Eden Unplugged

04/30/2011

1 Comment

 
I am soooo excited!! I just submitted my proposal for a workshop to be delivered at an event I'm attending in Arizona on May 8-12 called Eden Unplugged. If you don't know about it, Eden is described as: 

88 evolutionary entrepreneurs coming together at the most amazing hot springs, on lush land far from noise and clutter, to integrate into the life you really want, and the business that will support that life. Together, in community, we'll be creating the new paradigm of business. 

One of the coolest things that will be happening at Eden is everyone is invited to participate in The Tribal Marketplace Game. This is way cool...the game takes each entrepreneur's Great Work (the work they're here on the planet to do) and makes it the focus of the event so the creator can get invaluable feedback from the tribe to move their work forward in the world.

Check this out, as described on the EdenUnplugged.com web site: 

Old Paradigm: Put a few, pre-selected presenters in front of a captive audience & sell em! (Maybe hand out feedback forms… but never question the “context” of the event itself.)

New Paradigm: Create space to explore authentic, heart-centered offering & truth-telling in a tribal marketplace. Receive immediate, visceral feedback.

How does the Tribal Marketplace Game work?

Step 1. You show up fully in your truth & offer your gift – from your heart.

Step 2. The tribe responds, providing immediate feedback & connecting you with others who resonate…who you may never have connected with if you hadn’t shown up this way.

Step 3. We all transform.

Why is the Tribal Marketplace Game so (r)Evolutionary?

Well, aside from the fact that we’ve never seen anything like it – not even progressive gatherings like SXSW create this real-time marketplace “game” – this is the most raw, real feedback you will get on how you show up in the market-space.

No more hiding behind email campaigns, or flyers, or Facebook. This is edgy, real and immediate feedback for courageous, heart-centered evolutionary entrepreneurs.

How cool is that?!? Totally unique and valuable in a way I've never experienced before (and I've been to a LOT of business events in my day).  

The premise of the Tribal Marketplace is already working perfectly for me. I wanted to offer something that is a powerful step in the building of my dream business, yet I couldn't quite pinpoint how to name it, position it or structure it (really just resistance to putting something so important to me out there...what if no one wants it???). 

So in the mean time I submitted another workshop on something I knew I could do really well that could make a difference for others (helping people get crystal clear on their ideal tribe and track), though it wasn't the core of my passion or my reason for being on the planet.

And what happened? I shared it with the community on our private Facebook event page and NO ONE responded to my request for feedback on the topic Nothing! Not a single "Like" even. Nothin' nada zilch. 

The tribe has spoken.

So I withdrew that workshop submission because it was clear that it was not greatest value I could offer the community, and somehow they knew it (so did I).

So it forced me to stop playing in the realm of "safe" (i.e., I already know how to do that) and get into the realm of SCARED to offer something that is so juicy, so close to my heart, so coming from the fire of my Soul that it brings me to my own edge. 

But that's where we all need to be right now - stepping up and playing full out. No more hiding. No more compromise. No more doing something because we're good at it. That's not enough anymore. We're called to give our greatest passions and greatest gifts, and the marketplace won't let us shrink back from that. It's time to have some serious FUN.

So...I've submitted the workshop that makes my cells tingle with excitement because I know it's in far greater alignment with why I'm on the planet and what I love most. I'm not going to reveal what it is here quite yet. I'll let the Tribal Marketplace Game work its magic, and as my offering is shaped by the fires of the tribal marketplace kiln, I'll introduce it to the wider world with the broadest smile and the invitation to come and play.

1 Comment
 

2011 Feels Very Different Than Other Years

03/31/2011

0 Comments

 
I've been talking and writing about people doing what they love and creating a business from that for a lot of years now - more than a decade.

When I first started, I got my share of puzzled looks. People seemed to like what I had to say, but there wasn't yet a mainstream awareness of these ideas. I got my NLP facilitator certification at that time, long before "life coaching" had become popular, and before so many people became disillusioned with corporate life and needed support in learning more about themselves and what they really want to experience and uniquely express in their lives and in their careers.

Over those years, I've explored various ways to follow my own passion and be paid for it. My highest value is freedom, and I've found ways to be self-employed, use my talents, and work with awesome people that I have respected and enjoyed, while continuing to learn and grow and work from pretty much anywhere I've chosen to be in the world. 

It hasn't always been easy, and I've made my share of mistakes (the story of pretty much every successful enterepreneur ever), but it was more important for me to be free and live life on my own terms than to ever work for someone else again. 

For a long time, it was a fairly isolated road. Then I realized there were more and more people just like me, who've been on this kind of path for a lot of years already, doing their best to be true to themselves and the vision that kept pulling them forward even when it was challenging to stay the course.

Now we've got people leaving corporate life in droves, and scores of authors and speakers and trainers and coaches and entrepreneurs who've made the transition from high-paying, high-powered corporate jobs successfully, and whose knowledge, experience and practical skills have been sought out, and for which they are paid handsomely. 

We've never been taught the first thing about how to actually navigate a rapidly changing world where a college degree and a title after your name doesn't guarantee anything anymore, and what kind of lessons will need to be learned when navigating your own course. 

Now we've got books like:

- Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Enterpreneur, by Pam Slim 

- Career Renegade: How to Make Great Money Doing What You Love, by Jonathan Fields

- Why Now is the Time to Crush It: Cash in on Your Passion, by Gary Vaynerchuk

- The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World by Chris Guillebeau

And we've got blogs like: 

- The Middle Finger Project: Bye Bye Corporate. Hello Entrepreneur, by Ashley Ambirge http://www.themiddlefingerproject.org/

- Alexis Neely: Life, Business and the Pursuit of Truth
http://www.alexismartinneely.com/

- Danielle LaPorte: White Hot Truth
http://whitehottruth.com

- Marie Forleo: Where Women Entrepreneurs Live Rich, Happy and Hot
http://marieforleo.com/

These are just a few, there are so many more. And what's amazing about these authors and coaches and bloggers is that many are serious business people leading an entire movement of thousands, and tens of thousands, and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of people - huge followings - while getting some serious media coverage. 

Many others do not come from corporate backgrounds, but have also successfully navigated the transition from traditional 9-5 work to creating something original and valuable to the world and uniquely suited to them, while making a significant, positive impact on others in a way that changes lives.

There are no barriers anymore for anyone who wants to carve their own path, make a difference in the world AND make a great living from it. Technology has removed all barriers to entry. You've got something to say? Start a blog. It's practically free, and you can positively influence a huge number of people with your message. If you're saying something that strikes a chord with people, the word will spread. Sometimes incredibly fast.

Something's been shifting and changing for a bunch of years now, but there's something different about 2011. I feel like there's some kind of critical mass happening, and some extraordinary things are poised to occur in this arena of the new and rapidly evolving relationship between work and money...how we can love our work, design it to suit who we are at the deepest levels and the kind of lifestyle we want, impact people powerfully with it, and be financially well-supported at the same time. 

I'll be doing some cool new things in 2011 because it's finally time. I don't get quizzical looks anymore like I used to when I talk about the topics that I'm most passionate about. There are enough people now that the vision I've held for quite a few years already can finally start to manifest. There are more people than ever to play with in this arena and technology is helping us find each other. Everything is lining up in its right timing. 

Add Comment
 

Self-reliance

03/09/2010

0 Comments

 
Thanks to Brian Johnson (http://www.PhilosophersNotes.com) who posted this passage by Emerson on Facebook recently. I'd not seen this before and it moved me deeply. The message is of great value to anyone truly committed to creating purposefully and living on their own terms.

To believe your own thoughts, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men--that is genius.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Do that which is assigned to you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.

For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

We shun the rugged battle of fate where strength is born.

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, -- "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses, or Dante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again.

All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
Add Comment