Successful Blog

Do You Talk Yourself Out of Living Life?

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(Updated in 2020.)
I’ve been thinking  about subprime living.

At times in my life, in yours too I’d bet, a brighter future sits on the horizon. We look. We imagine ourselves in that future partaking of the what ifs and the could bes. We see the how to happiness, but don’t believe in it.

Then we talk ourselves out of living, using worn words like greener grass and harder they fall. We reign in our egos and close our eyes. Birds and airplanes spend time in clouds. Satellites and comets spend time with stars. We are people. We walk on sidewalks and wood floors.

We say we want. We say we will, and we’re invested. Yet we stop short of determination. We listen when others say, “No, don’t go.” We tell ourselves the reasons we’re wrong to try. While underneath, our fear is that we’ll fail and lose everything, that the brighter future won’t be so bright.

Thinking What we have is better than nothing. is subprime living. Not losing is no where near the same as a win.

Do you talk yourself out of living life?

Be determined. Bet on yourself. Live life. Live the prime of your life.

Be irresistible.

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

4 Sure Signs It's Time to Change Your Mind and How to Do It Completely and Powerfully

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When Our Thinking Is Broken

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It’s easy to tell when a tool is broken. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t function quite as it should. We know it needs fixing or replacing. If we work with a broken tool, the work that we do will take longer or be less effective.

The way we think can be like a broken tool. We face a familiar decision, and we respond in the usual fashion. But, if we’ve changed and the world has changed too, the way we view ourselves and world is out of focus. The resulting decision could be the wrong one.

It’s a harder to tell when our thinking is off, when it works against us. It’s harder to realize when the premises and assumptions that back our decisions are faulty or broken.

4 Sure Signs It’s Time to Change Your Mind

How do we know when our thinking is off? How can we tell it’s time to change our mind? Here are 4 sure signs.

  • If I look around and everyone is lucky or smart — except me — I need to change my thinking.
  • If I look around and everyone is a jerk or lazy — except me — I need to rethink what I’m seeing.
  • If I seem to be the only one who cares, who tries, who does or doesn’t anything, it’s time to change my perspective.
  • When I start not liking myself or what I’m doing, it’s time to change my mind.

Me against the world is an awfully stuck place to be in. Wanting the world to change or questioning it has changed are sure signs that it’s time to change what we’re thinking. The most important thing we can do is take action.

The band, Sister Hazel, said it simply

If you don’t like how you’re thinking, change your mind.

And it simple. Changing our mind is matter of replacing an old belief with a new one.

How to Change Your Mind Completely and Powerfully

We usually recognize a broken thought by a behavior that isn’t working. If we take the time to identify the behavior and the broken thought that drives it, changing our mind can be immediate, complete, and powerful. I know. I’ve done it.

Recently, I faced up to a behavior that wasn’t working. I needed to be more direct with clients about what I charge for my time. I had to change my thinking. I went at it logically and step-by-step so that the change would stick and stay. Here’s how to do that.

  • Identify the behavior that isn’t working. In this case, it was that I wasn’t charging for my time.
  • Verify that the behavior is problem. I talked to people I trust about the issue. They confirmed my problem.
  • Identify the thinking behind the behavior. This was the hard nut to crack. I had to make a commitment to change my thinking. I had to unravel beliefs about generosity and define a solid offer people would understand, value, and pay for. The process worked in stages.
    • First, I looked to current disconnects. I realized that I was had trouble identifying “salable chunks.” Rather than define a clear offer — it had been easier to give the work away.
    • Second, I looked to past successes that used the same skill set — I’d use these to fix the disconnects. In the past, I had negotiated well and enjoyed the process. I compared then with now. Then, I had felt an equal contract. Now, the “equal” felt missing.
    • Third, I faced the facts. Fact: I give my work away; I’m agree to that contract. Fact 2: I can change that.
  • Replace the old thinking. I found a successful model in my personal life for deciding who gets how much for free. I slid that in the place of the old thinking.

As Drew McLellan would say, totally true.

I used this process to change my mind. The results have been complete, powerful, and immediate. As a matter of fact, it’s had an impact on my entire outlook. The world and I are on the same team again.

Are you using old thinking habits to make new decisions? Is time to change your mind?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Performancing Awards 2007: How Do You Choose the Most Influential Blogger?

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Performancing Awards 2007 Reader’s Choice Poll

Performancing

I’ve received several emails pointing out that I’ve been selected as a candidate for the Performancing 2007 “The Most Influential Blogger” award. I didn’t know how to respond, except to think . . .

Wow! It’s stunning to be on a list with people I so admire.

Thank you, for noticing the incredible people who come here.
Thank you, for noticing the conversations and relationships we share.
Thank you, too, for handing me a question to ponder.

How Do You Recognize an Influential Blogger?

I”m struck to realize that a person cannot achieve influence. At best, someone might grow it like a garden –with passion, talent, hard work, and a climate that bestows it.

Musicians are influenced by those who went before them, those they follow, and those they perform with. Writers, actors, and bloggers are influenced in similar ways. How do we choose who has influential power?

We’re all so interconnected. It can’t be only links or traffic. It can’t be the numbers that Google sends our way.

Most Influential Blogger aerial view

Made via Touchgraph

So many people have touched and changed the way I relate and write. So many have been models when I wondered how to respond or when I needed information. I couldn’t list the people. I had to list the qualities they share.

The people who influence my thinking have these traits in common . . .

  • Character and Talent . . . They can be trusted and are leaders because they have matched their talent to their life.
  • Expertise and Curiosity . . . They did the work and still look with wonder.
  • Rebels with Rules . . . They have deep sense of tradition and still reach to improvise.
  • Depth and Drive . . . They go for it and reflect on where they’ve gone.
  • Wisdom and Street Cred . . . They’ve been around the block and taken value from it.
  • Sameness and Uniqueness . . . They understand that we’re all the same in that we all must write our own version.
  • Passion and Detachment . . . They invest their hearts, but evaluate with their minds.
  • Humility and Pride . . . They know they stand on the shoulders of those who went before them and still value what they have accomplished on their own.
  • Introverts in extroverts clothes . . . They share themselves in amazing ways and still are private.

I suspect that if you asked them they would say, they know they have influence, but they often wonder why.

I’ve been thinking about my time as a blogger and wondering how I could possibly choose just one person who was Most Influential. The idea seems overwhelming, even when presented with a short from which to choose. We all so influence each other.

How do you choose the Most Influential Blogger?

Performancing is offering you that choice.

Go on, place a vote!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Shining Dots

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Connecting dots with The Idea Dude’s Friend

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My friend Vernon Lun, the Idea Dude, made this weekly column fill with light. Not only was he

“Touched by the stories I read, inspired by the words of giants, I wanted the world to know these stories, these words. And most of all, these people. Ordinary people, like you and me but so special because they gave us gifts through their blogs every day. The gifts? their voices, their thoughts, their hearts.”

but he touched our thoughts and hearts as well with what he wrote.

That’s some act to follow.

Do any of us know our value?

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I met Vern talking about SOBCon07. and as I come to know the man, The Idea Dude, I stand in awe of his humility. Vern says, We never think of what it is about ourselves that make us remarkable, Does he know he is talking about himself?

I hear his heart shine in his words.

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I turn around and in my mind’s eye I see Rodney Rumford late at Open Comment Night with a new idea he bringing to life. The pictures tell Rodney’s story. I wonder does he know that’s it’s his joy that makes him so attractive?

Life twinkles in his eyes.

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And driving in a red Ferrari are Glenda and Mike, while Chris, and Tim, and Joe throw Klondike bars and wait patiently for a chance to hit the dance floor.

How do they make sun shine when they want to?

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And Char, and Marti, and Becky, and Susan, and Connie, and AnnOhio doing cartwheels. They add the rainbow colors in the way they tease.

No need for a Second Life when the first one glitters so.

So, it’s as you said, Vern, “It is really just the end of the beginning.”

You started something brightly shining, and shining dots are a wonder!
The dots will be here with your initials on every one . . .

May the dots be with all of us!

Liz Strauss, Friend of the Idea Dude

THANKS to Week 115 SOBs

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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.

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Business of Design Online

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.

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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