I can look at my home screen and right there, a beautiful icon smiles back at me: A gleaming pad of yellow ruled paper, ready for my must-remembers to be inscribed. It’s a gift, really. We’ve all fallen victim to the soul-shredding

I HAD A BRILLIANT IDEA AND I CAN’T REMEMBER IT TO SAVE MY LIFE

situations. Those are the moments where — while you’d never really do it — you could almost see yourself punching a little baby penguin. But I’m finding that those moments are less frequent now that my iPhone is back in my life. I can indulge in digital scribbles at any time of the day, as — who am I kidding? — it’s a rare moment when my iPhone isn’t within a few steps distance away.

So today’s post is the first installment of Digital Scribbles.

I ran a poll on my Facebook page, asking you folks what you’d like to see more of here on the blog. There was an overwhelming number of you who wanted more of my personal posts (nosey fuckers). And that’s what Digital Scribbles are. They aren’t necessarily thoughts that warrant 1700-word Bitch Slaps, but they are…me. While a fair majority of RedheadWriting IS a persona, here’s the person — for better and worse. They are unedited.

And I’m acknowledging that the men reading this post right now either have a hard on or are utterly repulsed by my most prominent childhood memories.

I also remember the day I got my first email address. It was 1998 – I’d just fallen in love with the man who would become my second husband. An entirely lovely man named Scot – a Naval officer stationed in Japan. He was headed back to Japan and I wanted a way to stay in touch. He suggested email.

Email? Shit. I didn’t really know what it was. So I called my mom and asked her: How do I get an email address? PRESTO! My mother to the rescue (she’s a career senior systems analyst and has built every computer I’ve ever owned up until I defected to The Dark Side aka Apple products in 2010). I was set up with a Hotmail address in no time and was communicating over thousands of miles with the man I loved. Sickeningly sweet, yet needs must and this was my first foray into the digital communication age.

Hello, 2012

Today, I live in a digital world. I’m tethered to  , plugged into Twitter and Facebook. I think Path’s UI is so sexy that I’d be willing to give it a handjob if it were remotely possible. I’ve got folks on LinkedIn, three email accounts, and a PO box that only gets the good stuff: checks from clients and my subscriptions to Rolling Stone and Entrepreneur Magazines.

Back in December, I took issue with the way a few of my friends (actual friends – not imagines digital ones) were conducting discourse on my personal Facebook profile. That incident led to a jettisoning of over 240 people from my “friends” list. And this week, my friend Merredith and readers Annie and Brian from my Facebook fan page have reinforced something I’ve been feeling for quite some time: through all of this digital communication, we’re breeding a culture of lazy and rude.

And it’s time for a slap.

It’s Apalling

The way we communicate these days – and the vehicles we choose to deliver certain messages even moreso. Back when I published the post that got Facebook to rate-limit my hosting company aka Is Facebook Hiding Your Messages? , the comments section was filled with tales from people who had received Facebook messages informing them that a relative or friend had died. Just yesterday, a long-time reader shared that his two-year girlfriend decided that a Facebook message was the most appropriate way to break-up with him (and I know that’s not the first time).

Fucking seriously?

While I understand that we all don’t have everyone’s phone number, there are certain events in this life that warrant a bit more emotional commitment (and balls, quite frankly) to deliver than a Facebook message. Or even a text for that matter. Jesus on toast – where do I begin with the text messaging?

The Wall Our Fingers Built

What better excuse have we as a culture had to unplug from the emotional aspects of human interaction than the rise of text messaging? While inarguably convenient for sharing short, concise messages, I’ll just offer this example for the complete detachment of onus – thanks to text messaging.

Back in November and December, I’d gone on a few dates with someone whose company I enjoyed. Fun, intelligent, attractive – yet seemingly completely incapable (or unwilling) to pick up the phone. The day after a rather awkward lunch date where I felt like I’d been crammed into an opening in his schedule as opposed to someone that was a pleasure to make time for (it ended up being my birthday, coincidentally), I received a three-window text message from him explaining that he thinks I’m swell but just not what he’s looking for in a relationship but he’d be more than happy to accompany me as a date to any professional functions I might need to attend that I felt might interest him (blah-blah-blah).

First off, there’s no arguing that we shared the same sentiment.

Secondly, it took him three windows on my iPhone to explain this to me.

Third, that text was sent to my phone number.

Finally, we won’t go into the skewed logic that given this display of failure to engage that I would even consider him as someone with whom I’d care to present as some sort of partner in public – but hey…thanks for taking pity on a single gal.

When did we forget that there are human beings on the other end of the messages that our fingers so furiously type on impossibly small screens on device with capabilities of similar impossibilities?

I feel that a significant portion of what’s going wrong in this world is a byproduct of what we’ve come to accept as acceptable in the realm of communication.

I’m Growing Detachment in My Digital Laboratory – Care to Step Inside?

There’s an exchange from a favorite feel-good movie of mine, You’ve Got Mail, that sums it up best.

Joe Fox: It wasn’t… personal.

Kathleen Kelly: What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It’s personal to a lot of people. And what’s so wrong with being personal, anyway?

Joe Fox: Uh, nothing.

Kathleen Kelly: Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.

Personal. Communication between human beings – especially between ones whom we consider friends, lovers, and treasured colleagues – used to be overwhelmingly personal. Folks had to sit down and write letters. Pick up the phone. God forbid, drop by a friend’s house with a bottle of scotch or a bundt cake when the shit had really hit the fan. Our current age of digital communication has somehow granted permission (and falsely) for us to treat everyone with the same casual disregard and borderline contempt as the jackass on the sidewalk in front of us who doesn’t understand that we’re trying to get somewhere and can’t seem to step it up a notch.

And that’s no way to treat people.

We’re continuously cultivating a garden of detachment through all of these digital means of communication. We’ve become entirely lazy when it comes to the emotional commitment it takes to cultivate relationships (of any sort) and instead, accepted that sending a text/email/Facebook message is an appropriate way to develop a connection – and at our worst, unplug completely.

What happened to the adolescent anticipation we felt waiting for the phone to ring? Where did we lose the excitement we felt when we saw the flag down on the mailbox which told us we could run outside to see what stamped-and-canceled treasures lay inside? But more importantly, what happened to the stark honesty it takes to use our voices and share what needs sharing – over the phone or (god forbid) in person?

So Let’s Talk About Facebook For a Moment, Shall We?

It’s an election year. Lines have been drawn in the sand and friends and foes alike aren’t too ashamed of spouting off on what they think and feel. But when did Facebook’s invitation to Write something become license for assholian behavior of incomprehensible levels?

I’ll say that it has a lot to do with the total perversion of our collective definition of “friend.”

On my Facebook fan page and blog comments alike – I have but one rule: you can say whatever you feel needs saying and in the vernacular of your choice, but you will do it with respect, goddammit.

And we need a severe infusion of Aretha Franklin up in this joint, because R-E-S-P-E-C-T has gone right out the window by and large in the Land of Facebook.

The Land of Facebook isn’t some mythical place where we can say whatever the fuck we want on other people’s walls without consequence. Facebook is a tool that supposed to help us develop relationships with more people than we ever thought possible. And there’s a reason that our connections on our personal pages are called “friends.” We’ve forgotten that the audience on Facebook is vast – and that most of the time when interacting with friends, we’re putting our thoughts up for review to their audience not ours. Stop and think for one frog’s fine ass hair-sized moment whether you’re acting like a dick.

Facebook doesn’t offer anyone a cloak of invisibility. Start conducting yourself as if the people who were seeing the shit you post and spew were standing right in front of you – and were able to throttle you (or even hug you). There is nothing I post on my personal OR fan page that I wouldn’t say live – and that’s because that while RedheadWriting might be part persona, I know that people keep coming back to read for the person behind her.

There’s a person behind every word you see on Facebook. Including you. And there’s no excuse for the lack of respect that’s plaguing the walls and pages across this great digital tool that’s supposed to fun – yet as of late, has become exhausting for many.

And So We Come Back to Humans…

We’re breeding this culture of lazy and rude – each of us play a role. We continue the email thread, we reply to the text message, we drop what we’re doing to reply to a Facebook thread when we should be doing shit that runs our respective businesses. We type things with knee-jerk reactions, we use language we wouldn’t use in front of someone we respect and love, and we think that people don’t have a right to be heard because we’re the letter of the law and can’t possibly be bothered with ideas other than our own.

We stare at our phones with contempt when they have the fucking audacity to ring.

What happened to the humans in all of this?

I’ve been smacked down by friends on more than one occasion for using a digital crutch to communicate – especially when the device also acted as a phone. And so today, I’m passing that smack on to you.

Things should begin by being personal – whatever they are. As even the smallest business decisions elicit an emotional response. I’ll speculate that there’s a special circle of hell that Dante would allocate to those who feel that digital communication is the best way to break up with a lover, end a business relationship, or otherwise take an arm’s length distance from the message that needs conveying.

I understand that we all communicate differently. I’m a writer, for fuck sake – this post is nearly 1900 words. Digital communication allows us to be extremely efficient in many cases and we’re endlessly frustrated when the batteries in our phones and laptops die, putting a crimp in our nonstop pursuit of productivity.

But never forget – with all of the blessings and mind-blowing innovations of digital technology that humans eventually run out of batteries, too.

And wouldn’t it be especially splendid if, when that time came, we felt that we’d used our own batteries to plug into the people who matter most in our lives with every ounce of energy we had, instead of being lazy and letting technology create our memories for us?

You’ve been slapped.

***Disclaimer: So, sometime on Tuesday afternoon, I forgot that I’d dropped an Aleve-D two hours prior and threw back two REAL Sudafed red devils. Having been plague-ridden for nearly a week, I just wanted the congestion to subside. What resulted, however, was a thorough understanding on why kids cook this shit down to create crystal meth and an evening filled with productivity on most offensive levels. And, this blog post.

The setting is Houston, Texas. The subject, a certain then-bleached-blonde adolescent girl with oversized glasses (complete with purple tint) and a penchant for social and political issues. For nearly five years, I immersed myself in political studies and competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate, extemporaneous speaking, Mock Congressional Hearing competitions, and every political science/history fair I could get my hands on. AP U.S. History and Political Studies classes meant that I was dropped into a sea of upperclassmen studying the same issues. They wouldn’t ask me to Homecoming, but they sure as shit would clammor to sit next to me on test day. And in those competitions? I won. My dream was to become an attorney and specialize in international law, and these were the stepping stones for an awkward, geeky girl to make her mark on the political systems she admired so very much.

Flash Forward to 2012

So, I ditched the purple-tinted glasses and never went to law school. I turned out to be a writer and an entrepreneur – which is precisely where I should have ended up. Hell, it only took me 17 years of living a life filled with Shouldas, Couldas, and Wouldas to get here. My passion for social and political issues has never waned, however – and I can definitively say that everything about this election year irritates me to no end. My country’s political system is in shambles – a complete joke to outside observers – and I have to listen to dribble on the State of the Union Address that spews useless statements like, “The American Dream is in peril.”

Really. Which one is the American Dream? The one where I’m dressed up like a cheerleader in front of the Senate building with a felt USA blazing across my breasts? I really like that dream…but I digress.

I would think that, as a country, we’ve gotten past the Hooverisms and dispelled the myth that there will be a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Who are we as people and a nation to believe that we are entitled to anything and that dreams are things achieved with anything other than ass-breaking work, blood, sweat, and tears? As an entrepreneur, I don’t get entitlement. I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck and had my 10-for-$1 Ramen days. I’ve failed miserably after a load of ass-breaking work. No one handed me anything and I wake up each day grateful for the people in my life and what I’ve earned.

Yeah. Earned. Earning things for myself – the goal-setting and subsequent accomplishments and failures – that’s my American Dream.

And given the work that I do every day with the startup community and other entrepreneurs, I’m overcome with one thought and one thought alone:

That my entrepreneur can kick your politician’s ass. Period.

And it got me thinking: what do entrepreneurs know better than politicians? Seems to me it’s most everything.

Integrity

I can’t log in to YouTube these days to watch a Van Halen video without some mudslinging GOP ad bogarting my bandwidth. You won’t find that in the startup community. Entrepreneurs who fuel successful startups understand integrity to the Nth degree and skip the dirty trash talking because they know what’s important: building a product for the people who will love what you’re building. Entrepreneurs don’t rise because they bash the competition with paid ad space. They rise because they’ve built a product that solves a pain point for a certain audience.

Let’s face it: we all have a one-night stand that we’d rather forget. A phrase we wish had never come out of our mouths. Pieces of our lives we’d rather keep private. Entrepreneurs put their companies and products first and themselves second – just ask any founder’s wife/husband/kids. Our political system wants to muckrake, dragging everyone’s personal lives out into the open and the politicians are the first ones to play the blame game. They’d do well by looking at what builds successful, industry-leading companies that are putting our country on the map as contenders in the global technology space – it’s a commitment to integrity and knowing that your product speaks for itself. For entrepreneurs, it’s not about pushing someone else down that brings success as it is with politicians. Great entrepreneurs believe that they can only succeed if the people surrounding them succeed, as you can’t build anything in a vacuum. And you can’t forget your audience.

Audience Rules

As I sit and watch the epic tardsparring that is the caucus and primary season this year, it’s evident that the GOP candidates aren’t interested in anything but their own individual agendas. For people who have committed to a life in public service, they seem to have forgotten the “public” part of that equation.

Plain and simple, entrepreneurs understand that their audience is the only reason they have a business to begin with, and that every business decision they make must be proven to add value to that demographic. Politicians? Be it a kind of shitty truth, but it is a rare politician who remembers that the people behind the votes are the reasons they get to serve in the first place.

Simplicity

When’s the last time you went to the website for an emerging startup – one getting noticed and building a buzz – and you had no bloody idea what the company did or why the hell you should care?

That’s because it doesn’t happen.

Entrepreneurs (and great PR professionals as well) understand that when you try to say 83 things, you say nothing at all. The startup world is based on solving complex problems in an elegant, seemingly simple fashion – even if there is a basement full of code monkeys hammering out Ruby-flavored splendor to make that simple solution appear simple 18 hours a day.

Politicians are adept at taking something simple and bastardizing it through riders, lobbying, and self-interest. The resulting product is never one that the American public can understand. And if you doubt me, why don’t you check out all of the Medicare updates? Seems that folks shouldn’t have to rifle through a Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D in order to figure out how and what is covered. If a startup did that with their product messaging and documentation, they’d fall flat before they ever had a chance to soar.

Q: How many politicians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Politician’s Answer: It would appear as if the rider on this Lightbulbs bill supporting tax breaks for corporate environmental initiatives is prohibitive to the actual changing of the lightbulb due to some loophole about an endangered species that may or may not come into contact with said lightbulbs. Therefore, it seems the only logical move is to add an additional rider removing the three-toed sloth from the endangered species list, which will free up approximately $600,000 annually, thus making it possible to procure a lightbulb and send out RFPs for government-approved contractors to complete the work roughly 24-26 months following bipartisan acceptance of the legislation.

Entrepreneur’s Answer: Why the fuck are you still using lightbulbs? I know at least six companies with better products. Let me introduce you to them.

Killing Your Darlings

Out political system is brilliant at heaping shit upon shit when shit doesn’t work. Our public education system and social welfare programs are but two examples. Politicians keep applying laws and acts on top of laws and acts until the original legislation’s intent is lost in the noise. The process fixes nothing. It simply creates more problems. Which, of course, will be solved by layering more legislation on in search of a solution when the entrepreneurial community actually holds the answer.

Entrepreneurs understand the value in killing your darlings. Great entrepreneurs have failed – and miserably – on multiple occasions. With each failure, they learn to accelerate the failure process so they can get on with the business of things that actually work instead of being burdened by the things that don’t. You’ll never see a successful startup that’s a Joe’s Mortuary and Fine Sausage Emporium. You’ll see focus. Commitment. And if it doesn’t work, entrepreneurs are standing by with a bottle of kerosene and a BIC lighter to burn the motherfucker to the ground.

There’s much in this country on the political and legislative front that needs a good burning to the ground – and Washington needs a few more entrepreneurs to help them get over the fear and make the leap.

And So It Comes Down to Business

I don’t understand the vitriol directed at Mitt Romney (disclaimer: NOT a supporter) for his experience in the private equity sector. Well, I suppose I can if I figure in that the majority of the US population doesn’t understand what private equity firms actually do. Their goal, in many cases, is to take an ownership share in failing companies and turn them around so they’re profitable again. For the financial sector, they’re the ones that set containment fires. Some things in a PE-owned company burn to the ground so that others have a chance of succeeding. That means downsizing, or in unpretty terms, layoffs. JOB LOSS. While you might not like it, it’s good business. And it works. And yes, people make money from it. (Oh, the horror…)

Our government is bloated. Our nation’s legislative record is bloated. And we could do with an entrepreneurial infusion to lean-up our nation’s infrastructure. Great entrepreneurs know that good business can only be done when you put the foundations in place to support growth. And now, we’re a nation stymied by our political obesity – as we’ve overburdened the frame our Founding Fathers built.

And before you launch into something like “times are different in 2012 than they were in 1787″ – no shit, Sherlock. Really? But that doesn’t mean that our nation is even remotely prepared to do good business – the business it’s tasked with: Serving its citizens. Entrepreneurs know that lean companies are more nimble and successful in the long run – a lesson that our nation’s politicians are loath to understand. I think Eric Reis’ The Lean Startup should be mandatory reading for anyone elected to public office.

***

So that’s it. It’s all I’ve got. And perhaps the title of this blog wasn’t really accurate in retrospect. My entrepreneur won’t ever beat up your politician. They’ll just quietly create a better product based on solid business principles that will put you out of business.

Naturally, what that meant was:

• Let’s go back to the office and take a conference call.
• I can work until 7pm that evening.
• I can certainly take an on-site lunch meeting with a prospective new client on Thursday.

By late afternoon on Thursday, I’d given up. I needed to go see the doctor. I called Kaiser (shut it) to get an appointment and they gave me a 20-minute phone triage and said, yeah – it’s viral, honey. Nothing we can do. Drink fluids and rest. Muttering an inarguable “fuck you” to whomever would listen at that point, I drove my ass to the Walgreens and filled my basket with every possible homeopathic and OTC remedy known to mankind. If you can believe it, I walked out with over $30 in christ-I-hope-this-makes-me-feel-better concoctions and I-can’t-have-the-flu-because-I-got-a-flu-shot thoughts and positioned myself on the sofa.

Where I’ve been for 5 days now.

It got so bad on Saturday that I hauled myself to a doc-in-the-box where I was told, yeah – it’s the flu. BUT WAIT! For your faith in OTC remedies and all the rest you’ve given yourself, we have a special gift for you! An upper respiratory infection, complete with antibiotics that cost (gulp) a tidy sum of $100! (And yes, that WAS the generic version.)

So here I sit – humbled. Run down. I’ve dubbed this illness The Plague. Yesterday, I lost my voice. And truth be told, I feel like three-day-old pad thai that’s been left on the kitchen counter and licked by at least four cats. Today, my voice is coming back — I sound like a cross between Joan Rivers and Stevie Knicks with emphysema thrown in for flavor.

And this whole thing has taught me a little bit about business.

Everyone Knows Best

God bless the interwebz, I say. I’m as plugged in as plugged in can be and once I shared my battle with The Plague with friends and followers, the advice seemed to overpower the notes of sympathy. Not that I was looking for sympathy, but it reminded me that – good heavens – everyone knows best, don’t they? According to the interwebz, I should do everything from gargle with vinegar to steam baths and take Emergen-C. Even after I went to the doctor on Saturday, even a doctor wanted to share his long-distance opinion with me.

Something to remember: People are generally altruistic. They want to help. We all have experiences to share. And y’know, there are the jackwads who just feel like they know best (and there’s no shutting those up). When you decide to head down this entrepreneurial path, you have to prepare yourself for unsolicited input. Everyone – other than you – will know what’s best for you. It’s not unlike unraveling our lives and going back to the days where mom and dad said, “Because I said so!” or “You’ll go blind if you keep touching it!” Later in life, we realize that both are bollocks, and even though I wear glasses, whatever damage I incurred from “touching it” I’m happy to chalk up to genetics (my whole family is myopic to some degree) instead of behavior. You can’t stop the advice for pouring in, and that’s good because…

Great Ideas Can Come From Anywhere

For all the unsolicited advice, there will be a piece or two that catches your eye, ear, and mind. Like the person who recommended pineapple juice for my lost voice. I had to get dressed after 4 days (yes, FOUR days) and go to the bank, and Whole Foods was right across the street. I needed probiotics and, well, I saw a bottle of organic pineapple juice. So I grabbed it. Drank it on the way home. Not only did it taste sublime, especially when you consider that the only thing I’ve been drinking for days is coconut water and TheraFlu, I had a phone call come in and – wouldn’t you know it? I could croak out a “hello.” Maybe it’s timing, but I’m going to chalk it up to pineapple juice.

Something to remember: While all of that unsolicited advice (most notably, the person who recommended that I go for a 40-minute jog to ignite my immune system when it’s nearly impossible for me to even laugh with launching a coughing fit) is rolling in, you just might find some gems. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and think that we’re the only ones with ideas worth acting upon. But in the end, some of the best ideas – even ones that don’t include pineapple juice – come from outside our protective bubble. And that’s okay – the worst thing we do to ourselves as business owners is feel like we have to do everything. Which means…

We Don’t Rest Enough

Christ on an iPad – we sure as hell don’t. Lemme tell you what being relegated to the sofa for 5 days feels like: ass. Pure, unadulterated ass. I haven’t been to the gym. I haven’t left the house except to go to the doctor. I’ve fallen a bit behind on business (since it’s hard to have phone calls when you can’t talk). But you know what? I have rested. My body has crashed for nearly 9 hours straight each night since The Plague set in, and that’s not including the pass-out-on-the-sofa mid-day nap times I’ve had. I’ve watched stupid movies, seen the entire first season of Downton Abbey (OMFGAWESOMEBBQsauce), and even rearranged my office on Saturday afternoon in a fit of decongestant-fueled purpose.

We don’t take care of ourselves. We think that going to the gym and a Naked juice smoothie fixes the fact that we work 16 hours a day, six days a week. I need to unplug more and do things for myself. I need to stop answering business emails at 8pm. I need to take weekends. In short, I need to do a better job at having a life. Just because I can plug into anything via my iPhone doesn’t mean I should and it certainly doesn’t mean I should all the time. Life got along just fine these past 5 days when I needed to take care of myself.

I have a feeling it will continue to do so in the future.

The Net-Net

I might have a fever. I’m out of TheraFlu. But I feel decent enough today to spend at least half a day working and the other half taking care of myself. I’m also back to laughing at juvenile jokes that include the word “balls.” I’m grateful for all of the unsolicited advice, as in it I found something that worked. And it’s funny business, these bodies of ours. They’re the best barometer and thermometer we have for gauging what’s real and what’s not.

• Sweating is different than being on fire
• The gut offers brilliant, no-hold-barred unsolicited advice 24/7
• If we don’t learn to take a break every now and then, our bodies will, without fail, make us take one.

When businesses get it right

2011 was a year filled with businesses that got it wrong. AirBNB. Netflix. (Insert your own epic cluster here.) From turning on the evening news to the front page headlines of any major newspaper, we’re a culture (and a sad one) that focuses more on the foibles than those who are doing something right. This year marked the 4th year that The UPS Store sponsored Entrepreneur Magazine’s Growth Conference. Having been a customer on and off  - more out of convenience than brand loyalty – I was interested to see what the sponsorship looked like up close.

And it looked stellar. So let’s talk about how, first, the partnership makes sense, and secondly, how the UPS Store gained a new customer out of the experience.

The Partnership: Franchising is a significant part of the entrepreneurial culture. While some might scoff at what they perceive as the inherent laziness of taking someone else’s business concept and running with it, most franchisees will differ with you all the way to the bank. It takes just as much oomph to launch, build, and sustain a successful franchise as it does to launch, build, and sustain a one-off business. And that’s the main reason that having The UPS Store as the event’s title sponsor makes sense. I wish more businesses would look at this partnership and use it as a model for how to get involved with your customers – and peers – without coming across as a our-name-is-in-big-print-so-buy-our-stuff bunch of jackasses (which are the majority of convention sponsorships I see).

• Peer-to-Peer: The event tapped into the knowledge and experience of numerous SoCal area franchisees. They shared their successes and motivations with an audience of over 850 people who were hungry for that type of information. A perfect fit.
• Class: Everything about the conference was class. The main stage, the signage, the digital displays that announced each room’s session. Pure class. For an event that’s 100% free to attendees (including a catered lunch – no sammiches here), the UPS Store and Entrepreneur Magazine did one helluva job demonstrating that neither are fly-by-night operations or business-in-a-box solutions. Whatever you thought about franchise business models, The UPS Store blew conceptions out of the water.
• No Hard Sell: Everyone pretty much knows what The UPS Store does. We get it. Shipping. They began as Mailboxes Etc. back in the day, the place we all went to ship a box, buy a box to ship something in, and when it was relevant, make a few photocopies. Instead of beating everyone at the conference over the head with who they are and what they do, they reinforced the why. They did this brilliantly through their sponsorship of not only the conference, but Entrepreneur’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” awards, celebrating three incredible businesspeople carving their own way in their respective industries.

So how did they score a new customer through the event? I’m a single woman who owns a business, which means that I have a PO box and work out of my home 70% of the time. It also means that a simple records search can tell people where I live. Which is creeptastic. Weird things show up in my mail, any yahoo could land on my doorstep. And you can’t list a PO box as a valid business address with the Colorado Secretary of State – so what’s an entrepreneur to do? Well, that’s coming to an end this week, as I’m headed to The UPS Store to get a business address – and one that’s not my home. I only heard the service alluded to once, but it was enough for me to go: yeah, I need to get that shit taken care of. So I am. And unlike my PO box, I can CALL and see if there’s mail in my box before I go. Which would – and will – save me a crapload of blank trips every year.

It was a Wednesday well-spent, and a shout out to my Wednesday evening compadres who will invariably agree with me that sangria mixes with absolutely nothing.

Sidebar: I was asked – and kindly – by the Entrepreneur Magazine staff to clean-up my presentation for this conference. I don’t have a problem doing that, and I’d been great all day about avoiding the-fbomb. Well, in my second session of the day, I let one fly. And immediately, the fire alarm in the convention center sounded. I guess that will teach me.

Back to business…

Attending, much less speaking at, conferences is rough business. It’s physically and emotionally draining and it’s a huge rally to get yourself going when one (even a day-long conference) has come to a close. The rest of my week involved business as usual as well as taking care of some housekeeping and thank yous for book #2, all the while dealing with the impending launch of book #1 and SXSW Interactive looming in the not-so-distant-distance. I headed up to Studio City to stay with my friend an co-author on book #2 and even got to catch up with one of my graphic designers, Lindsay Goldner, over a meal featuring pasta made from little baby zebras in a cream sauce. Which leads me to the business of business.

There’s a question I ask in every session I’m invited to present: Why are you in business? The answers vary and sometimes there’s someone who gets it right. The answer isn’t to live, because it’s what we love or to make money. (“To make money” is the most common answer, by the way.) The answer is because our customers let us be in business. Never forget that your customers are the reason you get to do what you love – and that’s why speaking engagements and travel are my favorite part of this gig I’ve got going on. I get to meet the people who let me do what I love everyday, from those who work for me and with me to those who just stop by this site and consider my posts to be time well-spent.

Never forget to thank your customers. And never forget that not all customers spend money. Many simply spend their time – and asset we’d all do better at appreciating as even more valuable than the almighty dollar. Which brings me to the part where my co-author on book #2 and I drive all over Los Angeles and Newport Beach to hand-deliver thank yous to the people who contributed to that book.

The part where my friend pees in the backseat on the 405 freeway

For any of you who have lived in the Los Angeles area (as I did from 2002-2005), you understand how the region redefines the epic fucktardery of traffic in general. We were blazing along the 405 — I might have been exceeding the speed limit — when my friend Wendie expresses that she has to pee. Given that we’re on the 405, exiting at 4pm on a Friday is simply nonsense. We’re 1 hour from her house – I ask if she can hold it. Fast forward to a situation where she climbs over the seat into the back and finds a Nalgene bottle holding my then-hot-now-cold tea from the morning. The car gets silent. I’m terrified of potholes (I’m sure she is as well). Within minutes, she’s back in the front seat and we’re serenaded with the gentle sloshing coming from a bottle on the floor board of the backseat all the way back to Studio City.

The lesson here? There’s a lot of shit that happens along the way from where we are to where we need to go. No one started the day planning to pee in a Nalgene bottle in the backseat of a Lexus. Shit – and in this case, pee – happens. Deal with it as best you can and get on with your business. Move forward. Because moving on is bullshit. Moving on implies that we have to forget in order to progress, when in fact, we’re probably better served by bringing our experiences with us to help shape the next ones.

And finally, coming home

Saturday evening, I landed at DIA just in time for the Broncos to blow the playoffs. Truth be told, I missed my puppycats (which is what I call my collective of 2 dogs and 2 cats). I’ve lived in Alabama, Missouri, Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Japan, California, Nevada, and now Colorado. No matter how long I’m gone or where I travel, I get excited about coming home to my little nondescript house in East Denver. So I was excited. I spent the evening on the sofa. I made some puree for a homemade tomato curry bisque (which turned out FUCKING AWESOME – sorry to shout). And after a whirlwind week, I slept for 10 hours.

In my bed.

In my house.

In Colorado.

And on Sunday, I woke up excited. Because I’d built a life that gives me the gift of doing it all again very soon. See image at top of post. Remember. Apply love liberally, in all that you do. We only have one chance to own this motherfucker of a ride called life, and well, yeah. Own it.

As a complete aside, I’m also sporting a bruise on my left thigh that is roughly the size of Tanzania. I know this first-hand, as I’ve been there. I took a teensy spill on my track bike on Sunday (hit a slick spot on the track) and well, I’m living in Hey, Hey, It’s Hematomaville for awhile now. But I digress. At least I started this paragraph by telling you I was going to digress.

Onward.

You are making my ears bleed.

I Bust My Ass…

Even when I’m not ditching my bike with one gear and no brakes, I’m busting my ass to make sure that companies I work with speak English. And people keep fucking this up widestyle. Maybe not you. But definitely you for sure. Why are you not speaking English?

When did we start making up words and phrases to describe what we do? When did the words we had become not good enough? Here are some examples:

• Drive results (because if you’re not, you shouldn’t have a fucking job)
• Create results-oriented strategies (because there are people who create strategies designed to tread water? Puh-lease.)
• Shift paradigms (keep your hands off my damn paradigms – they are fine where they are)
• Develop overarching concepts (as the only thing overarching is the Gateway Arch in St. Louis – used to live there. Seen it. It’s definitely overarching.)

I’m invited to connect with numerous people each week on LinkedIn and I see this bullshit every day. Why are you selling yourself short by using terminology that’s not only meaningless but makes your target audience – a potential client or employer – feel like they’re either not smart enough to understand what you do or being bamboozled about your actual level of proficiency in your trade?

Just Stop. Please.

The English language has been around for centuries. It’s a perfectly good language. And you know what? I’m not immune to buzzspeak, either. I have colleagues who threaten to install a sort of “swear jar” every time I get too full of myself in a client report or proposal and lapse into speaking buzzspeak-laden nonsense.

Just use English. It’s good stuff. All buzzspeak does is make you look lazy. Ditch the MBA-ease, because really – I’m not that bright. Stop being fancy, as plain vanilla gets the job done (and doesn’t waste anyone’s time). There’s a time a place for flourish, and you should know the difference between flourish and total horseshit.

And if any of you have the above phrases, or phrases like them, in your profiles, websites, or corporate mission statements consider the alternatives:

Instead of “driving results,” state what you achieved. “During my 18-month tenure as the Director of Social for Company XYZ, I led a team of 6 staffers and we achieved the following (bulletpoint, bulletpoint, bulletpoint).”

Instead of those bullshit “results-oriented strategies,” tell us about what you created. “At the inception of my role as Director of Paint Peeling at Company XYZ, I created a 24-month plan designed to help the company’s marketing department (bulletpoint, bulletpoint, bulletpoint). As a result of the strategy’s components, the department demonstrated a 34% decrease in expenditures and a 63% increase in profit. This allowed us to increase our team by a headcount of two and add an additional executive to the Marketing team to head up sales in our Mid-Atlantic region.”

Stop talking about shifting paradigms. If you truly did that, you should be able to find clients and customers who can speak to its truth. None of us are Steve Jobs, nor should we aspire to be. And not even Jobs shifted paradigms. He built teams that planned and then executed on those plans. The products that resulted? The consumers of the world would attest that Apple’s creations “shifted paradigms.” Get my drift?

We’re all victim to this right now, especially as the New Hampshire primary kicks off today. Politicians make a career out of using 83 words to say nothing at all, and I know it annoys me. It probably annoys you. Speaking English is about honesty – with yourself and your clients/customers. It’s about respect and not making people spend time they don’t have figuring out what the hell you’re saying. It’s also about confidence. Buzzspeak is linguistic wood putty for those who lack confidence, as the truth never seems good enough.

Now, my gimp hip and I must pack. So little to do, so much time. Wait – strike that. Reverse it.

And for those who wonder how I dispel with the buzzword bullshit speak in my own business? I keep companies from looking like assholes online.

Concise. Short. Makes you want to hear more. And more importantly, no one wants to look like an asshole.

English: It’s good enough.

Disclaimer: I’ll admit it – this post wasn’t really all that short.

image via Creative Commons

Having read more rah-rah posts at both the close and beginning of the year than my red head can handle, today’s missive will be devoid of a few things. Here’s what you won’t find in today’s post (with a h/t to Amber Naslund for her thoughts on “shipping”):

• Requests to get on board
• Directions leading to the outside of the box
• Instructions or demands to ship anything (especially “it”)
• Buzzwords used in context
• Links to a Huffington Post article
• Pictures of penguins
• Lies other than the one included in the above bulletpoint
• The use of the word “passion.”

What you might find, however, is that it’s filled with bullshit. Which is surprising, considering how much I loathe it.

I’m not good at bullshit. I suck at small talk. I’d rather sit in the passenger seat of a car and stare with wonder at the world around me than ask how my date feels about his mother. And while every conversation does not need to be of earth-shattering import, I believe that there’s entirely too much bullshit floating around in the ether.

The Taste and Smell

Yeah. You know it. Stringing people along. Avoiding difficult but definitive conversations. Things that should end, others that should begin. The time wasters. The jackwads. The shit you put up with, refuse to address, and then bitch about to your friends. Your money woes, your relationship turmoils, the dog crap you haven’t cleaned up in the backyard.

You can smell it from sixty-three paces. Sometimes we wake up with the taste of it in our mouths. We have sandwiches made of it for lunch.

You know what it smells and tastes like.

So you have a few choices.

Step Over It OR Step In It

I love shoes. Consequently, there is nothing more demoralizing than finding that I have inadvertently placed one in a position where it is adorned with a turd. And even though it’s recently come to light that I have a habit of leaving shoes neatly arranged next to the toilet, your shoes really don’t belong anywhere close to bullshit. Or the toilet. But at least mine are neatly arranged. I digress. We come to our choices:

Stepping in it: Is there a single one of you who can tell me that, faced with a steaming pile of bullshit that you’re going to deliberately make the move to submerse your shoes in it? Doubtful. Yet it’s something you do all the time. You piss and moan and then walk foot-first right into the motherfucker and then have the audacity to piss and moan about having stepped in it. THIS IS BULLSHIT. It is also bullshit on top of bullshit. Entirely too much bullshit.

Stepping over it: Ah, the logical choice, right? Yet one we seem to refuse to make more times than not. Stepping over the bullshit involves a few things. First, acknowledgement. This involves us being honest with ourselves, and frequently, with others. It’s not about hurting other people’s feelings or being an asshole. It’s about refusing to submerse one’s self in a pile that sits before us. But first, we have to acknowledge the pile instead of bitching about it and then acting all surprised when someone points it out to us (and most of the time, after it’s already all over our shoes). Secondly, it involves growing a pair. Stepping over the bullshit involves refusing to engage in situations that don’t serve us and waste our time. Your relationship, business, financial, and other woes? Bullshit. Stepping over it involves addressing the situation’s existence and then resolving it or refusing to engage, period.

Bullshit Controls Power

Bullshit is a quirky yet powerful little sonofabitch. It has the ability to rob you of power if you allow it, making you (or making yourself) feel helpless and fall victim to less-than-OMFGCrackalacka life experiences (thanks to @Merredith for the gift of the phrase “crackalacka”). On the other hand, bullshit has a sneaky little ability to empower you. There’s a metric ass ton of power derived from acknowledging, processing, and then dealing with the bullshit in your life. When you’re the one in control of your feet and stepping over and around the steaming piles the universe places in front of us during our time on this big blue bouncy ball, just think of what you can accomplish. And with that power comes a greater level of honesty.

Honesty with yourself. Your colleagues. Friends. Lovers. Partners. Hot baristas.

All those things we’re not supposed to say – we usually never do. And they’re the things that need to be said most. Why? Because they dispense with the bullshit. Not saying them? Well, that’s bullshit, too. The greatest gift I’ve given myself over the past 13 months is saying what I feel. Acknowledging and then stepping over the bullshit. And being even more honest with myself and using the presence of bullshit in my life for good instead of allowing it to capitalize on its inherently evil nature like that “friend” who always has a left-handed compliment that you seem to keep around for…no reason whatsoever.

So today, give it up for bullshit. A round of applause, if you will, to begin the New Year. We’ve shipped nothing, and that box? Fuck the box. I’ve never seen the box and really have no use for one that doesn’t contain a new pair of ski boots or faboo pair of pumps. And if you’ve gotten this far in the post, you’ve done something appreciable:

You’ve acknowledged the bullshit that fills this post. And you’re probably ready to do something about it.

<Wednesday evening, December 28>

Somewhere between 9AM and 12 noon today, I went from zero to see-you-next-Tuesday in about six seconds flat. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but I know one thing to be true above all others when I’m facing Crimson – the name I’ve taken to calling my less-than-famous, cut-a-bitch moments: The last thing I need to do is speak.

Not a single word.

And on top of it all, there seemed to a completely unauthorized Occupy Sinuses movement going on by a baby elephant in my head. Definitely a fucked-up way to be going about one’s day.

So I headed home, threw on my cold weather running gear and bolted out the front door. A few things happened.

First, I queued up a playlist fueled by the likes of Ratt, Metallica, and White Zombie. Seemed fitting.

Then, about 300 yards down the road, I busted my ass something fierce on the ice. Fuck it – got back up. Ow, ow, ow.

And then…it all just fell away. Seems that I ran just about 4 miles in about 35 minutes – pretty much a land speed record for me, ass-busting and all.

Given that the baby elephant was still taking up unauthorized residence in my sinuses, I headed to the grocery store to grab something with a ‘D’ in the product name. An eviction attempt. Putting the elephant on notice.

Sidebar: To all of the fuckups who have snorted or utilized over-the-counter medications designated as “decongestants” in an off-label, non-prescribed manner, I’d like to thank you. It’s rare that I’m given the opportunity to see what my life would have been like if I’d opted for a career on the pole snorting blow off a coworker’s ass and getting umpteen free rides in a black and white cab. It’s because of you that I’m made to feel like a criminal every time I need to evict a small baby elephant from my sinuses, as the pharmacies now keep these (fictional) elephant-killing medicinals under lock-and-key behind The Counter. I have to stand in line, show identification, sign a form with my name, date, and for some fucking reason – the time – in order to pay my $7.29 and get my damned decongestants. So, I have a request that you start huffing the fumes from smoldering Glenn Beck books and Justin Bieber CDs, as if it’s this hard for me to get decongestants, shitty literature and music should have the same controls placed upon them for the good of the American public.

But I digress.

I procured my D-drug redemption card because we can’t trust you with the box of choice and took my place in the six-deep line at the pharmacy. I was freezing, truth be told. Funny what happens to your body temperature when you go from an 8-mile-per-hour pace to dead still with a breeze kicking off the linoleum.

And then I saw him.

I thought that perhaps I’d cut him off, the old man who towered at least a foot above me who stood to my left. But another glance told me no, he was standing over to the side of the aisle with his cart. Waiting. For her. The lines that time had carved on his face scrunched up when she approached. A smile unhindered by the constraints of teeth – defined by gums alone.

She stood there.

Didntcha need makeup? Powder? Sumthin’? he said

Oh, yes! (she shuffled off, shuffles back)

She dropped something in the cart with a thuck

Thank you dear said this Weeble of a woman who stood next to the towering man with the toothless smile.

Yup. Yup. Need soap? he asks

No… she sings

Toothpaste? Shampoo? he queries

No… she sings

Vitamins? Lotion?

No, that’s all taken care of. That cabinet in the hall – open it up and it’s all right there. But thank you she gleams.

She gleamed. Just stood there and beamed up at him – her big, toothless, gummy-smiling man who must have been more than two feet her senior.

And he smiled – still – down at her Weebles-wobble-but-they-don’t-fall-down self.

For the second time in the day, it all fell away.

I almost expected him to scoop her up and put her in the kid part of the shopping cart. Instead, he put both hands on the handle of the cart and said grab on. She adjusted her purse and set her right hand on top of his left on the handle and they rolled off towards the checkout at the front of the store.

My turn at the counter finally came and with much fanfare and great ordeal, I procured my D-drugs with no fewer than three cards, two signatures, and just over seven dollars. Bag in hand, I floated to the parking lot and headed towards my car.

Sploosh

Snapped me out of my reverie. A boy of about ten or eleven was bounding through the parking lot into every pool of melted snow, and I’d caught some of the backsplash. He looked at me with a wide-eyed stare and I stood there.

Staring back at him.

My run was soggy, sloshing through sidewalks filled with melted snow and runoff. I was sweaty from my run. And now, I was pretty much drenched with freezing, filthy, grocery store parking lot water on the left side of my body. Fucking hell.

So I laughed. When I opened my eyes, he was smiling and I guess his mother was yelling at him (something about getting his ass *up here*) so he ran towards the front of the store and I walked to Beatrice Olivia the Mini Cooper. Opened the door, sat down, shut the door…and laughed some more. And somewhere between starting the car and pulling up in front of my house, I turned on the seat heaters (praying I wouldn’t be electrocuted).

Maybe it doesn’t mean much to you that I had a shit day today, but maybe the next time you have a shit day, you’ll remember mine. You’ll thank the fuckups who made buying decongestants a criminal act so you have to stand in line and see people like Towering Gummy Smile Guy and Weeble-Gal. We miss them when we’re too bloody busy in our own shit to stop, look, listen. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll have some fearless kid drench you with a heaping splash of parking lot puddle just top top it all off. Remind you that you’re human. And that while you might have been ready to cut a bitch a few hours prior and busted your ass on ice not even an hour ago…

That there’s really nothing than can’t be fixed by seeing someone else — even complete strangers — smile.

Probably not this. Or this (SAD FACE!). And while this would be super fun, it’s probably going to look a lot more like this.

What’s YOUR number?

My friend Rich Mackey reminded me this morning of a line from the George Clooney film Up in the Air: “What did they first pay you to give up on your dreams?”

That, my friends, is The Number.

Hop on over to Spin Sucks (hey – I’m just tickled I got to do a guest post for a blog with “sucks” right in the title) and tell me what you think about the concept of The Number. We’ve all had one at some time or another, and sometimes The Number is what leads us to a path we love because we’ve followed one we’ve hated for so long.

And if you read for no other reason, read for this thought:

“We should be using our businesses to buy our passions a playground, not to sell our souls.”

Clickity Click Click to head over to Spin Sucks

If you imaging that said in a Kermit the Frog or otherwise Muppets-style voice, it’s much more impressive.

Exactly 365 days ago, I wrote about blue balls and lighting fires. The next day, I gave you a holiday-flavored Bitch Slap about truth as I prepared to set out on a mobile phase of my life. And on December 22, 2011, I find myself at a bit of a loss for words, which pretty much sucks since I’m supposed to deliver something pithy to your inbox today before I close for the holidays at 2pm today. Shit, shit, shit.

The only thing that comes to mind is the phrase “without hope or agenda.” It’s from the movie Love, Actually — a film that finds its way into my DVD player on occasion. Aside from the part where a member of the Prime Minister’s household drops the f-bomb, there’s something about this scene that just makes me think…

what will you endeavor to do today without hope or agenda?

We all have some sort of agenda and are whores for something. Self-interest begins at the genetic level, as we’re built to survive. But with the holidays looming, isn’t now a fine time to realize that the best things in life the ones we undertake without hope or agenda?

Over the past year, I’ve had some of the most enjoyable days, blissful dates, and otherwise memorable moments because I said fuck it and let go. Without hope or agenda, I jumped in (with equal parts smiling and skepticism). And you know what? Coming out on the other side was a goddamned riot. There hasn’t been once where I walked away from a sans hope/agenda moment and gone Well, that was about as memorable as Paris Hilton in a spelling bee.

So, all I’ve got today is a question for you: what will you endeavor to undertake without hope or agenda?

And that’s all I’ve got today. So happy fuckin’ holidays – without hope or agenda. Thanks for reading and even more importantly, thanks for commenting and all of the emails I get in response to my blogs every week. They really are the best part of what I’m lucky enough to do for a living.