Escape from Cubicle Nation

When life gets you down, try a little loving kindness

It is easy to take life for granted when things are going well.  When they aren't, you feel anxious, fearful and uncomfortable.

In the midst of an incredibly busy two weeks with tons of writing projects and appointments, my 4-month old baby girl Angela got really sick.  Hit by a respiratory infection likely transmitted by her big brother Josh who can't stop from sticking his finger in her mouth right after coughing on it, she is a picture of stuffed up, red-eyed misery. 

There is nothing that makes me feel more powerless than holding a little creature who is too small to talk, and knowing there is nothing I can do to make her feel better.

Those of you who have kids know exactly what I am talking about.  And those that don't can surely sympathize, if you have beloved pets, elderly parents, dear friends or nieces and nephews that have fallen ill.

After a whole day commiserating with her, I came across the Loving Kindness Meditation which comes from the Buddhist tradition.  Like so many nuggets from faiths around the world, it is not necessary to practice the religion to get a great deal of benefit from it.  The meditation is simple:

Loving Kindness Meditation

May you be happy

May you be well

May you be free from suffering

May you be safe

After reading these four simple phrases, I felt myself relax.  And as  as I said them again, I felt Angela relax against my chest.

A sick child is just one of many daily experiences that can make you feel the need for a bit of comfort such as:

• Financial stress
• An argument with a loved one
• A stupid mistake (if it is a public one, even more!)
• A run-in with an aggressive driver
• Pressure from deadlines
• A bad performance review
• A scathing email or comment on your blog
• A difficult interaction with a client

I could go on for pages, and I am sure you could too, perhaps from something you are experiencing at this very moment.

At its most basic, this meditation can be said quietly while you are going through stress to alleviate pressure and feel a sense of well-being.

The more you do it, the more you want to share the feeling with those around you. 

In that spirit, here are 10 practical ways to demonstrate loving kindness:

1. Bring a meal to a friend or neighbor.  This happened to me just yesterday, when my awesome neighbor Jessica dropped by the house with a big pot of soup.  She knew we had been sick and busy and thought we could use a little help with dinner. You can easily do this by just doubling a recipe.
   
2. Pick up trash. When I was small, every summer we would go on a two week family camping trip to Lake Almanor, Calfornia. One day each year, my Dad would request large platic bags from the Park Rangers and my siblings and I would walk around the lake picking up trash.  We had a great time doing it, and it felt so good to turn in 4 huge bags of trash at the end of the day.  In case you wondered if nature was animate, I can confirm it is.  I swear, you can see a clean natural landscape smile at you after picking up trash.  Try it yourself and report back!
   
3. Send a silent message to a victim on the news.  Today's media is filled with so much doom, despair and terror that it is enough to make you want to bury your head in a pillow.  Instead, after hearing a heartbreaking story, send the loving kindness meditation in the direction of the people affected.  You never know, they just may feel it.
   
4. Use it when tossing and turning at night.  I am pretty good at getting through a stressful day, but worries start talking to me as soon as my head hits the pillow. When this happens, take a deep breath and recite the meditation. 
   
5. Send an uplifting email to someone you admire.  During the time that I was writing this post, I got two emails:  one from my god daughter Maria Jose that told me she was getting a 4.0 average this semester, and one from a new reader who wanted to express appreciation for my blog.  Both gave me the "loving kindness" feeling inside.  Your message doesn't have to be long -- one or two sentences will do. 
6. Hold the door for someone.  It is amazing how often we forget to do this small, simple gesture to demonstrate to a stranger that we see them, acknowledge them, and want to make their day just a little bit easier.
   
7. Pay the toll for the car behind you.  This is one of my favorite things to do.  When I lived in the Bay Area, I did it all the time.  There is nothing better than seeing the surprised expression on the face of the person in the car behind you.
8. Smile at someone in the street.  Big cities are notorious for people passing by without looking each other in the eye.  For a change, look at someone you don't know and smile at them. 
9. Introduce yourself to someone you see often and don't know.  In large offices or huge housing developments, you can spend months or even years walking by people without acknowledging them.  You may be surprised at how good it feels to simply introduce yourself and extend your hand.  The people we tend to ignore the most:  janitors, mail delivery people,gardeners and repair people.
10. When someone makes way for you on the road, wave.  We all fall victim to occasional road rage if someone cuts us off or comes dangerously close behind us.  What about when someone does something nice?  Let them know with a friendly wave and big smile.

We can't control what happens to us, but we can certainly control how we react to it.  When love and kindness are in the center of your attention, everything else falls into place.

My wish for you right now?

May you be happy

May you be well

May you be free from suffering

May you be safe

Try it, and let me know how it works!

For more on loving kindness, see this helpful post.

Last call for meatball ... sundae that is with Seth Godin

For Saturday Night Live fans out there, you remember "Coffee Talk with Linda Richman,"played by Mike Meyers?

As I wrote last week, tomorrow is your opportunity to hear some "Meatball Talk" with me, Andy Wibbels, Tim Sanders and Seth Godin.  We're discussing Seth's new book, Meatball Sundae, which has great perspectives on how you can manage the incredible options for marketing your business this year.  Even if you participated in some of the other calls with John Jantsch, Chris Anderson, Michael Port or Tim Ferris, this will be different!

Details:

• Tuesday, January 29
• 1pm Eastern
• FREE!
• If you can't make it, no prob -- you get the recording

To sign up for the call, go here:  www.sethgodinbooktour.com

I am not too proud to admit that I will feel great knowing you all are on the call.  :)

And as Linda says in Coffee Talk:  ""Give a call, we'll talk, no big whoop."

---

Update 2/2:  Here is the link to the recording, in case you missed the opportunity to sign up.

Are you keeping your clients dependent by trying to be a superhero?

My two and a half year-old son Josh is constantly trying to rescue people.  If he sees someone distressed on the news, or a child crying at the mall, he will turn to me with a serious look on his face and say "Mom!  I am going to save them!"  He then evokes the spirit of his favorite superhero of the moment (alternating between Spiderman and a Power Ranger), throws his fists in the air and goes charging to the rescue.

Many consultants do the same thing with their clients.

Called in to help sort out a management mess or IT meltdown or financial crisis, they fly in the door like a superhero and impress everyone with their commanding presence, problem-solving skills and ability to execute.

If the client is satisfied, they look for the next big thing to be fixed.  Server meltdowns?  Count on me!  Errant executives?  I will keep them in line! 

Sounds like the right thing to do, doesn't it?

Not quite.

When you consider yourself a superhero and treat your client like a victim in distress, you set up an unhealthy relationship.  By doing all their work for them, you deny them the opportunity to grow and develop as individuals and as an institution. Instead, consider this:

Your goal as a consultant is to work your way out of a job.

In the short term, you may need to swoop in and clean up a mess, to stop the bleeding and ensure your client is not at risk.  Once the crisis is over, work with them to see how to stop it from happening in the future.  Questions you should ask them are:

• Do you need to overhaul an internal process to make sure this doesn't happen again?
• Does your internal staff need more information, resources or training to do their job?
• Is there something blocking your ability to do the right thing?  If so, how can you remove it?
• Is this (process, service, function) something you should outsource instead of trying to do it yourselves?

I tell you this from personal experience.  ALL of my business for the first 8 1/2 years of my consulting practice came from referrals.  I didn't have a newsletter,  didn't schmooze at networking events and never made a cold call.  My first gig came from my former manager who moved to a new company and needed some extra help.  From there, one person referred me to the next and that continued until the day I stopped working for corporations.

Here are operating guidelines that will ensure you get lots of referrals:

1. There is more than enough work for everyone.  If not, you are in the wrong market.
2. Your goal is to find out what your client wants to learn and help them do that, even if it is not directly related to your project.
3. If you feel a project is not set up properly or is doomed to fail, do not take it.  They will always blame the consultant, regardless if it is your fault.
4. Always base your decisions on what is right, not on what will pad your wallet.
5. Always provide the best alternate resource you can think of if you are unable or unwilling to do the work.  Even if that person is your direct competitor.
6. Treat your client like a human being, not as an employer.
7. Do a great job.
8. Deliver what you promise, on time.
9. Question corporate culture.  It is your job to provide an alternate perspective.
10. Be positive and encouraging. 

This quote sums it up best (attribution unknown, thought to have originated in China):

Go in search of your people

Love them; learn from them;

Plan with them; serve them;

Begin with what they have;

Build on what they know.

But of the best leaders -

When their task is accomplished,

Their work is done,

The People all remark:

"We have done it ourselves."

New audio program to help entrenched employees launch out of their cubes

Last year, up until about 5 minutes before having a baby (ok, a week!) I was putting the finishing touches on an audio product that I created to gently nudge entrenched employees out of their cube.  It was too much to launch a new baby Slim and a product at the same time (my first bona fide information product, by the way, woo hoo!), so I waited until I was in full business gear to tell you about it.  For some reason, today felt like a good day, so here goes!

The product covers what I feel are the critical first steps to get out of your cube.  They don't have to do with writing a business plan or creating a logo or setting up a blog, they have to do with understanding and evaluating your fears about leaving a business and getting clear on the kind of life that would make you happy.

In my experience working with clients, if you don't deal with these things first, it makes the rest of the process very difficult.

I chose to record audio because it feels more personal to talk through the exercises.  I recorded it in the VoiceAmerica studio here in Phoenix where I did my  radio show.  I was assisted by the kindest, most encouraging and supportive engineer I know, Ryan Treasure .  He set up a special booth in the studio with curtains, procured a really great quality microphone, provided 5 bottles of water, and talked me through the whole recording process.  I was REALLY pregnant at the time, so he even helped me in and out of the chair.  Thank you Ryan for being such an awesome human being and consummate professional.

Product Summary

• 40 Minute CD in three sections: 
  
  • Step 1:  Assess your fears and identify antidotes
  • Step 2:  Clear your mind
  • Step 3:  Paint a picture of your ideal life
• 35 page booklet with the full text of the audios, exercises and additional information

If this sounds like something that would interest you, check out the full sales page here!
www.ganas.com/phase1

I am really excited about this, and want to thank all of my readers for continually goading me to do better and do more.  You are the best!

---
Update 2/2:  All systems go!

Come discuss "Meatball Sundae" with me, Andy Wibbels, Tim Sanders and Seth Godin 1/29

I have been enjoying my copy of Seth Godin's latest book, Meatball Sundae.

It discusses fourteen marketing trends that we all face this year, in  thought and action-provoking signature Seth style.

The Meatball Sundae metaphor refers to boring company brands (meatballs) throwing whiz-bang new marketing strategies (ice cream sundae toppings) on top of their business, and expecting "magic" results.  The intro to the book says:

"Maybe this is familiar.  It is to me anyway:

    You go to a marketing meeting.  There's a presentation from the new Internet-marketing guy.  He's brought a fancy (and expensive) blogging consultant with him.  She starts talking about how blogs and the "Web 2.0 social media infrastructure" are just waiting for your company to dive in.  "Try this stuff," she seems to be saying, "And the rest of your competitive/structural/profit issues will disappear."

The same could be said for the brand new entrepreneur.  There is a stunning array of marketing tools to choose from, many of them free, but all time-consuming. What should you implement, in which order?

And sometimes, new entrepreneurs, groomed by "meatball" culture, think they have to create complex operational structures in order to be a "real" business. Examples like:

• A former Deloitte consultant believes he has to create obtuse 150-slide "decks" to impress his new clients (we should sic Garr on him)
• Former HR bigwigs, setting up shop as independent consultants, spend 6 months and $30,000 for a website that gets them zero clients.  (Meanwhile, a colleague setting up the same business uses LinkedIn one evening and gets 10)
• Talented and sincere bloggers spend endless hours creating wonderful content that no one reads

Last year, I tried to dip my hand in every New Marketing, social media, Web 2.0 bucket I could find, including  Facebook, LinkedIn, Podcasting, Internet Radio, YouTube, Blogging, Vlogging,(ok, I did one poorly recorded video greeting) and Squidoo .  I put a lot of effort into it and learned a lot, but didn't do anything besides blogging justice, creating a rather stretched and anemic web presence.  It is also not sustainable ... at least the way I have been doing it.

This year, I want to be more deliberate and effective in the tactics I use to reach out to my "peeps," frustrated corporate employees who want to break out of their cubes.  I would love to do fewer of the right things that serve my core objective:  bring people to this blog. For here is where my heart lies, and what I will continue to do regardless of any other distractions. {edit 1/22:  by "fewer of the right things" I mean fewer things, and the right things.  When I re-read this in the morning light, it sounded like I didn't want to do the right things. :)

So next Tuesday, January 29 at 1pm Eastern I am delighted to participate in a call about Meatball Sundae with Seth and the following cool cats:

* Tim Sanders, author of Love is the Killer App and The Likeability Factor
* Andy Wibbels, expert blogger and author of Blogwild!

I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Tim yet, but Andy and I are buddies.  I harass him every few days on Skype with a whole bunch of Meatball Sundae-esqe, Web 2.0 questions, on everything from writing a book to technical blogging questions.  One of these days, he is going to realize that our friendship is just a thinly disguised way for me to get free consulting, and will stop returning my calls. 

If you haven't yet grabbed your copy of the book, go to your local bookstore and buy it, get it from 800CEORead, or Amazon.  (The last time I reviewed a book, a kind reader who owns an independent bookstore reminded me that I should encourage people to "buy independent."  It was a good point, given the topic of my blog, but also a good question for the call, since I am not totally convinced that Amazon is the evil empire.  To prove it, I used an affiliate link.  What can I say, diapers ain't cheap! Byron, if you want to weigh in, please do!)

Do you have any specific questions or topics that you want me to cover on the call? I can't promise to get to all of them, but I would like to come prepared with a good synopsis of what my blog readers worry about when marketing their emerging businesses this year.

Drop your comments here, or send me an email.

If you can't attend the live call, sign up anyway because it will be recorded.

Hope you can make it!  Sign up at www.sethgodinbooktour.com.

Any juicy stories about parents horrified by your desire to start a business?

I am working on a chapter of the Escape from Cubicle Nation book about getting your friends and family on board with your idea to start a business.

For the section about talking with your parents, I am looking for a specific example of someone's parents who freaked out (initially at least) when you told them you wanted to leave your stable corporate job to start a business.

One example is a friend whose Dad escaped Nazi Germany to come to the U.S.  He is absolutely perplexed by his son's desire to find meaning in his work.  Such a concept is so far from his own life experience that my friend struggles to explain it to him.

My own parents are wildly supportive of everything I do, and that has included some pretty wacky things like going to Rio de Janeiro by myself to study martial arts, taking the bus from Caracas to Bogota (advice in retrospect:  don't do it!), starting a business and moving to Arizona to marry a Navajo medicine man/entrepreneur.  I don't think there is anything I could do that they wouldn't support, unless it made me unhappy or broke a law.  I realize that they are the exception, not the rule.

If you have a juicy story (can be short), please comment here, or drop me a line at pcs (at) ganas (dot) com.

Time is of the essence, so the sooner the better.  Thanks!

---

Update 1/22:  I had to share this response, from Felicia Ryan -- it was too precious!

"When I told my father that I was changing careers from my comfortable 65+K per yr as a marketing/fundraising professional to start my business as a life coach he said, "Well, we will love you no matter what." After what seemed like a long time my mother got on the phone and said, "Your father thought you said you were going for training to become a life guard. He didn't know what a life coach is." This is from a man with a high school education and the same job working at the Boston Globe since he was 18 years old. Here I am with a Master's Degree and working on my 20th or so job since I graduated from College. So in his own way he was telling me that he would support me.

My father is partially deaf and really has no idea what a life coach is. So in his mind he translated it to the closest thing he could relate to. It was pretty funny. "

Lessons learned from 4-day win experiment

I promised to report back today on the success of my 4-day win, which I shared earlier this week on Martha Beck's blog in Death to procrastination:  Use the 4-day win to get your goals moving. I encouraged readers to share their own goals and we got some specific examples from Mike, Andy, Latarsha, Rosalind, Billionaire Strategies, Glenda, Kizla, Jan Marie and Judy (see comments on the original post).

My 4-day win involved working on a book proposal, a task I have tried to accomplish in the past (without success, and with great consternation).  My specific goals and rewards are in this worksheet (click to enlarge):

I had fun using the tool and reported on my lessons learned here.

If you were doing the experiment yourself, please let me how it went by leaving a comment.

Turtle steps rule.

(Speaking of which, I heard a silly joke that made me laugh today, in the spirit of making slow progress: 

Question: What did the snail say when it hitched a ride on the back of a turtle?

Answer:  Weeeeeeeeee!)

Progress is relative, isn't it?

How to break up with your boss

I just got word of this article from Details Magazine which offers advice for "How to break up with your boss."

Excerpt:

Up until about a year ago, Michael Rogers had lunch or cocktails a couple of times a week with the CEO of the New York public-relations firm where he worked. They’d split a plate of french fries or a carafe of sake and his boss would give him advice about how to be a better manager. Rogers, 30, had started at the firm as an account supervisor a couple of years earlier and had since been promoted to senior vice president.

“He was great about helping and guiding me,” Rogers says of the CEO. “He kind of groomed me to take over.”

Soon, though, Rogers had the itch to abandon his role as protégé and seek new challenges. Unsure of how to break up with the man who’d recently toasted him after they signed a new client together, Rogers went with a white lie. He told his boss he was overworked and stressed out and wanted to head to Los Angeles to regroup. The CEO hugged him and wished him luck.

About a month later, after he announced the opening of his own firm, Rogers got an e-mail from his old boss’s assistant. It was a succinct message reminding him that he’d signed a non-compete clause and the firm would file a lawsuit against him if he poached any of its clients or staff.

“I think he saw that I could succeed without him and that upset him,” Rogers says. “I was now a peer, no longer under his control or guidance.”

This is a really juicy issue for cube-jumpers, since often people worry about how to leave a person or team who has supported and mentored them.  It plays into what I described as "stop running your company like the mafia" in my Open letter to CXO's rant a couple of years ago.  When you are in "the family," aka the corporation, all is well.  But if you want to leave ... cement shoes for you.

Read the whole article here.  Interesting stuff.

Any tips for how to break up well, for those that have done it?

Press request: Women over 40 who made career change without safety net

I just got an inquiry from a journalist looking for the following:

"Women who have made a successful career change "without a net" (meaning no huge financial savings or rich partner in the wings). The women need to be over 40 now (and either over 40 or near that when they made their career change). While it's not essential I would love to include one woman who is single, if possible, since career change without a partner raises many different issues. I'd also like to find someone who used a severance package to fund a career change. And it would be great to find someone who left one career for an actual "job" rather than an entrepreneurial venture.

Most important is to find a person with a great story to tell who is good at finding the tips and insights that will help others learn from her experience."

Does this sound like you or someone you know?  If so, shoot me an email outlining a few basic bullets:

• Name of person
• Age
• A couple of sentences about the nature of the change, ie "professor to investment banker" or "administrative assistant to doctor"
• Contact info (email, phone)

Send your messages to me at pcs (at) ganas (dot) com with the following subject heading:  No safety net.

I want to emphasize that the journalist is NOT looking for someone who made the change from corporate to entrepreneur.  That base is covered.

I'll collect the emails and send them on. It could be a great opportunity to share a good story.

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Death to procrastination: Use the 4-day win to get your goals moving

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything you want to get done in the new year?  If so, you may enjoy my latest post on Martha Beck's blog about a concept she calls the 4-day win.  It takes big, audacious goals and helps you to break them down into easy-to-accomplish bites.   

It is based on research from her book of the same name, The Four Day Win.

I know that I have some die-hard Getting Things Done (GTD) readers, so the methodology may feel either repetitive or too simplistic.  But I encourage you to try it anyway, and report on how it worked. 

I posted my own 4-day win on the blog and encourage you to do the same.  Five days from now (January 20) I will write about how it went, and you can do the same.

Check it out here:  Death to procrastination:  Use the 4-day win to get moving on your goals

As I mentioned last time, we are about to switch blogging platforms for the Martha Beck blog so we don't have an RSS feed yet.  We will soon, so thanks for your patience.  My next post will be on February 1.