worldmegan

I am hereby boycotting all companies who use “recession” as a buzzword in their mailing lists. OkCupid, eMusic, Wordtracker, PBwiki—you’re on my LIST! You have incited my wrath and must suffer the consequences. Beware the vengeance of my… huge… readership.

Well, quality is better than quantity. My readership IS huge. I love you guys.

I am sick and tired of seeing perfectly good companies use whiny buzzwords to (negatively) engage their customers. (It was a shock to my system to see Wordtracker talking up “negative” keywords on Google until I realized they only meant keywords not to list, instead of actual negative keywords. Whew.) I think it’s absurd to keep talking about a “recession” and “financial crisis” when we’re all just monkeys doing monkey things. When you engage your customers, discuss your merits and positive traits—don’t give them a reason to be afraid and then talk about how you can supposedly fix it. Especially if you sell set-fee monthly music subscriptions that don’t roll over, or social dating services. Give me a break!

Forgive me for the rant (or don’t), but it’s incredibly frustrating to watch companies using this kind of marketing. I bet in most cases they’re trying to appeal to people’s situations, maybe even to comfort them—but I just don’t think it works that way. Stop reminding people of how afraid they are (or should be). Times are NOT tough! Times are ALWAYS tough! You are the same amazing person you were before someone told you that you had something to be scared of.

Get over it and get back to work being brilliant! All of you!

(Okay, I’m not boycotting ALL the companies who did it. I’m not going to boycott Learning Strategies. I love Learning Strategies. But I’m disappointed! Super disappointed! Let’s get on the ball, here, people!)

The last few days I haven’t been feeling all that well—just the usual monthly whathaveyou. So I determined that I would snuggle up in a warm blanket in my comfy armchair with my computer, and good food, and lots of water, and do whatever seemed to make sense at the time.

I wouldn’t force myself to work—I wouldn’t even think about doing work.

But once I really cleared my head and got relaxed (and took some painkillers)... there were all these fantastically interesting things going on. And suddenly there was so much to be engaged in and excited about, so much to make. And I was the one who could do it, so of course I did it—thing after thing after thing. For Marty, for the Usual Error, for the Triiibe. And before I knew it, the few days that were supposed to be my break so that I could rest, my respite from mandatory tasklists… had turned into the most exhilarating, most productive, most bizarrely enjoyable few days I’ve had in weeks.

I say to you: Come again!? What’s that about? I’m getting more done in 24 hours than I’ve done in the last week. Is there some kind of boat-tipping effect, where I add more and more to my schedule and get more and more stressed, but at a certain point I add just enough and all of a sudden I’m swimming in flow? (That was not a cycle joke. That was a Csikszentmihalyi joke.)

I know. It’s too late to take it back. I see it. Go ahead. Laugh some more at the irony.

Flow, indeed.

My first speech at Toastmasters (I know, took me long enough!) is scheduled for Monday morning, bright and early. I’m serious when I say bright and early. The meeting itself starts at 6:45 am, which forces me to make good on my 5:15 am wake-up blabber. Nice to have the universe looking out for me. (I’m not sure that’s sarcasm. I rather like Toastmasters!)

I’ve noticed that I have a strange propensity to spout off about my personal terror without actually feeling a whole lot of personal terror. There is some mild anxiety—will I disappoint myself? Will I amaze myself?—but I’m not nearly as worried or afraid as you might expect when I say things like this: “Oh my god, I haven’t touched my speech yet. I’m teeerrrified.” If the words don’t convey it, my tone of voice will. And then people start to comfort and reassure me, and a voice in my head goes, “What? You’re not that scared. In fact, I think you’re making yourself that scared by telling yourself you’re that scared. Stop that!!”

The funny thing is, that voice is completely right. I’m really not that scared. Part of me can’t even grasp being that scared about something so little and silly (and exciting and interesting and growth-inducing—and FUN!). And I think I may understand what’s going on. I’m terrified… out of habit.

I have a funny propensity to minimize myself. To ensmallenate myself. I have this funny idea (way back in the brainwashed, badly malprogrammed part of my brain) that it’s safer, better, and more loveable to be small, weak, and afraid.

Yeah, I know.

So apparently that part of my brain—the unembigginated part—aligns very happily with the idea of being terrified, just shakin’ in my boots, at the thought of speaking in front of people.

Okay, ensmallebrain. Let’s sit down for a minute and talk.

I am super grateful for your kind intentions. I know you are just doing what you think is best. I know you’re only trying to help me! I know that you’ve noticed how easy it is to get people to behave in loving, comforting, downright parental ways if I’m small, weak, and afraid. I can totally appreciate that and I even understand it. But you need to know—just for the purposes of being informed—that I don’t need to be ensmallenated in order to have people love me. I know, I know, I totally know: I used to be under that impression, and I gave you that crazy idea in the first place so of course it’s NO WONDER! that you have made the decisions you have over the last twenty-seven and a half years. But I have more clarity now, and I know a lot better what makes people love me. And it would make me really happy—insanely, marvelously happy—if from now on you could base your decisions on this new information. That people love me just because I’m me, and I’m strong, and brilliant, and unique, and clever. I would like that super much.

No, no—DUDE! We are totally cool. It’s just that one thing.

Yes. Thank you for being SO understanding!

(See? No freakin’ problem!)

The Tribes Casebook PDF

The low-down: Email it, post it, print it! Please don’t sell it or change it. If you’d like to take a look at it, you can download it for free here.

The Casebook is a companion ebook to Seth’s release of his book, Tribes, this month. It was birthed from the collaborative genius of several thousand Triiibes members suggesting, creating, editing, and cheering on more than a hundred and fifty selected case studies (and many more brilliant riffs that didn’t make the final cut) over the last two months. Every one of us feels overwhelmingly lucky to have met and have the opportunity to encourage and inspirit one another in such a powerful space. Triiibes is likely the most intelligent, driven, creative, innovative group I’ve ever been a part of. I am constantly, consistently impressed by the quality of membership and the sheer brilliance of those involved.

For fellow Triiibers: If you’re reading this now, every single one of you is amazing. Thank you so much for being a part of my experience.

For everyone else: This group has proven to me that you—yes, YOU!—and everyone you know (I’m serious) is capable of absolutely astonishing things. You underestimate yourself. It’s time to realize how huge your potential is, how far your reach, the kind of growth you have available to you. Every freaking one of you.

So take a look at the Casebook. It has many different styles and personalities, but that’s what makes it wonderful—diversity again. It’s at points thrilling, heart-wrenching, and altogether intensely inspiring. These are good people who deserve support and praise for all their hard work. Enjoy their stories, visit their links, and give them mad props.

For my part, I’m looking forward to linking to their launch posts, too! ;}

Pace Smith of Usual Error Project fame is also a member of the Triiibe, with a case study in the Casebook! It’s fantastic, you should read it. :}

Squidoo: The Tribes Casebook (by Triiibes). I started to list all the Tribes Casebook links I could find right here, and then I realized that Squidoo has a perfect function for just this purpose! If you’re a Triiibes member, please visit this page to add your link and vote. And whether you’re a Triiibes member or not, please take a look at the link list, visit them and say hi!

My favorite Tribes Casebook posts and link fu so far:

There’s also a crazy Twitterstream developing about the Casebook, and two more if you watch “Triiibe” and “Triiibes” on Twitter Search. Huge amount of fun!

Read and learn:

This week I have called upwards of three billion* paper companies, looking for bulk pre-folded white greeting card paper with matching (and color alternate) envelopes.

For the first two billion nine hundred and ninety-nine million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine*, every single person I talked to treated me like I was wasting their time. My perplexing phone conversations ranged from mildly distracted to downright annoyed and unhelpful. Until I got to the Paper Place.

The Paper Place, in brilliant contrast, was chirpingly warm and friendly and so very helpful that even when we realized they didn’t have what I needed, they happily referred me to someone who might. While other companies seemed intent on being stingy with assistance until they had an order from me (and never got one, and left me bewildered), the Paper Place just helped me. And then I twittered their awesome.

And now I’m blogging it.

Perhaps speaking with the nice girl who answered the phone at the Paper Place altered the emotional density of the universe (or maybe I just got lucky), but the company they referred me to—Xpedx—also answered their phone in a reasonable, friendly fashion. And not only did their phone answerer (Randy) listen patiently to my question, but he made useful suggestions and didn’t seem rushed or vexed. He was just a nice guy, helping out a customer.

For me none of this has anything to do with the fact that Xpedx and Randy, finally, actually had the product I was looking for. And it has everything to do with how mindful you are when you pick up the phone, how readily you remember that you’re talking to a real person on the other end who will remember you and create an impression of your business and its professional atmosphere.

Both the Paper Place and Randy’s branch of Xpedx are located in Austin. I don’t have a pressing need for the kinds of products stocked at the Paper Place, but I felt inclined to pimp them out anyway. After all those grumpy phone calls, they were both a huge bright spot in my week! And you can bet that if I need bulk or piecemeal paper in the next, oh, ever, I’m going straight to one of these stores.

Note: Marty suggested that my post title means I will be going to a funny hell for funny people. I must insist that my rhymes are produced only in good faith (and only when I can’t come up with alliteration).

* miniscule exaggeration.

I just read the most incredible article by Michael Pollan over at the New York Times. It’s thick with information and politic tie-ins, but once you get towards the end you start to realize what’s going on—to see that he’s constructing a world of real food and healthy citizens and nourished children.

The Food Issue – An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief

He moves from industrial food policies to smaller agriculture and then, of course, to private, family-sized gardening (a concept any Story of B fans, like me, can strongly relate to). I didn’t realize he was going to cover such a gamut of topics with one fell swoop, but in nine pages he takes you to an amazing place, talking about the “culinary equivalent to home schooling”. It all fits together, like clockwork, a finely-crafted machine.

I’m all done reading but I’m sitting here daydreaming about fresh produce and responsible citizens and new education and growth and a whole planet busting with health and I don’t think I can stop. This world he’s laid out so clearly, for presidential purposes, is absolutely astonishing. I mean, compare it to the one we’re living in now.

I finally have a printer that connects wirelessly to my network and prints when I’m in a completely different part of the house. The print quality is great. Plus, it scans — to USB stick, email, or FTP (dude). It’s got a document feeder. It’s huge. And it was insanely easy to set up. And the whole deal only cost me $200, which I originally expected would buy me a pretty mediocre machine.

It’s a Brother MFC-6490CW wide format all-in-one; the link is Amazon, because the OfficeMax price has gone up since I bought mine and Amazon is now less expensive. We’ll see how it holds up, but damn, I’m impressed so far.

I am one happy camper, I’ll tell you.

I was walking down the stairs at my parents’ house in Youngstown when I realized something monumental—something that perhaps I never realized before:

There’s no need for me to base my standard of success on my parents.

There’s no need for me to use their criteria to judge whether I’ve done well. It’s only my standards that matter.

The only person who counts, in judging my success, is me.

My parents have always been incredibly insightful and supportive, but (like any other kid on the planet) I’ve often felt like they kind of… don’t get it. Even now, at 27 (and maybe more than ever), they sometimes respond in perplexing ways. They’re just different people. More and more, I seem to want them to understand what I’m doing, why it’s wonderful.

But… I guess they don’t need to.

My parents are a little like the soil I grew in. The soil doesn’t have to be like the fruit. The soil serves a different purpose. If my parents were the fruit, I couldn’t have grown in them in the first place!

So it’s incredibly good that they are who and what they are. They have given me amazing things to learn from and work with, even if I get frustrated when they’re not just like me.

It’s the lot of every child in the universe, to be different.

Our parents don’t have to be like us.

It’s enough that they grew us, and that we are awesome.

Okay. I get it.

Something pretty awesome happened this last week, and I have been spurred by that awesome thing to move some Virtual Magpie posts over here, to make worldmegan.net my primary writing outlet. I came across a post I made over there—Seeing Again—and I realized that I didn’t want to just duplicate it here. I needed to talk about it.

At a 9-to-5 I will never be the person I am when I do what I love, whatever that is. At this job, at Virtual Magpie, I will never be the person I am when I do what I love, if I’m not doing what I love for the sake of loving it. If Virtual Magpie becomes my trap, my only way to pay the bills, it’s no better than working at the radio station or the magazine. It’s the same grind and I’m no longer the best me.

I was on the right track then. I wouldn’t be in this state of mind, right now, if it weren’t for that first corner I turned more than a year ago. But the more that I was looking for then is something I feel I have a tentative grasp on now: We’re not talking about Virtual Magpie. We’re not talking about the work I do. We’re talking about MY LIFE.

And the best me will still pay the bills, all the while knowing that the bills aren’t the point. The bills stop mattering, because living my life is what matters, not complaining about it. Not finding new ways to be miserable!

So I’m working on it now—my life, I mean. And my projects will still be a huge part of that. But everything’s about to change, just a little, and it’s going to feel ssoooooo good.

No matter what they tell you, it’s not about paying the bills. It’s not about having a job. You will hear it from everyone but it’s not true. You are the best you when you’re doing what you love, because you love it. You are the best you when you’re learning and growing and making and building. You’re the best you when you love life and move forward. That’s the point.