Over the weekend I attended a wonderful event that I wanted to share with you.
It was called Lotus Uprising, and was part yoga class, part dinner party, part house concert.
Here’s how the organizers describe it:
On a Saturday around 6:00pm you converge with about twenty other people who seem like your kind of crowd. You lay out your mat, grab some cucumber water, and start breathing deeply. You practice yoga outside as the sun goes down set to music crafted for the occasion. You love the teacher. This is your kind of class. Luminaries light the edges of this scene, and smells of natural foods waft through the air. You sweat out your stress. When the class ends, you change clothes, or maybe you don’t. Either way you feast upon a delicious vegan meal that restores your strength. You didn’t think vegan food could taste this good. You sip on the wine you brought over good conversation, and then the band begins to play. Everyone listens to the music. You can dance if you want to. After the set ends, you walk out the door with some new friends. You feel good and it’s only 10:30pm. The night is young and full of possibility. Your world is expanding.
l to r: Jamie Gahlon, Colin Brightfield, Erin McCarthy
It was a super evening, and everything was just perfect. It is not normally the kind of thing I would find myself doing (for starters, I love me my beef) but from beginning to end I found myself thinking about what a good time I was having.
Part of what had me so enthusiastic, I think, is that this entire production was completely do-it-yourself, bootstrapped from a simple idea tossed out in conversation six weeks ago.
Yoga teacher Colin Brightfield, vegan chef Erin McCarthy, and producer Jamie Gahlon are friends who were sitting around one afternoon and someone had the idea of doing something like a “yoga party and vegan mashup.” This quickly became Lotus Uprising which is much more than the sum of its parts. It is an experience. By attending, you buy into the idea of having this experience, which includes community, yoga, mindful eating, and supporting local music.
In six weeks, the event was put together, people were invited (and responded). The event came off. People paid to attend, and some percentage will attend the next one (July 9). They will tell friends. In other words, from nothing, Lotus Uprising is now something. Proof-of-concept has been demonstrated.
More and more, this is how creative things come into being now. Someone has an idea and — instead of trying to sell it to a gatekeeper like a record company or event company — they go ahead and implement it using free or almost-free tools. (Just think about all the artists who are writing songs and just performing them to a cameras and posting them on YouTube. Like Justin Bieber, though his first video was a cover.)
Lotus Uprising, to me, is of particular interest because it is a a completely different category of creative product. It is a hybrid event (yoga, food, music). It would have been impossible to sell . . . yet 20 people paid $40 to attend. That doesn’t make someone a living, but it more than defrays the cost of putting on the event. So the idea is pulling its own weight.
I look forward to what Lotus Uprising has in store next. The band that played last weekend was a local band called The Woodworks — they played a reggae-infused pop — and it took place at a private home. The band on tap for the next one is a bluegrass band, and the location (I am told) will be a rooftop in the city. There are also plans to hold one in another town sometime. The trappings of the idea can change from event to event, but the core (yoga, food, music) is the organizing idea. There is a lot of room in this concept for growth. It is elastic.
Last week, I took my 13 year old son and some friends to a paintball field. We had never been before. As we drove out, we shared about how some of us were a little nervous, but the overall emotion was excited anticipation. Like race horses trembling before the gate opens, we were ready to rock.
The way it works, they put everyone who happens to be there at the same time into a big group until there are about thirty people. Then they split you into teams and a referee establishes what game you are going to play and enforces rules. The games were basic — capture the flag, shoot everyone until there is no one left standing, defend the fort.
I imagine we all had similar inner fantasies on the way out. My son plays a lot of first-person shooter games on Xbox with his friends, and I am into them a bit too. So we were pretty much all imagining ourselves as awesome little soldier-dudes.
The reality slapped me in the face immediately. We got split up into teams and the game began. I snuck through the woods, my sights on this enemy fellow crouching behind a tree. I popped out from behind my tree to shoot. The moment I revealed myself, I got hit. Game over. I was the first casualty.
What’s worse, as I walked back to the staging area where the dead people wait, I realized I had no clue where the shot that did me in had come from. None.
The game finally ended, and we were briefed on the next game. We basically switched sides, with one team uphill and the other downhill. The ref called “go.” We started playing. I snuck forward toward a woodpile. This time I would be cagey, and be a bit more careful of my surroundings.
Again, I got shot quickly. Again, I had no idea where it came from.
Over the course of the day, I improved and I stopped being the first to go. But one element was constant: I never knew where the shot that took me out came from.
This morning, as I was talking to friends about life in general, I realized that my paintball excursion (which I enjoyed immensely and which I plan to repeat) taught me a very important lesson:
You never know what direction challenges will come from.
In most cases out on the paintball field, there was some threat (or target) I was focusing on, and the killer shot came from some other place. I was totally blindsided. Over and over.
Try as we might to prepare, the unexpected will present itself to us, and we will have to deal with it. On the paintball field, it means a walk back to the staging area. In life, it means a chance to respond with grace to something new.
The quality I need to cultivate in myself is not so much strength to withstand an onslaught, or even a more sensitive internal radar. Because there is always a better shot, and the paintball with my name on it will always come from where I am not looking.
No, the quality I need to cultivate is grace in response.
That is what is going to serve me best, as life continues to present surprises.
Normally, I find articles about how to “minimize distractions in this distraction-filled world” to be unhelpful. They usually amount to: “Have more will power to avoid distractions, unplug, and do things in batches.” I sometimes get upwards of 200 emails per day. I have many filters in place, so the dross gets autofiled and ignored. But if I batched the remainder, I would be facing a huge backlog every day, AND people who have come to expect swift response will be disappointed. (So I constantly look at my inbox, as things come in, and dispatch them quickly. My inbox is close to zero at all times.)
Therein lies the crux of the problem: In today’s world, it is reasonable to expect a response within an hour or two. And that is not necessarily bad.
But wait, that wasn’t what I wanted to write about. I was reading this article on reducing distractions, inwardly complaining, when I ran across this piece of advice:
“Make space for One Important Thing Everyday. The truth is everyday we only need to do one or at most two really important things, or tasks. Each day make a note of what that thing is and do it.For me today it was writing this blog post, it’s not that I didn’t do another productive stuff but it was the main important thing that I likely would put off unless I had a bit of a push.”
That strikes me as excellent advice. Every day, there is usually One Big Thing — the one thing that sets the tone for the day. Maybe I am delivering a big document, or reviewing a batch of notes, or holding some meeting. Whatever. Point is, even in a busy day there is typically one defining thing. I need to identify that and let it be the center of gravity.
The other things in the day? Well, they will get done, or they can become the One Big Thing for a subsequent day.
Looking back at my own behavior, I think I already tend to do this, only I have not articulated it.
I believe in New Year’s resolutions, if only to focus my mind on the kind of person I want to aspire to be. (My friend Caryn has written a great article in praise of resolutions.) Typically, I focus on my shortcomings — things I want to improve.
This year, I thought I would try for a more balanced approach, that looks at the major areas of my life. For me, the main areas are: Body, Mind, Spirit, Work, Family, Music, and Community (not necessarily in that order).
My overall plan is to scan each of these areas periodically, just to check in with how I am doing. I realize that, at different times, I will have energy in different areas. Over time, if I can push ahead in all these areas, I think I will have a balanced life.
Here are the areas I want to focus on this year, along with concrete ideas of what I hope to do in each area.
Mobile professionals are not the only ones who have discovered the usefulness of the smartphone. More and more public leaders are busting out Blackberrys and iPhones when they are out and about. At my recent talk at the National League of Cities conference, there were throngs of mayors and other elected officials staying connected at the back of every room.
After about a year of getting the wheels turning slowly with their new operating system for mobile telephones, it looks like Google’s Android system is about to hit it big, big time. More phones than you can shake a stick at are set to drop over the next few weeks and months. I’ve been using the new flagship, the Motorola Droid on Verizon, since the day it emerged. I really put it through its paces.
Overall, Google, Verizon, and Motorola have hit it out of the park with this phone. My only downchecks are the D-pad (I want a little trackball) and battery life (better than the G1, but still could be improved).
When I was about eleven, I learned how to make my favorite cheese sandwich: white bread, mayonnaise, American cheese. Yes, I grew up in the midwest. Shortly after I learned this special skill, I developed a fun game to pass the time: I would play “restaurant.”
More precisely, I would play short order cook. I would pretend I was a cook at a diner, with lots of orders coming in. Only thing was, everyone ordered the one thing I could make — an American cheese sandwich. So I would make sandwich after sandwich, as fast as I could, pretending I was a cook deep in the weeds during a big rush.
I got to thinking about this the other day as I reflected on my own career arc, current strategy, and future plans. I wondered, “Am I playing ‘restaurant?’”
Treading Water
A lot of my friends are solopreneurs — lone people plying their trade on a project-by-project basis. I have been working independently since 2003, and proudly so. But sometimes, I see other friends who are happily ensconced in organizations, managing, meeting, memo-ing. Then I look at my own workstyle, in which I write from about 6:30 am until 10:30 am, have a stretch of less productive time, and then come back hard from about 2:00 pm on. Sometimes I go deep into the night.
The things that rarely occupy this time are the things that routinely occupy my office-working friends’ lives. I have few meetings, the phone rarely rings (almost everything is email, txt, Twitter, and IM). There is zero office politics. The way things are right now, I can get a ton of stuff done. It leaves room for lots of possibilities.
But, sometimes, I worry. Should I be doing more? Am I just going through the motions of “working?” Am I treading water? Am I pretending?
I think these kinds of questions are ones that other solopreneurs also face. Twitter has given many of us a window into some water cooler cultures that we are not part of. I see lots of my friends “going into meetings,” or “having conversation with the boss,” and “talking to HR.” If I don’t do these things, am I just, in the end, making a bunch of cheese sandwiches and pretending I am the real deal?
Having Direction
I think the key lies in whether I have a direction or not. What’s my path? Having few in-the-flesh coworkers means I can get a lot of strategizing done. It also means I can succumb to one of two temptations. I can not write down any of my plans, in which case they are just dreams. Or, I can spend so much time on my planning, developing fancy slide decks for no one but myself, that I can fool myslef into thinking I am already GE. There’s a happy medium to be struck.
But I need to have plans, a direction. And they need to be written down. Otherwise it’s just cheese sandwiches.
Sometimes this planning can raise self doubts about how far I have come, or not come, but that’s OK. As solopreneurs, we are still writing the rules and for now — we are where we are.
Maybe you can tell I’ve been thinking about my own direction these days. There are some exciting things in store. But I always need to remind myself to keep it real. Don’t pretend I’m bigger than I am.
Nor should I pretend I’m smaller than I am: Maybe, I will look down and notice that those aren’t cheese sandiwches I’m making, but whole meals. A sub. A steak. Mashed potatoes.
The hand wringing, eyebrow-raising, and joke-making over Mark Sanford’s trip to Argentina is beginning to run its course. Having read the emails between him and the Other Woman, it’s hard to mark this one down as just venal corruption and hypocrisy. The whole episode clearly filled Sanford and his love with anguish — moral anguish. He knew he was doing wrong, yet His trip South was an effort to make sense of the wreck his life was becoming.
My friend Rich Harwood posted in his Twitter account (you should follow him: @RichHarwood) this comment: SC Gov. Sanford fiasco raises basic Q for all of us: How do you leave time for yourself so you don’t feel overwhelemd, at loose ends?
Indeed, that is the question. Sanford cracked — and his life broke open.
The episode reminded me of a piece I wrote a bit ago about a Missouri lawyer named David Masters, who cracked under the pressure of what seemed his perfect life. Re-reading the piece, I thought you might like to read it too, as it is a gripping story and also raises some important questions. Here’s how it starts:
David Masters (source unknown)
Strapped to a chair in a small, grey house on the edge of a Missouri town, 52-year-old David Masters begged for his life to end by lethal injection instead of by gunshot. His three captors, angered that he was three weeks tardy with rent and that he’d made unwanted advances on one of them, obliged by injecting him repeatedly with cocaine. The next day, his body was found near an Ozark river. Another toll taken by the culture of addiction.
David Masters had been a lawyer. Hearing that, we imagine him in a small, cheap storefront office near city hall, a bottle hidden in the desk and no receptionist. Maybe an ambulance chaser. A lost soul hanging on to whatever profession he’d once had.
Here is what David Masters once had. Seven children. A wife. The best home in his Missouri town, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A reputation for hard work and scrupulous integrity. Proteges, who have since succeeded. The favor and support of the governor, who had appointed him county prosecutor in 1990 and which office he held until 1998.
David Masters had been a shining success. People marveled at how hard he worked, putting in full-time hours on a part-time job while still keeping his private practice. It appears his life unraveled shortly after he was unseated from his prosecutor’s slot in 1998. Under what seems to have been a crushing amount of personal and professional overhead, he ran out of money and options. Then, he plain ran out, moving without telling anyone, including 65 clients, where he was going. His law license was suspended. In the court documents, he at one point listed himself as “homeless.” That might well have been better than where he was, living in that small grey house with a killing drug dealer for a housemate.
I had a fascinating conversation with a young person and it gave me a new insight into how different people use social media.
Like a lot of young people, her Facebook stream has its fair share of adults mixed in. There’s her parents, and some of her parents’ friends, and other relatives.All jumbled up.
She was complaining (in a good-natured way) about the adults. “They’re always posting such serious stuff,” she said. “They sound like essay questions. Who cares what you think about some issue?”
I asked her what kinds of updates and links her and her friends were into. What were some of the recent updates?
Billy!! [Mays]
I’m at the mall. TXT me
[The name of a friend] <3
(The last emoticon is a heart, in case you couldn’t see it.)
What some might turn up their nose at as “trivia” – but in fact the social currency of a certain peer group.
"Wear your Twitter badge with pride" by Flickr user jmilles
Meanwhile, here’s the kind of stuff in my stream:
Listening to a report on Honduras.
My fourth grader just had an amazing end-of-year beach party.
Monday back at work after two weeks off.
Yeah, I guess that’s pretty dry.
Turns out there’s a deeper divide than some might expect. I used to have the feeling that people under, say, 25 found a lot of what the older set talk about to be sort of benignly boring. Little did I sense that, for some, it’s a misuse of the social medium. How dare we use it in such boring sand dull ways?
That got me thinking. I’m a bit of a social media evangelist, and as I talk to my peers about how they might use it, I often get skepticism. “Isn’t all this Facebook and Twitter just a bunch of fluff?” they’ll ask me. “Who cares whether I’m at the mall, or whether I’m happy or not?”
Meanwhile, younger folks are saying the same thing about these so-called “serious” issues.
I rescanned our respective Facebook streams, and saw that if you really looked, the divide is pretty stark. There’s one stream that’s all issues and links to thoughtful thinkers. There’s another that’s all light-seeming social interaction. Two very different worlds, coexisting in the same space.
I am frankly not sure what to make of its implications. I can think of a few things:
The fear that “it’s all trivia” from people resistant to using social media is baseless. Different groups of people are saying things with differing seriousness.
The “trivia” is an important way that some people interact, and to dismiss it as meaningless is irresponsible.
There’s room in a good social media platform for many different uses. That has implications for people building new communities: they need to be welcoming to different kinds of uses.
Everyone has a need to share trivia. Even people in the “serious” stream share meaningless comments about things they are planning on buying or where they live.
What “camp” are you in? More important, what other camps can you think of?
Just in time, too! Most years I spend New Year’s Day writing out my goals for the coming year. This year, for some reason, I did not do that and I have been hankering to get to it. However, I have felt for some time now that my efforts in this regard have been too clever and cerebral — I would create these interlocking systems that, come April, were unworkable.
But my friend pointed me to Cindy Ronzoni’s “vision board” idea. This is really just a posterboard with a bunch of photos or drawings on it, a lot like the collages my daughter often makes. The images are meant to evoke things you want to do in the coming year.
This is obviously not rocket science, but it’s a useful way of looking at the task. Even more useful, though, is a set of questions to ask myself in order to generate the vision board.
Here they are:
Where would you like to vacation this year?
What inspires you?
What would you like to learn this year?
If you want to change jobs this year, where would you like to work?
What are some of your passions?
What have you always wanted to do?
Who inspires you?
What “words” reflect who you are?
Do you want to exercise more or change your diet?
What goals do you have for work?
What financial goals do you have?
Do you want to volunteer and if so where?
What colors depict you or designs?
What kind of relationships would you like?
Is there an item you’d like to buy yourself?
Are there any fears that you would like to overcome?
Any groups you want to join?
Any events to attend this year?
I love these, because they are so concrete and not airy-fairy.
The other night, a close friend was ill. The next day, recovered, we discussed an interesting thought that kept going through their mind. Every few moments, with some change in symptoms or worsening of feeling, they felt compelled to describe it to themselves in the lingo of a status update: “X is lying in bed,” “X is hoping to get better.” They were too ill to run to the computer, but still, the thought was there.
Most readers of this blog will know that a status update is a brief (one sentence or so) description of what you are up to, how you are doing, or what’s going on. In Facebook, the status update is one of the main ways that people interact, posting sometimes trivial, other times significant dispatches from their daily lives.
One way to look at this anecdote is with a certain amount of alarm: See? The “status update” culture has infiltrated the world’s psyche!
But another way to look at it is to see it for proof that there is something powerful that Facebook, Twitter, and other microblog outlets have tapped into. I think many people have an innate desire to say what they are up to, almost as a way of just verifying that they are present.
As a user of Twitter and Facebook status updates, I can tell you that they have come to matter to me in a way that I find surprising. Seeing a list of what all my friends, family, and acquaintances are up to helps me to feel connected to them. This is not just silly “Joe Blow is at the mall shopping for an iPhone” trivia either, though that is a crucial element of social currency. Important information can be conveyed, too. It was through a status update that I learned of an old friend’s work in freeing slaves in Calcutta, for example.
In fact, it is the haphazardness of it all that is compelling.
I am reminded of my old friend Charlie’s college admittance essay. Charlie was a brilliant, creative, enigmatic person. He wrote an admissions essay for colleges that was a meditation on social interactions at a neighborhood gas station (where he worked). At the time, I recall, it was too brilliant for anyone to really grasp.
But now I sort of get it.
Charlie’s essay, as it reached its punchline, touched on research into whale songs. It seems that after decades of research into the content of whale songs, scientists had been able to determine that, essentially, whales are mostly giving status updates and alerting one another to our (humans’) presence, watching them:
WHALE HERE MAN HERE
I do not know if this is really true about whales, but I do know that often my status updates are whalesong: I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.
Recent Comments