actually – it should have been –

“Where the virtual meets the irresistible force of Liz Strauss.”

Love you Liz, and farewell my dear friend.

And to all of you, I will quote from a great rock band that the SOBCon community was particularly fond of –

“Don’t stop believin’”

Filed Under: Liz Tagged With: Liz-Strauss, sobcon, Terry St. Marie

Gathering Stardust for Liz Strauss [Video Recording]

October 11, 2020 by Jane Boyd 2 Comments

On September 17, 2020 many of Liz’s friends, colleagues and family members  came together in celebration of her memory. Not a funeral, but something unique in the spirit that we believe would have made her smile. Liz never wanted to be on a pedestal, nor the center of the universe. Knowing that, she touched so many lives in so many beautiful ways, and she leaves an incredible legacy.

“Gathering Stardust for Liz Strauss” was co-created and co-produced by Jane Boyd, Jeff Pulver, Gigi Peterkin, Rosemary O’Neill, and a small group of Liz’s friends, with love and gratitude from Eric T. Strauss.

We are so thankful for the community that was shared, the many stories that were told and the voices of everyone who contributed to making “Gathering Stardust” such a profoundly moving  celebration of the uniqueness and brilliance that was Liz Strauss.

As part of “Gathering Stardust,” many individuals shared stories of inspiration about the significant number of ways that Liz had personally and professionally impacted their lives. The speakers, in order of appearance, included:

  • Terry “Starbucker” St. Marie
  • Mark Horvath
  • Marla Schulman
  • Ric Dragon
  • Carol Roth
  • Andy Crestodina
  • Paul O’Mahony
  • AJ Leon
  • Laura Fitton
  • Steve Farber
  • Rosemary O’Neill
  • Gigi Peterkin
  • Jeff Pulver
  • Jane Boyd

Twice during the gathering, we broke out into smaller breakout rooms to have a more intimate setting to explore and share our thoughts in response to the following questions:

  • What kinds of community have you built and/or impacted because of Liz?
  • What’s our way of paying it forward?

Many friends of Liz volunteered to hold the space for these rooms and support discussion and sharing. The breakout room facilitators included:

  • Mark J. Carter
  • Shashi Bellamkonda
  • Tim McDonald
  • Phil Gerbyshak
  • Molly Cantrell-Kraig

Included above is the full recording of the main room. The breakout rooms were not recorded.

Throughout the gathering, there was a beautiful feeling of love, gratitude and community — something many commented on throughout the event and after.  

Without question, it was the kind of gathering that Liz would have loved being a part of.

And indeed she was.

 

Gathering Stardust on Zoom

Gathering Stardust on Zoom

 

Filed Under: GeniusShared Community Updates Tagged With: Liz-Strauss

Gathering Stardust for Liz Strauss

September 14, 2020 by Jane Boyd Leave a Comment

Gathering Stardust - Liz Strauss

“If you love, you know that just as flowers need dirt, sad things can make a large heart even larger and able to love even more.”~ @LizStrauss

When news spread of Liz Strauss’s passing, the outpouring of love and support from those who love her has been heartwarming and full of stories, just as she would have loved.

Liz never wanted to be on a pedestal, nor the center of the universe. Knowing that, she touched so many lives in so many beautiful ways, and she leaves an incredible legacy.

Register here to be part of the informal, interactive virtual gathering (via Zoom) in celebration of her memory. Not a funeral, but something unique in the spirit that would make her smile.

Thursday, September 17, 2020 – Beginning at 1:00 PM Pacific Time

This time together will include:

1:00 PM – 3:30 PM – Pacific Time
Individual speakers
Opportunities to gather around a set of virtual tables and share your story of how Liz inspired and touched your life

3:30 PM – 4:45 PM – Pacific Time
Open Mic: the online room will stay open for additional hour at the end of the program and you are invited to stay in community for this time if your schedule permits

This event is being co-created and co-produced by Jane Boyd, Jeff Pulver, Gigi Peterkin, Rosemary O’Neill, and a small group of Liz’s friends, with love and gratitude from Eric Strauss.

Please follow this link to RSVP.

“No matter where in the world I might go, when I need them to, the stars always take me home.” ~ @LizStrauss

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Liz-Strauss

The Value of Words

December 26, 2016 by Liz Leave a Comment

The Value of Words

When I was a small child my mother had a simple cardboard box in which she kept toys in closet. She believed that we would value our toys more if we didn’t always have all of them all around us to play with. So every few months she would take the toys that she felt we had grown tired of and put them in the box in the closet. Then she’d replace them with some of the toys from the box we hadn’t see for a long while.

It would be as if those old, forgotten toys were new when she brought them out again!

It doesn’t take much to make me think of that old cardboard box. I often wish we had a box like that for words that we’ve used too much — words we’ve grown so familiar with that they’ve lost meaning.

Imagine if we could make some words new again … restore them back to their original meaning.

Words like . . .

peace

joy

wonder

good will

wishes

awesome

irresistible

Take a moment to savor the words you use to define yourself, to describe the people you value, and to share your feelings about the people you value with them.

Stop to value what’s dear and delight in the familiar.

Be irresistible,

Liz

Put Your Mind to It

The words we choose are like the stories we tell. Without realizing their effect, choosing and using them changes us — how we see ourselves and how others see us. Consider the phrases you use without thinking, like answering, “I’m fine,” when people ask how you are. Try saying, “I’m fabulous.” Watch how that changes your day.

More from Liz . . . about the Value of Words

Images & Words: Are You Ready to Make Opportunity and Change the World?

How Do Get You People to Stop Listening to Words and Start Hearing Ideas?

Filed Under: Personal Development Tagged With: communication, Liz-Strauss, words

Anything You Put Your Mind To – Paperback Released Early #LizBook

September 18, 2016 by Jane Boyd Leave a Comment

Anything Books

GeniusShared Press is excited to announce that the paperback version of Anything You Put Your Mind To by Liz Strauss has been released early! You can be one of the first people to hold Liz’s incredible new book in your hands by ordering today!


Anything You Put Your Mind To

An adventure in remembering

we decide the stories

that decide our lives

by Liz Strauss

with Foreward by Jane Boyd, Story Editor


 

by Liz Strauss

What People Are Saying . . .

In Anything You Put Your Mind To, Liz uncovers one of the great secrets of success in both business and life: the potential of narrative to forge one’s own path. People underestimate storytelling, but its power is infinite: the stories we tell ourselves constitute our reality.

With verve and clarity, Anything You Put Your Mind To brings home the importance of reconnecting with our stories, and demonstrates how anyone can follow Liz’s lead and bring direction back to their self-narratives. The verities of this book–that the roads to every kind of both success and failure start inside our own heads–are striking, challenging, but ultimately liberating. Liz’s account is searingly honest and her writing is compelling and lyrical. I loved how she skillfully manifests the clamoring forces we all internally wrestle with on a daily basis. Larry and the dog, the central characters of the book, are rendered with the weight and force of a fable. Every last word is heavy with the power of Liz’s personal investment in her vision. No one else could have written this book.

Anything You Put Your Mind To will benefit anyone who wants to tell themselves better stories; that is, anyone who wants to change their life. Knowing which of our narratives to discard, which to alter, which to champion–this is the road to so much of what we call prosperity. This book is rich with the hard-won wisdom of one who has walked this road, and returned to tell the tale. Start reading. Now.

— AJ Leon, Founder of Misfit and author of The Life and Times of a Remarkable Misfit

There is no one like Liz Strauss. Liz is living insight, jumping over boundaries. Conversations with Liz are legendary for dizzying changes in perspective, unexpected connections, and bright ideas. This book is like a conversation with Liz, only portable. And more intense.

— Becky McCray, Entrepreneur and author of Small Town Rules

Liz Strauss is a world-renowned storyteller, so it is only fitting that she would use stories as both the framework and roadmap to help you to achieve success and everything that you want out of life. Whether you are an entrepreneur, a busy professional, or someone who’s just asking, “what’s next,” Liz’s unique, humorous, and insightful parable provides the perfect inspiration.

— Carol Roth, Billion-dollar dealmaker, Judge on TBS’s America’s Greatest Makers, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Entrepreneur Equation

Liz Strauss shares stories that illuminate who she is and at the same time will help you understand who you can become. This book will twist, bend, and batter your reality and that’s a good thing. All of us need to make great leaps in our mind, and yours will start when you read the first chapter.

— Tim Sanders, Author of Love Is the Killer App: How To Win Business and Influence Friends

It would have been easy for Liz Strauss to pump out a business book. Or an inspirational book about conquering cancer. Or a series of ebooks on social media marketing.

Instead of taking the expected path, Liz zigged when she might have zagged. She’s written a beautiful, jaw-droppingly original story that calls to mind Og Mandino, or perhaps Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Her unique and incisive perspective shines through, hitting the reader right between the eyes by becoming fully vulnerable. If you’ve ever caught yourself “hiding in your thoughts,” looking for human connection, or seeking to be understood, this book will become a treasured keepsake.

You’ll understand what I mean when you read it. And you must read it.

— Rosemary O’Neill, Co-Founder, Social Strata

“Wouldn’t that be cool?” Whenever I’d hear Liz Strauss utter those words, I knew I had just been given a gift from a dear friend–a tiny but yet oh so significant tidbit of wisdom that had been processed, analyzed, and delivered from one of the most brilliant minds I have, or will, ever encounter. So it was with great anticipation and pleasure that I dove into Liz’s new book, Anything You Put Your Mind To.

It’s a book that reveals the emotional and personal heart of this “65th Crayon”–a poignant and unflinching glimpse into a fertile and wondrous imagination, revealing rich textures of insight, wonder, and in the end, many simple truths we can take with us to guide and instruct our own lives.

She takes us on this personal journey with her “time machine”–a rich musical and lyrical accompaniment, a library of touching stories from her childhood, and two special friends–Larry and the dog.

And, there’s the sky, where Liz gazes up and finds her place and part in the universe. The truths that she so eloquently notes ultimately leads to a larger life lesson–the way to find yourself is to look back, AND up–and just BE, with child-like curiosity and a reflective innocence.
Experience this wisdom yourself by reading this wonderful story, and then embark on your own journey of personal discovery. Wouldn’t that be cool?

— Terry St. Marie, Portland, Oregon

A seemingly simple awakening of personal growth–set in modern day. Readers will meet the woman who is an “everyman”: successful but unsure, loving yet controlling, happy and unbalanced, as well as righteously hypocritical. She is we.

The writer’s distinguished intelligence and prose tell us her story in a wax-on, wax-off parable that is rich with clever insights and self-deprecating humor, which beckons the reader to relate and then question our own place in this world. All this is accomplished with introduction of a mysterious character named Larry and his dog.

As a reader, I cherished each word and chapter. This is a book you take your time with because, just like the main character, you will have to stop, pause, and listen to your inner voice. That voice might be telling you to address your buried Freudian issues, learn self-love, as well as how to give and receive, before you can enjoy your success.

Anything You Put Your Mind To will become the contemporary life-lessons business allegory for the 2010s; just like The Alchemist and The Legend of the Monk and the Merchant were for the late 90s and early 2000s. I will regularly pick this book up, again and again, to reread chapters, especially Liz Strauss’ explanation of the “65th Crayon.” I highly recommend this book for anyone who thinks they might be stuck, or who thinks that they already “have it all,” or maybe they just want to reach further in their career.

—Jon-David, Author of 9 Amazon ebooks, and a world-leading social media expert in the Salon Industry

It doesn’t take long to recognize the truth behind Liz’s recommendation, “Be curious about everything.” In this dazzling, rippling adventure tale we are given the ride of a life. The secret ingredient propelling this story of stories is the thirst for knowledge driven by an unquenchable curiosity. Ever questing, Liz offers us a path to reflection and self-understanding both accessible and divorced from the step-driven, self-help of the past.

Through Liz’s passion, her vision, and her unbridled willingness to explore we are offered a model for making and remaking ourselves. For those who know Liz and her work, this is a welcome glimpse into “the Way of Liz” and offers revelations and surprises of all sorts. With wit she disarms and with wonder she instructs. All you have to do is keep up with this Alice in the wonderland that is her imagination.

— Andrew [Drew] Marshall, CEO, Primed Consulting, LLC

The best stories let you get lost in them and come out with new insights and actionable ideas; Liz creates that journey for you with this book.  Liz has been an amazing friend and mentor for almost 10 years and I know that conversations with her can stretch your mind and open your eyes to opportunities you would have never seen otherwise.  The sooner you read this book the sooner you can begin to live your new, exciting life stories.

—Mark J. Carter, Founder of ONE80 and creator of Idea Climbing™

About Anything You Put Your Mind To

In Anything You Put Your Mind To, master storyteller Liz Strauss hooks us into an adventure of remembering that we decide our future. We discover that by deciding the stories we believe about ourselves we decide our lives. Strauss offers a fresh energy and approach, bringing something new to the topic and keeping us engaged. Along the way, she offers snippets of insight and wisdom on the human condition that take us beyond the theme, helping us find “our own normal,” and making the experience memorable worth returning to again and again.

Alice, a quirky, intelligent, and outright funny book editor, who is on quest because her job isn’t working for her and she has “edited out” the rest of her life. She’s seeking out a new purpose by going “running” through her mind, revisiting stories she believes about herself to get her back to a life she wants to live. While running through her mind, she meets two strangers — a guy and his dog — who already seem to know exactly who she is. Who are they? How did they get in her mind? They join Alice’s quest, asking questions, lending support and compassion. Will these two, seemingly invented, characters give her the clarity she needs to find her way or send her on a trip through Wonderland? And where does the Lone Ranger fit in all of this?

Authored by Liz Strauss
Designed by eBookDesignWorks.com
Foreword by Jane Boyd
Drawings by Jackie Lea Shelley
Cover design or artwork by eBookDesignWorks.com
Consultant editor Richard Balkwill
General editor Jane Boyd
Edition: First Edition

Filed Under: #LizBook, Announcements Tagged With: Anything You Put Your Mind To, GeniusShared Press, Jane Boyd, Liz-Strauss, LizBook

“Liz’s account is searingly honest . . .” says @AJLeon #LizBook

July 31, 2016 by Jane Boyd Leave a Comment

We asked our good friend AJ Leon, Founder of Misfit and author of The Life and Times of a Remarkable Misfit to review Liz Strauss’ soon to be released book Anything You Put Your Mind To.

AJ had many great things to say about Liz’s book — including these words:

 

Liz’s account is searingly honest and her writing is compelling and lyrical.

 

AJ - Liz's account is - instragram (2)
Click to Pr-Order Your Copy Today!

Anything You Put Your Mind To is being published by GeniusShared Press on September 21, 2016. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

Filed Under: #LizBook Tagged With: Anything You Put Your Mind To, GeniusShared Press, Liz-Strauss, LizBook

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