fear of success: a matter of scale

In dialoguing with a colleague in an online forum, she noted her fear of success. With some trepidation (another form of fear!), I offered my thoughts and asked if they made sense. She said they did make sense and added "It's totally the kind of 'authorization' I needed." It was a good reminder for myself. Perhaps you would appreciate it, too:

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A few years ago I attended some workshops about music business, and one presenter (Steve Bell) told the audience, "We encourage artists to stay out of the music industry." He explained that his company encourages artists to make the world more beautiful and to understand the place of their work in the world: is it personal? local? regional? national? international? Where does it fit?

He also advises artists think of their work as a "sustainable" business rather than trying to make it big. Not everyone needs to have big international or national success, but they can have important local or regional impact and still make a living.

So perhaps part of your decision will be scale: How big do you really want or need to be? I know it's really popular to talk about abundance in business — to dream big. I'm one of the biggest dreamers I know! But I'm starting to appreciate the importance of being realistic about the limitations of our lives: health, mental illness, family commitments, etc. So we need to define our bottom line: How much is "enough"? How much is "too much"? Can I sustain this? By what means will I sustain this?

Perhaps you will need at least two more things:

•developing enough material/products in advance with a delivery system that can manage itself when you have a difficult season
•gathering supporters who can help manage your business when you have difficult seasons (e.g. bookkeeper, virtual assistant, distributor, etc.)

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Does this make sense to you? What scale do you envision for your enterprise? How will you sustain it?

so many conversations!

Really? Two weeks since my last post? I’ve been having so many conversations, often thinking, “I should blog about this,” but it’s been too much fun conversing to write about them! Here’s a list of some of them, not necessarily in chronological order:

• Carrie Catherine. We’ve been emailing about organizing a concert for her in the Calgary area and chatting about her song “Sunshine Baby” and a lullaby my mom used to sing, “Good Morning, Merry Sunshine.” I blogged about the songs here.
•  Barbara Howe & her friend Yvette. Several months ago when I met Barbara, she immediately felt like a kindred spirit. Her book, Forgotten Voices, was uncannily parallel with my own research in women’s history. I suggested designing a website for her book, . She loved the idea. A few weeks ago on March 29th, I hosted an author night through Ambrose Bookstore, and Barb was on the roster. Delightful evening. She brought Yvette, of course, along with several others. On Monday, Barb & Yvette & I met for lunch and visited for over three hours! Discovered a neat connection to Yvette: a few weeks ago Kevin & I bought some filing cabinets from a guy who advertised on Kijiji. Barbara was telling me about Yvette’s husband, and the details sounded exactly like the Kijiji guy, who turned out to be Yvette’s husband!!! The world is not just small, it’s tiny!

• On April 1st, I set up a booth for Ambrose Bookstore at a Christian Trade Show and met all kinds of inspiring people. I shared the booth with Work of Your Hand, whose fairly traded products we carry in the store. 
• The following Saturday, I met my friend and fellow creative lady, Brenda Hemphill, at the Women 2 Women Expo where we visited the interesting booths, sampled food and fragrances and more, bought Gems of Gluten Free Baking, then sat down to plan for a creative women conference, similar to the one I hosted last year.
• Somewhere in there I had a phone conversation with Rosie, who blogs at Iambic Admonit and Space for God – Photo Blog. (You’ll notice that the photo blog features a picture of a mommy reading BlueBeary to her little boy!)

I’m sure there are lots more, but that’s a snapshot for now.

What is creativity? (part 2)

What is creativity? (part 2) is available on my other blog, Siretona Creative.

That’s where the first post was supposed to go! What is creativity? (part 1)

Identity (part 2): person or brand?

I bought the March/April issue of Writer’s Digest to get Christina Katz’s article “50 Simple Ways to Build Your Platform in 5 Minutes a Day.” This gem comes with other treasures, including an interview with Emma Donoghue, author of bestseller Room.

A theme of identity stood out to me in their pieces.

Katz advises writers, “Be Yourself. Advice that tells authors to act like brands encourages us to forget to act like regular people. But social media is made for people, not robots. The fact that you’re a writer and a parent or an uncle and a Packers fan or a vegetarian makes you interesting. Your readers and fans want you to be personable, not a one-topic ever-plugging broken record. Spend five minutes making a profile more you” (p. 43).

Writer’s Digest asks Donoghue, “In a publishing climate where writers are often advised to develop one niche, you’re quite diverse. Is that something you consciously strive for?”

Donoghue replies,

“You know, maybe I’m lucky nobody ever told me that. I know what you mean, in terms of marketing and making a brand of yourself. It would be logical to develop one niche. But I’ve always had a very good agent who’s always emphasized the sure interest of each book or play. She’s never approached my work with that hard-boiled, Will this appeal to your previous readership? attitude. I know my publishers are occasionally a bit bemused by, you know, what am I going to throw at them next, but nobody’s ever said, “Oh Emma, you have to give us more of the same thing” (pp. 37-38).

It’s not just a publishing climate, it’s a business climate, even a social climate. E-Myth talks about it. My colleagues talk[ed] about it at Ambrose and Briercrest. Stephanie Pollock exhorts that business and life are not separate and guides women through a clarification process for it.* Christina Katz rejects it for writers:

Now some people like to substitute the word "branding" for identity, but I'm not partial to the former. Are you a writer or a pharmaceutical company? Are you a writer or a can of soda? Are you a writer...you get the idea. Be who YOU are and spread the word in a professional manner. This takes more thought than you might expect because it's part of the story that precedes you, goes with you, and lingers behind you, everywhere you go. For more on this topic, start reading on page 175 and don't stop until you figure out your Otherwise Known As.

There’s a place for branding, but let’s heed fair warning that brand building can de-personalize. Some people’s names are synonymous with their brand: Rachael Ray, Oprah Winfrey, and Steven Covey are three who immediately come to mind. It’s common, but what’s the net effect? I don’t have a lot of answers, but I do have a healthy wariness.

Who are you? Do you distinguish person from brand? Why or why not? How?

 

*Note: I like Steph Pollock and just signed up for one of her courses. I might filter some of her branding messages, though.

Identity (part 1): grieving losses and change

What is creativity? (part 1)

Often when people tell me they are not creative, I tell them, “Creativity is the ability to use other people’s ideas well.” The idea came from a college textbook that made a strong impression on me two decades ago: Creative Teaching Methods by Marlene LeFever.

My sister is getting married next month and because I live far away from her, I’m compiling a cookbook using The Great Family Cookbook Project. It’s fun to read the submissions & sending out little inspirational notes to the [would-be] contributors.

My next note will suggest the contributors don’t need to be original and will encourage them to share favourites from other sources. For example, one woman added “Angel Biscuits” and included her source: Company’s Coming Muffins and More. I need to include “Blender Hollandaise Sauce” from The Joy of Cooking—so easy and so scrumptious on asparagus or eggs benedict.

I found Creative Teaching Methods on Google Books (of course). In searching for the quotation above (if it IS a direct quote), I have discovered other gems, like this one:

Creativity has become a feminine word. Women are usually thought of as being more creative than men, more at ease sharing their emotions through drama, song and teaching. … “Of course not,” we say, but our attitudes don’t always back up our words.

Look a little deeper. Most creative people are both sensitive and independent. In our society sensitivity is a female characteristic, and independence is considered a masculine characteristic. (p. 37)

LeFever goes on to show that creativity is NOT just the domain of women. That’s good, because I know a lot of creative men: my brother Jeffrey (an insanely talented potter-photographer-videographer-painter-musician), my friend Grant (carver; wordsmith), the illustrious Robert Genn, my husband, etc., etc.

The problem is connotations in meaning. When most North Americans hear “feminine,” we tend to think female. The French would never make that mistake. Or when we hear feminine in relation to men, we tend to think effeminate and/or gay. True, some creative men are effeminate and/or gay, but lots of men (like the ones listed above) are not. It’s too easy to make false equivocations.

So technically, I have no problem with saying that creativity tends to be a feminine quality: not female, not effeminate, not gay, not limited to women. And I’m comfortable saying that independence is a masculine quality, but not male or beefy or limited to women. Of course, to say creativity is feminine implies softness, which is kind of true (think intuition), but it certainly requires discipline (more later), which has a masculine denotation. But creativity is NOT chiefly a womanly thing.

Do you agree or disagree? Why?

project management

My husband took a project management course on the weekend. It has led to some important conversations that will affect business and our personal lives.

First: personal. Kevin’s group used our home renovations as a case study. We’re going to have a family meeting about it tomorrow with all of the key stakeholders: his daughter, his cousin, himself, and me.

Second: business. Kevin has suggested that I take advantage of what he’s been learning to develop and strategize in my own business. He’s brilliant. I’m looking forward to that.

I’m also looking forward to lunch with him in a few minutes!

homesteading & camping out

Since this blog is called 2 conversations, I should tell you about a couple of actual conversations.

1.    

Don't you love it when something that's already on your "to do" list suddenly gets accomplished and you didn't actually have to take the initiative? And isn’t it a nice surprise when you usually don’t answer 800 numbers, but sometimes when you do That's what happened this morning: my list told me to call Homestead/Intuit about setting up a storefront ... then THEY called ME!

It was just a routine customer service call to see how things were going and if I like their service. Like it? I love it! I’ve designed quite a few sites with their easy drag-and-drop SiteBuilder technology (see list below).

I had the loveliest chat with Amy. She was most helpful and knowledgeable. We immediately emailed back and forth a bit on some of my questions. I have a feeling we’re going to have a fruitful relationship, possibly both ways, since she was quite interested in my children’s book publishing.

2. 

We’re renovating the bachelor pad. We’ve been talking about it for months. I hear it’s really good for a marriage. Not stressful at all, except maybe conversations about what to do with a front entry and whether or not to knock out walls and door frames. :)

I’ve been hovering in “camping out” mode with papers and filing and boxes and projects, waiting for the day when we’ve set up the basic infrastructure (i.e. flooring and desk) before settling in. As a partially self-employed person who works from home, it’s hard to be camping out for so long, especially after five years of nomadic life, with most of my household effects in storage! When we got married on December 30th, I thought we might start by the end of January or mid February. Of course not. Everyone says renos always take at least twice as long as you expect.

But just when I think my husband isn’t thinking about renos, he surprises me by saying he’s called someone: a painter, a carpenter, a plumber, a supplier. He bids on leftovers and demos from his employer: light fixtures, baseboards, a brand new frontloading washer/dryer set. And today I welcomed a flooring expert to measure our house. It’s really happening now! We’ll replacing everything on the main floor with new tile and laminate (and maybe a bit of carpet). It will be so refreshing.

Of course I’m dreaming about window treatments and slipcovers and more!

 

Websites I’ve built on the Homestead/Intuit platform:

Personal projects:

• My main site: www.siretona.com (being renovated, kind of like my house…)
• Children’s book publishing: www.openeyes.ca
• Humour about going “over the hill”: www.marthamorgan.ca
• Music: www.colleenanddara.com

A few other clients:

• www.keystomusic.ca
• www.exceptionalconsulting.ca (aka www.mychildmybusiness.ca)
• www.northernlakeshealthcommittee.ca
• www.safetyforallconsulting.com