Successful Blog

The Mic Is On: We're Talking About Pets!

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It’s Like Open Mic Only Different

The Mic Is On

Here’s how it works.

It’s like any rambling conversation. Don’t try to read it all. Jump in whenever you get here. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME.
The rules are simple — be nice.

There are always first timers and new things to talk about. It’s sort of half “Cheers” part “Friends” and part video game. You don’t know how much fun it is until you try it.

Those lovely animals in our lives we love . . .

Here’s a few ideas to get us started:

  • Cats
  • Dogs
  • Horses
  • Birds
  • Fish
  • Snakes
  • Other pets you might have,
478243042_82d180c72f.jpg

And, whatever else comes up, including THE EVER POPULAR, Basil the code-writing donkey . . . and flamenco dancing (because we always get off topic, anyway.)

Oh, and bring links about pets to share!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Let's Talk About Pets!

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Yes the Mic Will Be on Tonight

Join Us Tonight

Those lovely animals in our lives we love . . .

We can talk about cats, dogs, horses, birds, fish, snakes, and whatever else comes up — even flamenco dancing.

Oh, and bring links about pets that you want to share!

The rules are simple — be nice.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

How I Chose 18 Thought Leaders to Follow (and Their Links)

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Business, Blogs, Living

Outside the Box logo

Yesterday, I talked about

Today I thought I might take that further and tell how to choose who to follow.

How I Chose 18 Thought Leaders to Follow

Great leaders don’t have the answers. They have the questions. They seek the answers. They look at who came before them. They talk, but listen more. They write, but not as much as they read. Great leaders are a curious lot.

They encourage us to do our own thinking. Here’s the criteria used to choose 18 Thought Leaders and links to their blogs and blog posts to demonstrate what I’m saying.

Follow the folks who like ideas and learning.

Follow the folks who are curious and curious about you.

Follow the folks who are positive.

Follow the folks who are jazzed about what they do.

Follow the folks who know where they are going.

Follow the folks who’ve made it and are still there.

Need I say more?

The number of leaders on our doorstep is unimaginable. We could be inspired every minute.

Think of the leaders you recommend. What qualities do you use to choose who you follow?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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I Have an Idea — I Have Lots of Them!
Don’t Hunt IDEAS — Be an Idea Magnet

Change the World: Be Awe-Inspired

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Visual Stimulation

changetheworld8

Every year in publishing, the push for sales conference was brutal. My birthday was for most of my coworkers a “drop dead date.”

The focus, the hours, the living, breathing attention of an entire company were all centered on a week of product release. If we missed it, an entire year of sales was blown . . . gone . . . forever. The competition was mighty. Our customers were children. The product had to be exemplary.

We were pulled thin like copper wire — dead tired, not pleasant, and out of creativity. I didn’t realize the impact of such a relentless environment until we went to sales conference.

Our plane left through the beautiful skies of Austin, Texas, taking through time to Durango, Colorado. We didn’t interact much on the plane. I worked on my presentation and contemplated Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, thinking it wasn’t really about love.

It’s not like we’d had been working in a sweatshop. It’s not as if we were in a city devoid of beauty. Yet, with one step onto the tarmac — the Durango airport is atop a tiny mountain plateau. The world changed. I was surrounded by the luxury of space and beauty. It was a gift to be inside breathtaking mountain scenery.

The the view, the space, the sense of creation! How could I care about words on a page when THIS is waiting?

2912-01-06-018 amazing power of creation


My energy, my creativity, my personality showed signs of returning to the living.

So now I know, when I’m “with what I most enjoy content least,” the sky, the lake, a chance to lay back and look up into the leaves of a tree are what I need.

The world is majestic. How can we live here and ignore it? We only have to look a few seconds and we’re wired to be moved by it. It’s our home. It changes us to stop to recognize it. We’re filled up with what we need.

Be awe-inspired. Then show another person how to be.

We can change the world, just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

How to Play Follow the Leader to Kick Start Your Brain

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Business, Blogs, Living

Outside the Box logo

Did you ever play that game — Follow the Leader — in school? The person in front has an idea, and everyone else does the same thing. You might think it’s a bunch of redundancy. Most times it is.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Here’s a recipe to use this game to kick start your brain.

How to Play Follow the Leader to Kick Start Your Brain

In my class, we made our own rules. The game was not only more interesting. It was a WHOLE LOT more fun! My secret is that I’ve used the premises of this silly game to kick start my brain in every job I’ve ever had.

  • Look around for the great leaders, the great thinkers, you admire.
  • Follow the leaders.
    • Follow the folks who have ideas.
    • Follow the folks who have confidence.
    • Follow the folks who are positive.
    • Follow the folks who are jazzed about what they do.

    Follow the folks who know where they are going.

  • Pick one idea from one of the leaders you follow.
    • Take it apart. Put it back together.
    • Look at the idea from every direction you can.
    • Find the parts that are only like the leader. Find the parts that are also like you.

    Get to know the idea at a cellular level.

  • Take one tiny bit of that idea and replace it.
    • If they’re on a tennis court, move to a movie theater.
    • Move the idea to somewhere you understand.

    In other words, make the idea your own.

  • Here’s the crucial part: Don’t try to write . . . play with the idea. While you do that also do something else that suits you:
    • Listen to music.
    • Go for walk.
    • Take a shower.
    • Dance in an elevator.
    • Clean the refrigerator.

    You know what works.

  • Follow your heart to make the idea your own.

Absolutely, positively do not go back to the source once you’ve started to play with the idea . . . until you’ve made the idea your own. Then all that’s left is to write, tell, or present your thoughts, and to remember to thank the leader who was your inspiration.

You get the idea. Actually with a little practice, my guess is that you’ll be getting more than one.

How do you usually kick start your brain?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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I Have an Idea — I Have Lots of Them!
Don’t Hunt IDEAS — Be an Idea Magnet

I Have an Idea — I Have Lots of Them!

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Any first grade teacher will tell you. . .

some days, some times of the year, what you planned just isn’t working. The kids are one place, and you’re in another one.

Any actor, any writer, any artist who performs for an audience, will tell you the same thing. Parents know it. Managers know it. The folks who care for animals know it too.

Ask any marketer. I bet you’ll hear that customers don’t behave according to plan.

When I used to work in an office, I called certain times of the year “karma-skew,” because they were predictably off. Those were by no means the only ones when it seemed that most folks in the building were, well, . . . a little bit . . . um . . . zany. I only wish. What we really were was bored and cranky.

Since the time that the world began, humans have had our explanations for this phenomena . . . the planets are misaligned. . . . The sun is breaking out in spots.

Any first grade teacher knows it happens before a rainstorm, or when the sky clears, or when there’s going to be a vacation day, or when it’s the first day back, or a special event, or hundred million other everyday catastrophes and celebrations.

Who cares why? It just does. A time comes when we need to change things up.

When it does . . . you set the plan aside, and you say, “I have an idea!”

Actually, I have lots of them. I have ideas about having ideas, about making friends, about being jazzed and productive — all things that are fun!

So let’s put the heavy thinking aside. Here’s a great place to start.

What’dya think? Good idea? Are you ready to come along?

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