The Bitch Slap: The Part Where I Kick Your Ass

I’ve dubbed 2012 The Year of The Plague. Yesterday marked by 24th day on antibiotics, a concerted effort by two physicians to kill whatever decided to set up camp and play quarters in my immune system. I popped the last three horse pills yesterday morning, delighted to be done with the nastiness. Yet it seems the universe had other plans. I dreamt of a rumbly in my tumbly and, upon waking at 1:30AM, I realized it wasn’t so much a dream as a violent bout of food poisoning after sharing a lovely, spur-of-the-moment Valentine’s Day dinner with a girlfriend I hadn’t seen in over three years.

So, today’s post comes from Erika in Fuck My Life mode and I figured there’s no better day to stop you from fucking up yours than today. Today’s post is sponsored by tainted beef carpaccio, arugula salad, and the letter ugh. Let’s get on with it.

The Way You Run Your Day is Bullshit

Amber Naslund kicked my ass right and proper first thing this morning with a little post about selling yourself snake oil. You know — the process of investing in your business. Investing in you. We’re always looking for shortcuts when we should be spending that time looking to stop wasting our own time. I’ve done it (ahem..do it), you’ve done it (cough cough — still do it). And the funny thing is that we are more than happy to bitch about other people wasting our time yet we’re the last ones give ourselves a smack-down when we’re the viral sheep pong video in our own days.

The way you run your day is bullshit.

We fuck around with nonsense and avoid the things that truly mean something. Like people. Like clients. Like paying attention to our own businesses. We don’t say what we mean or mean what we say. We’re afraid to say no. And we have the audacity to sit at the end of the day and wonder Where did the time go?

I’ll tell you where the time went. It went to a black hole of hedgehog-related ridiculousness on Pinterest. It went to clicking on everyone of those stupid Facebook notification emails you get when one of your “friends” posts on your wall or likes your post. It went to Troll Beads, the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, and whatever other flavor of porn you indulge in to cheat yourself out of doing things that matter and making progress. And I know that every moment we live doesn’t have to be of earth-shattering import, but we owe it to ourselves to be honest, be humble, and participate. And the bullshit way you’re running your day isn’t doing any of those things.

Christ, Erika — I get it. The way I run my day is bullshit. How can I fix it?

You can start by being honest with yourself. Here’s what honest is looking like for me these days:

My MITs (Most Important Things) – Jason Womack, author of Your Best Just Got Better, taught me about these this week. I start each day with a list of the Most Important Things I need to accomplish that day. (You’ll want to finish this post — I’m giving a copy of Jason’s book away. He has no idea. Maybe he’ll see the WordPress pingback. I digress.)
A pro tip about MITs – Tasks relating to MY business are always at the top of the list and get completed first. I remain my first and most important client every day.
My calendar – I make a schedule. This includes scheduling each project I have to complete as well as conversations I need to have that day (even personal ones). While I can’t control the universe, I can control my schedule on most days.
My phone — I had no fucking idea that my phone had an “off” position. Maybe yours does, too. Texts, alerts, phone calls — they’ll be there when you turn it back on when you’re done doing what needs getting done.
My inbox -- I close my email program when I’m working. I open it again when I’m ready to deal with email. I flag emails that require my attention but I can’t deal with at that moment. And most importantly, I have unsubscribed from all marketing emails from my work email address. These now come to a special email address that I check once a day. I know they’re ads or digests. My Gmail (personal) stays closed for the better part of the day. I generally only respond by phone when I’m out and about.

I’ve been honest about what I needed to do in order to:

Launch 2 books
Take care of scaling my business (and considering I just wrote a book that deals with the subject, I need to eat my own dog food — and now)
Give myself time to live — as the people in my life and my interactions with them remain the most important thing I’ll ever be rewarded with during my time on this glassy blue ball.

And on to being humble

Never forget that the reason you get to do what it is you love doing every day is because of the people for whom you do it. Your customers, clients, kids, spouse, family, colleagues…they’re the reason. Quit running your life like a Wells Fargo, Netflix, or one of these other Silicon Valley assholes that jumps first and asks later for forgiveness. Privacy policy, anyone?

Step 1 towards humility: Stop believing your own press

You are not “too good” for anything. Everyone has something to contribute to the conversation. And while we all might have people who fully deserve this t-shirt, the only reason we ever have a hope of getting better in this life is thanks to the input of others. I don’t care if you’re a bootstrapped startup or a Fortune 50 behemoth. You are never too big to fail. So why not dial-back your grandiose thinking to a level where you’re not only willing to look towards others for their input and support, but look forward to the process?

Step 2 towards humility: Clean out your life

This means clutter. And by clutter, I mean people. We’re willing to tune into episode after episode of Hoarders and will spend rainy Sunday afternoons cleaning out our basements, but when is the last time you cleaned-out the people in your life?

I believe that people pass through our lives for a reason. Every one of them. It might be only for a moment, but we emerge better on the other side of out interactions with them. That is, if we choose to learn. I don’t think we can ever move on, but I’ve become a huge advocate and believer in moving forward. Moving on implies that we pretend things never happened, dooming us to reliving our past mistakes. Moving forward means we carry experiences with us, empowering us to screw up in new and glorious ways.

And sometimes, moving forward means leaving people behind who clutter-up our lives. They’re the ones who don’t believe in us. Who bring us down. They take us for granted. The ones we allow to steal our most precious asset of time. And I know my life is a better place for having revisited my definition of “friend” after Facebook so successfully blurred the lines by making friendship something that’s available with a click.

Stop worrying about whom you’ll offend and start honoring yourself by giving yourself the room to be humble and develop relationships in every aspect of your life that matter. There are people who need to go. You know who they are. Load up the catapult and get to launching.

And we must participate

The way you’re running your day makes you feel like your participating, but you aren’t. You’re firing off emails and phone calls, feeling as if you’re getting something done when all you’re doing is going through the motions. We can only participate when we’re already indulging in honesty and humility, because participating isn’t about us — it’s about the people we allow inside our lives.

When we fill our days with all of this easy-to-access, mindless bullshit, we’re missing out on humans. Ecards can’t replace friendships. Emails can’t take the place of sitting in front of a colleague or client and hashing something out.

Participating is about people, not motion.

Participating is about action. And shit howdy, it requires a bit of time to fully participate. I don’t know about yours, by my best days are the ones where:

I’ve pursued uncomfortable — because hanging around in the place filled with fluffy pillows filled with familiar don’t get me anywhere.
I’ve said what needed saying — because I’ve spent too much of my life saying nothing at all, and it’s something you change when life demonstrates it has other plans.

A conversation yesterday — one where I was participating (on uncomfortable levels) — yielded a thanks from someone for our relationships that was open and devoid of bullshit. My response was this:

Bullshit & openness: Lacking one gives people the privilege of practicing in the other, methinks.

The participation that resulted in this day-long conversation was the best part of my day. And not because I whipped out some poignant response to discourse on bullshit and openess.

It’s because I liked having this type of conversation. And I realized that the only way I’ll continue to have conversations like these is to participate.

So, maybe you want to win a book

Which is why you “participated” in this blog post for so long, right? Share a comment with me about the biggest change you’ve either MADE or ARE GOING TO MAKE to dispense with the bullshit way you’re running your day. I’ll pick one response, based on “likes” from other readers in the comments, at noon MT this Friday. You’ll win a copy of Jason Womack’s Your Best Just Got Better. Thanks for participating and for being a huge part of what keeps me humble.

Marian Savill

It does, Jason! Many thanks. ) I confess I hadn’t heard of you until today but I have now! I shall eagerly await your book coming out over here in the UK. Off to list my MITs for tomorrow! Thanks again. ;o)
Elle

I moved to another state to pursue my second degree in a field I had no previous training in but loved the work I was doing. I wanted every opportunity to get as far as I could. I had an unhealthy routine in my previous existence that involved a lot of sitting around, a lot of internet, a lot of time spent with people who – while lovely people – were not interested in moving forward the way I was. So I made the big jump to move on. We live in an age where I can maintain the relationships that were most important to me, but I am no longer part of the daily do-nothing routine. I’ve made work priorities lists and I only take breaks when enough work has been accomplished for me to have truely deserved a break. So one big change – the biggest of my life – has cut out so much bullshit, has made me feel more focused and excited about something than I have been in a long time, and has given me the creative energy to keep following my learning and goals in other creative ways in my down time.

Thanks for always posting great stuff. I always link my boyfriend to you because he’s in the early stages of his own design/communications business.
Victoriataylor0

It’s been two long years of change … starting with kicking out my ex, who enjoyed his days thinking up things to criticize me about while I slaved at a full-time job and three home-based businesses: running an organic poultry farm, developing, promoting and SELLING all-natural therapeutic products for people and pets and a fledgling career as a freelance writer (including self-publishing and promoting five children’s books). Shame on me … for 20-years I drug that anchor and finally realized that if I just let go I could swim the ocean at light speed without expending one iota of extra energy.

Moved to a new home with property-mates (should be okay, right? After all, we’d been friends for 30-years). What a huge mistake! Learned that I simply can no longer tolerate the insipid excuses others invent to give themselves permission not to take the reins of their own lives. While I was trying to wrap my head and heart around walking out on such a long-term “friendship” I fell and broke my knee and wrist and then developed breast cancer. Nothing like being sidelined for a few weeks to make you look — really look — at what’s not working in your life. And at this point I realized that making the right decision meant life or death for me. So ….

As I progressed through post-surgical chemo, I found a fabulous new home and moved away from the prison that I had created for myself … who needs friends who spend their time thinking of ways to criticize you or of new “problems” that you need to solve for them? After all, these folks are relatively able-bodied and retired — they’ve got the whole day to do something — even one thing — positive and not self-absorbed. Good luck with that.

I’m still working full-time and looking forward to getting my final chemo cycle tomorrow. Since my move six weeks ago I’ve once again taken up freelance writing for a former associate half a world away, have begun filling orders for my therapeutic product line, became a non-denominational Ordained Minister to mark the milestones in lives of others, and started working one day a week at an esoteric center where I teach, perform therapeutic massage, perform readings and sell a wide range of *magical* products.

I’ve lightened my load by nearly a dozen people I’d previously thought I couldn’t do without (or thought they couldn’t do without me) and am seriously cautious about welcoming anyone into my inner circle. I’m too busy for other people’s BS … go rain on someone else’s parade; I’m marching to the cadence of my OWN drum for a change!
http://keithprivette.com/ @keithprivette

So one of the biggest changes I made is work is focus time to get the project I am implemented. no distractions (well maybe an occasional one), but much more focused than I ever have been. Also it has only been 2 days now since #beonfire, but bought a new notebook and started making my important life tasks a day. This is focusing on balancing life and work. There are still non-work things I like helping out with. So far so good. Now I give you full permission to call and check up on me, only if it shows up on your MIT… ASS KICKED by #beonfire!
Jay Kulpa

Thank you – getting this in my inbox was EXACTLY what I needed to read today.

The SO and I have been having an ongoing conversation, running about five days now, about how scattered our focus has gotten. There’s so much we say we want to do and then we look back to discover we’ve pinged inbetween all our different accounts, just wasting time. He’s about to offer his laptop for getting shot in youtube videos and I’m getting completely burned out on my job/jobhunt (social media) and ready for a reboot.

Thanks for the slap, and the kick in the ass.
http://adingintheuniverse.com/ Emily Merkle

Bullshit can be monetized pretty damn well. Zuckerberg! Genius!
Barbara E

Thanks Jason! I actually let a few calls go to voice mail and shut down email during my time carved out for money-making activities today. Felt liberating. And ya know what? No one was upset that they didn’t reach me immediately and were happy to chat when I called them back later during MY allotted time. Show me the money!!
http://twitter.com/jewelfry jewelfry

I painted sections of my desk with chalkboard paint. Everyday I write a list of what has to be done that day. I make notes and keep track of projects. Because it’s chalkboard I erase and clean it often which means things have to get done. It works and it saves paper.
http://adingintheuniverse.com/ Emily Merkle

I would be willing to wager that your favorite client – after being fed and watered with sincere appreciation for all the money they have wired you willingly on time and over time – will not only e more than happy to refer you to a potential opportunity – but will do so without your request.

People who are professional and exceptional at what they do are people that I want to e associated with. They are not always the Experts or such – hell some cannot even figure out how to not offend people in their crusade – but when you know it and them – they make you look good. So I hear. I hope. Oh and numbers and logic – hard to argue with.
http://adingintheuniverse.com/ Emily Merkle

Bingo!
Making gobs of cash file you and your clients, and all who helped is never benefited by faking your Salesforce metric quota bs so your boss does not – whatever. Sometimes drastic measures are called for.

Unfortunately – though they seem like viral bs to you – not everyone agrees with your parsing of Why your Chief Strategy Money Printer must have a Rolodex to Print Money. It is radical – and I can’t explain in an interview without immediately pissing people off – like oh Jaffe – that Who I Know or Whose Name I Wrote Down 10 years gives me any advantage or enhances my ability to tell the truth about why and how I can work in a logical way to work with passion, integrity, and absolutely no patience for bullshit AND make enough cash for all parties involved. If I am wrong in my worldview about how corporations make money – and with the ruthless, completely misunderstood ability and responsibility of – Wall Street (dood you know all the hate is cleverly disguised admiration…) – well sheeit. Color me relieved. If Making It is secretly a popularity contest – I was Homecoming Queen, Class President for 4 terms! – and voted Best All Around. I have the yearbook to prove it.
http://adingintheuniverse.com/ Emily Merkle

Sorry – bullshit is the hit button I just cannot wrap my had around – Erika u r so much more eloquent and good at making your point without becoming so frustrated you are immobilized.
At Yi Yi can you be bought to translate into corporate speak pleez?
http://adingintheuniverse.com/ Emily Merkle

Do you have a tip hotline? Amnesty? Self Help book on demonstrating value you truly want to yield for good?
Jeff Savastano

This may be the best thing I have read in a long while. Thanks for being so frank.

I’m buried under useless emails and need to reduce the number of accounts and inbound messages. It reminds me of a past job where meetings were run from 8AM until 6PM. No one did anything EXCEPT attend meetings. I started to skip them and became more productive. It’s time to start skipping the hypnotic pull of someone’s BS email message.
Cindy

Great post, Erika. Love this:
Moving on implies that we pretend things never happened, dooming us to reliving our past mistakes. Moving forward means we carry experiences with us, empowering us to screw up in new and glorious ways.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=595132360 Amelia Morrison Hipps

Erika,
Thanks to you, I decided to own my own owl, or in my case, hippo, in 2012. The past six weeks have been exhilarating, frustrating, eye-opening and down right scary. However, I haven’t been so sure of any decision in many years in both my heart and head as I was the decision to start Capitol Newswatch, LLC with my husband. Favorable responses are beginning to translate into contracts.

So thanks, Erika, for shooting straight and inspiring me to take a hard look at what I want for my life – both personally and professionally. Your words helped me to find to the courage to take a true leap of faith and move forward with my dream.

That said, your column today again hit home, especially about cleaning out your life. The most eye-opening aspect of leaving my former position as the managing editor of a community-based newspaper has been discovering who are my real friends and who were my friends because of the former position I held. I always knew there are people who “liked” me because of what I could do for them because of my position. Walking away from that position really showed me who I can count on today as a true friend. And you know what, it has been truly liberating to cut out those who could really, deep-down care less about me.

Years ago, I cut out of my life a 2o-plus year friend because it became apparent that the only time I heard from her was when her life was in a crisis. When things were running smoothly, I never heard from her, and when I would initiate contact, she never had time to talk and repeatedly broke promises to call back and/or visit. Finally, I had enough and ended the friendship.

Did it hurt? Yeah. Do I miss her? Yeah. Was she healthy for me? No. I made the decision because I believe I’m too precious to hold onto those who are toxic to me. Does that make me sound arrogant and too important for my britches? I don’t really care if others think so. What is important to me is my family, friends and clients who believe in me and support my efforts to grow and become the best I can be both personally and professionally – even to the point of being brutally honest and giving me a bitch slap when I need one.

I, too, agree that people come into our lives for a season or a purpose, and that many of us don’t recognize this fact and often try too hard for too long to hang on them. Some are meant to be a part of our lives forever, but generally, those people are few in number. For our own sanity, we need to recognized who falls into that category and hold them close and cherish what they bring into our lives. Equally important is recognizing those whose season has past and let them go.

By cleaning out those who bring negative energy into our lives, we open up space in our lives to those individuals who sincerely care, who want only the very best for us and who are willing to cut out the BS and get to the heart of the matter directly and honestly for our own good.

And, personally, I’d rather have more room in my life for those type of individuals than the other.
Rabih Najjar

I’m the happiest at work when I don’t look at any administrative piece of paper and just hang out with my staff and customers. I’ve taken 3 days of the week and 90% of my day being out there. Shaking hands, catching up on family stories, thanking customers, supporting my employee’s decisions. I feel accomplished yet as I write this I’m angered that I used to put such a higher priority on getting my own shit done over the people.
http://www.zoeSocial.com/ zoeSocial

I do a hard-core intense work-out (at home, not a gym) every morning. Like you said, I need to focus on me first.

I kick-my ass physically and the rest of my day falls into place. I look better, I feel better, my confidence and energy levels are high – I’m ready for anything!

The workouts are amazing and so is the community – check it out at http://www.bodyrock.tv
http://www.facebook.com/richbonn Rich Bonn

Great post. The changes that I have made most recently to help me through busywork are:
1) Prior to finishing my work for the day, I write up my execution plan for the first hour of the next day (those are my big things.) I plan out my 1st 10 phone calls, print whatever needs to be reviewed.
2) Time blocking with Whitespace. Whitespace is amazing. It helps my timeblocking be more efficient and realistic. It gives me time in case projects run over or appointments run late.
3) Email, facebook, twitter, texts, and inbound phone calls are relegated to two hours per day. The rest of the day, I set the tempo!
http://twitter.com/AndrewMueller Andrew Mueller

Love this post….Now going to wake up at 5AM to start my day and eat my frogs for breakfast!
http://twitter.com/michellelamar michellelamar

I love you. And when I say those three words I mean it in the true “I wish I could be as smart and funny as you” sense and not in the “Smiley face/lol/stupid bullshit banter of social media” kind of way.
You made me spew my drink all over my keyboard while at the same time wishing I could be at a dive bar with you RIGHT NOW. You are just that awesome. This.Post.Rocks. You rock and I can’t wait to read your book.
Danelle Wettstein

I’ve started every day in February with a list of MITs. Made from 1) upcoming meetings in the calendar that I need to prep for and 2) my most pressing projects.

And I cleaned out my Google Reader. Lots of great information, but so much crap. I think I killed half the subscriptions. And I don’t miss them.
Sylvia

Thanks for the bitch slap! It’s so easy to shift the blame to that which “drains” your day….when all along, WE are the ones who voluntarily, allow it to happen.

Tomorrow, Friday, I will detach from that which wastes my time. Thank you!!!!
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Laura Roth

Oh my. I have just spent a good 20 minutes reading comments after this article. Reading comments looking for new friends to fill the void of all the friends I kick out of my life today….

Be careful–don’t sever relationships worth reprogramming. If it’s a friend worth keeping but you’re sick of the bullshit–Tell them. Make a pact to not suck the soul out of each other and if that doesn’t work, then it’s time to say “bye-bye”.

As for facebook–get real. It’s fucking facebook. I pride myself on the fact that I forget to check it more often and I secretly smile when I apologize to “friends” who criticize me for not checking it more often.

Twitter–never heard of it. Not really, but I have yet to book a flight on the bluebird’s itinerary.

I like real people, which does mean I weed out people who suck positive energy from my soul but I’m always open to people who contribute positive energy to myself and the cosmic air around me–and sometimes that takes some time and some listening. I’ve acquired many a unexpected friendships and writing jobs just listening to people I meet in dive bars, Target check-out lines and mindless hours at high school wrestling tournaments.

My point is, sure wrap yourself up in yourself and move forward (not on) but don’t forget the human spirit which presents itself in some of the most unexpected places, real places not cyberspace.

MY advice–Get out there. Go to a used bookstore and strike up a conversation with the owner. If you like to drink (who doesn’t) go to a dive bar alone and talk to the people around you. If you don’t already smoke, consider taking up the habit and hang out with the people outside and join the conversation–some of the most interesting and creative people are those slowly killing themselves while striking up thoughtful conversation on a smoking patio. If you don’t smoke (good for you) try this little experiment–go outside to the patio and hang out anyway.

My point–don’t wrap yourself up in yourself so much that you neglect to notice and join the human scurry happening all around you. Sure a lot of its bullshit, but a lot of it is real and it’s saturated with interesting people, creative prowess, and professional opportunity. If your not finding human connection in real time, then maybe you just need to find new spaces to hang…
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JanethD

Great article, and thanks for the comment Mike. I am reading it now.
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