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.

Here we are, one day before Chanukah and six before Christmas. I’m not even bringing up the inevitable fuck me that tax time is approaching one again. Oh wait.

But I got to thinking over the weekend about whether my business sucks. And like everyone else’s businesses, some parts of it do.

So what the hell am I going to do about it?

Owning a business that sucks is like masturbating while wearing ugly shoes — while it might get the job done, you don’t want anyone to see what you’re doing or what you look like when you’re doing it. Isn’t it time to dispense with the ugly shoes? God knows, I’m not going to tell anyone to stop masturbating and I’m a big fan of shoes worth masturbating in.

Life’s too short to wear ugly shoes, especially when you’re getting down to business.

So we have two choices:

Keep diddling your business in shoes that don’t fit, feel uncomfortable, give your blisters and make your business experience less ossum (which again, is like a possum but better)

or

Get some new fuckin’ shoes.

And Then I Got Excited. But Not Like That…

Because it’s not enough for me to have sat down and realized that there are certain parts of my business that suck. I had to admit it. Out loud.

And then I had to ask for help. And boy, oh boy. If there’s one thing that I suck at it’s asking for help.

But I did.

This weekend, I sat down and reached out to people who make me feel okay about asking for help. And I got responses.

Then, the most kickassapotamus thing happened: I got excited. Because I was out from under the burden of diddling around with my business while wearing ugly shoes.

Isn’t It Time You Got Some New Shoes?

Maybe you didn’t expect to get a blog in your inbox today that equated things that suck about your business to the relationship you have with Rosie Palm and her five sisters. Do I care? Notsomuch. But what I do know is this:

If those shoes you’re wearing hurt, take them the fuck off and get some new ones. It’s time you started feeling good about the

• business you do
• how you do it
• and how you feel when doing it.

And it doesn’t hurt to look good when you’re doing it, too, because no one wants to do business with a hot tranny mess.

So maybe this holiday season, you want to dispense with the kumbayahs and bullshit advice about those “shoes” you’re wearing looking good when they hurt more than an April 16th phone call from your CPA that starts with, “Oh, hey…that decimal was in the wrong place.” Are you going to change where you go? Are you going to change how you get there? ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE YOUR SHOES?

No matter who you are and what you do, there’s some part of your business that sucks. It’s just up to you whether you’re going to keep up with the ugly footwear or slip into something that looks good, feels great, and kinda makes you want to take some pictures of your alone time with your business…

because we all know that diddling feels better when we’re especially fond of how we look and feel when it’s happening.

And that? Yeah. That just happened.

Right now, I’m thinking about volume and how we carry ourselves as people in business.

As I believe that there’s a fundamental difference in volume and projection as well as being a business owner and being an entrepreneur.

This week brought me to Miami for the Entrepreneur Magazine Winning Strategies conference. Aside from the fact that it was undoubtedly the most well produced event I’d ever been a part of in any way, shape or form (and, uh, FREE for the attendees – shit howdy), I got to spend my day in jam-packed sessions filled with people. These were people who were energetic. Hungry. Craving information and ready with some of the best questions I’ve ever had the good fortune of being asked to answer in my career thus far. As a side note, it still astonishes me that people want to sit in a room and listen to anything I have to say as I don’t consider myself an expert on anything except screwing up royally and learning from my mistakes. So yeah, I’m lucky – and when I’m lucky enough to be invited to participate in opportunities like these, meeting and then exceeding expectations? Yeah – that’s my Ford, my Job #1.  Let’s talk about how these 500 people got me thinking about the life I live, the career I love and maybe you’ll find something here to chew on along with your starbuckalottamochachino on a Friday morning.

The Business Owner vs. The Entrepreneur

There’s someone reading this who’s chomping at the bit to call me out and take me down a notch for making a differentiation between business owners and entrepreneurs. To you (or y’all, as the case might be), ease back in your seat. Since you’re not going to change my mind on this one, give me the opportunity to change yours.

Whether at present you are a business owner or an entrepreneur, one isn’t better than the other. They’re just different. It’s like saying a doctor is better than an attorney – they’ve both got their roles and responsibilities, but just like any other role, it comes down to how we perceive responsibilities. Having a kid doesn’t make you a mother or father – it’s the role you play in your child’s life that makes the differentiation between biological parent and mother or father.

I’ve been a serial entrepreneur since before I realized that’s what I was – opening a new business in each location that life took me and finding years of disgruntlement when asked to build someone else’s business by their rules when I opted for the Corporate America route*.

*Note: I am not the ideal W2 employee. I also just turned around and asked Middle Seat to dial it back a notch because the iPod is on full volume with noise-canceling headphones and I could have perfectly transcribed her conversation. She explained that she’s a teacher and her voice carries. Yes, got that detail already. Go me.

When it comes to responsibilities, in both my personal and professional lives (which are for all intents and purposes, a glorious collage), there are four things that I consider my obligation not only to my clients but myself each day:

Disrupt: If I don’t scare the living shit out of myself at least once on a daily basis, I’m failing. Whether I bring that fear along with new ideas or situations or it comes to me from external challenges doesn’t matter. My job is to welcome challenges, face them head-on and deal with them – for better or for worse.

Embrace Now: If I spent all of my time pissing and moaning about how I wished my now were different, I’d be the only contestant in an ass-kicking contest. By embracing now, I let myself shake my world up and deal with the outcomes as they come. Now is a great place to be in – and it’s my responsibility to use it shape what might come.

Remove ‘Status Quo’ From My Vocabulary: Things can always be different. Better is always possible. If the time comes when I realize that I haven’t burnt the mediocre things that always seem to linger down to the ground, everyone suffers. These two words have no place in my vernacular – maybe you’ll kick them out of yours.

Making Sure That I Don’t Confuse Content With Complacent: Content comes along when you look at things and can appreciate (sometimes even love) what surrounds you…what you’ve built. Complacency creeps in when we begin to take advantage of those things and accept them as givens. Clients on retainer, colleague relationships, friendships, romantic pairings – complacency is a pox on them all. Being content allows me the opportunity to see more opportunities and continue conversations and sharing. Complacency just pushes people away because we have the audacity to think we’ve locked that shit down and it requires no more attention.

When I think of people who are content with simply being business owners, I don’t sense movement. I sense a shitload of status quo and complacency. And if you want to make the shift (and honestly, not everyone is meant to – and that’s okay as well), there are a few things you need to own.

On Becoming an Entrepreneur

To make it simple, here’s my list of things you need to own in order to embrace a life path of entrepreneurship. Because it is more than a career or a job. It’s who you are and like anyone who creates, you can’t NOT be an entrepreneur.

1. Shit blows up. Fail fast and move on to the next thing.
2. If you’ve never failed, you’re definitely not an entrepreneur.
3. If you’re afraid of failure, this ain’t the droid you’re looking for.
4. Money is merely one way of getting things done. You value relationships over cash and understand that investment surpasses the confines of a check written out to your company or latest endeavor.
5. You know what you’re good at and you find people to deal with the things you suck at.
6. On the same token, you value your team above anything else and understand you’re not an island. You also understand that voting people off the island is occasionally necessary and you’re able to do this without being a stark raving fuckwad. The entrepreneurial world is small – reputations travel. Be great to work with and for – it pays huge dividends.
7. When you feel something needs to be done, you value actions over meetings. If it doesn’t work, you blow it up, say good on ya and get on with the next thing. Blowing it up over a beer is always great fun, too.
8. You acknowledge that you are an expert on nothing except learning from your mistakes and value your gut over nodding heads in either direction.
9. You know that the onus for due diligence is on YOU. Great ideas are only great if they go above and beyond someone else’s or explore new territory – you owe it to yourself to not waste your time (or anyone else’s) by doing your research, staying in tune with your industry’s pulse and asking questions. ASK, dammit! (To not ask is soooo arrogant.)
10. There will people who don’t understand the risks you take, the hours you keep or why it is you wake up every day jazzed to do it all over again. And that’s okay – you don’t have to explain. We don’t get why they do what they do, either. It goes both ways.
11. Understand the difference between confidence and arrogance. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Humility fuels successful entrepreneurs, whether we see it or not. So how do you get out there and be heard without being the hyena behind me on the plane?

Volume vs. Projection

I’m loud – personality, presence, and vernacular – and I own that fact 24/7. But I’m not a yeller. For every yelp, I seek a solution. And there are ways to be heard and be loud without making people turn away.

Great entrepreneurs understand projection. It comes from building networks of relationships – people who will carry what you have to say onward to help you fulfill and spread your vision. It has nothing to do with turning up the volume. The woman behind me on the plane would have been just as effective in sharing her yoga and dieting tips with her seat mates if she’d been half as fucking loud. Instead, she lacked self-awareness and annoyed everyone in a two-row radius.

Don’t be that lady.

Build your network – that’s how you project. You can turn up the volume on your microphone or bullhorn as loud as you’d like, but unless there’s a network (and one comprised of the right people) waiting to hear what you have to say, volume ain’t gonna do you any good.

It’s Time to Own It

What’s your role and what will you do with it today? Are you an entrepreneur or a business owner? Are you a business owner who wants to shake things up and add some entrepreneurial flavor into the mix? How loud are you and do you have the network established to carry forth what needs to be heard?

Successful companies and brands not only embrace who they are and have confidence in what they have to offer – their leaders own their roles in the process. Sit down. Speak up. Own your role. No one else is going to fulfill that role for you or get done what needs gettin’ done unless you have a team built who can establish direction. How we carry ourselves in business dictates what we can get done and who wants to be along with us on that wild ass ride.

In closing, I’d like to report that the woman behind me STFU for the remainder of the flight. Sometimes people aren’t aware. If you build a great team, they’ll help you make sure that you never become That Lady. Or That Guy. And I know it’s Friday, but it’s a fine-as-frog’s-ass-hair day to get out there and build something. Get started – you’re only waiting on you

Today, money’s role in my life is more akin to cherry blossoms – a lovely product of the business I’ve built, and there will no doubt be more if I continue to feed and nurture said business. It gives me the means to take care of Me, take care of the people I love and share it with those who need it more than I ever will…and occasionally just blow it on something ridiculously fun that leaves a smile on my face for days*.

* not hookers

On any given day, we are both the consumer and purchaser – there’s no way around it. While money’s the accepted currency for payment, there’s a role we don’t ordinarily talk about: being a vendor. I’m a vendor, you’re a vendor, he’s a vendor, she’s a vendor – wouldn’t you like to be a vendor, too? (and dammit, I love me some Diet Dr. Pepper) Accepting our roles as vendors, I think, is a higher level of responsibility for a business owner than just being someone who expects to get paid. So today, I thought I’d run down some things that can help business people to become better vendors and elevate their business practices to ones that operate with unquestionable integrity.

Deal with your HR and administrative shit

Do you have a W9 on file for every contractor and employee? Are you set up to pay your quarterly taxes? Do you have all of the required business licenses to operate in your county, city and state? Are you filings up to date with the Secretary of State’s office? When you let these things slide, it snowballs. Any prospective client should be able to look up your business entity and verify its validity and skipping out on your taxes is not only a total asshat move, it puts undue financial burden on your company. As someone who recently had a vendor share cash flow woes they blamed on a shitty CPA, which were apparently affecting their ability to pay my invoices on time, this is bullshit. Deal, because poor planning on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on anyone else’s.

Get an invoicing program (I personally use GetHarvest, but Freshbooks is also a raging favorite with other small businesses), track your expenses and receipts MONTHLY and not in some hurried panic at year-end where you’re crapping kittens at the eleventh hour on April 14th and start acting like you own the legit business you claim to operate. Deal with your admin shit.

Don’t go down-periscope

We can all get better at this. Here’s the poop: we are all busy. But as a business owner, you are never too busy to respond to someone who has reached out to you. This goes for new business inquiries, simple client relations moves and (inhales deeply) all financial matters. Nothing pisses me off more than when an invoice sits hanging in the ether with a symphony of crickets attempting to lull me to sleep.

If you go down-periscope on me, I will hunt you down. It is a total dick move to enter into an agreement and have someone perform the work you requested and then not see fit to respond to emails or offer lame excuses when you can get around to them. It’s also a dick move to delay a project because you don’t have your shit together. I would rather hear that you own it – you totally dropped the ball or your cash flow is hosed or your pet hamster gnawed your goddamn checkbook to shreds – I don’t care. The moral is, I want to hear it from you and in a timely fashion.

Make the move to communicate and for all that is holy, do NOT fuck with other people’s money. It is inordinately rude and disrespectful to think that I – or the person that you’ve hired to do a job – does not have bills to pay and mouths to feed just like you. And know that this is coming from someone today who realized over the weekend that she had not paid her attorney’s bill for her latest contract revisions (yeah, the ones that help me get paid and legally protected). He will receive an email today, including a check number that’s in the mail, with the explanation that I’m an idiot and spaced it.

Ask for help

I think that we all have the tendency to operate in Can’t You Read My Mind? land all too often. We assume that our clients work the same way we do and their terms are the same as ours. Ask your clients and your vendors for help.

Some questions and things to ask of and share with new vendors:

• Is there anything you need from me administratively prior to commencing work? Vendor agreements, W9s, NDAs or the like?
• My billing/payment terms are _______. Do you agree to those terms?
• I have a standard contract for services. We can’t commence until that’s mutually signed and on file.
  • If you don’t have one of these, please refer to this video. Jesus.
• Do you have any questions about the contract?
• How do you prefer communications: phone or email?

Stop thinking that the people with whom you do business can read your mind. Because they can’t. Nor will they ever be able.

Communicate

This goes back to the whole down-periscope pet peeve, but one thing I’m proud of with my business is the openness of my dealings between contractors and clients. They are bcc’d on billing inquiries when that inquiry affects their cash flow. They are asked how they prefer to be paid. I explain what’s going on with every account and they are brought to meetings as required. I give them a lot of leeway to accomplish their tasks and in return, I ask for work that is the same quality I myself would produce.

On the other side of the equation, I never glaze over a client’s question. If they become excessive outside a scope of work, I explain that we’re entering Consultingville and we should schedule a session as 73 two-line emails isn’t a way around paying for an hour of my time. I reach out when there is no reason other than to say hello or pass on a cool article and I make sure that their life events, such as a new baby, marriage, loss, business expansion and the like never go unnoticed.

Communication isn’t about what you say. Rather, it’s about what you don’t. Silence is telling and we can all tell the difference between radio silence (bad) and I’m here if you need me – hope all is well.

***

So that’s my list on how to be a better vendor. I’d love to hear what you have to add, as most of these ideas came from the comments on 19 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started My Business. Now go forth, leave the asshat business behavior behind and do good business. There’s no better compliment to receive than, “I really appreciate working with you, because you make doing business a pleasure.”

There are an inordinate number of conversations we have, in both business and life, that are designed to conjure-up ideas. We sit around and birth ideas like rodents, crapping out concept spawn like it’s a numbers game. If only half survive, HEYO! It’s a win.

But there’s value in destruction as well. Merciless killing. Murder.

In the process of putting together the first half of my book – yeah, that one I’m being paid to write – I sat and looked at over 10,000 words and…killed them. A big ass highlight-and-delete action. And nothing had ever felt so good. We focus so much on quantity, word count, deadlines – that we forget the inherent value in ruthlessly murdering something we’ve created (and on occasion, in cold blood).

There’s more than 10,000 words in my life that need some killing off, mostly to make room for things that are worthwhile. My business is the same way. Now, to figure out the means. Hachet, .45 caliber, Chinese throwing stars, quarterstaff or dagger – they need to go and it won’t be pretty. But here’s the deciding factor: I can see everything I want and need standing right there behind all of these things that need to go. The problem is that all these shitty, obstructive and demanding things are keeping me from getting a clear line of sight the the things I hold most dear. And that’s gotta stop.

I can see them through the sea of quantity (not quality), excuses, delays, Pick Mes, Hey Yous and I Hate These, so I think it’s best to mow them own like something out of a Michael Bay flick and get on with the business of life and business the way I’d rather have them…instead of the way I’ve let them become. And if I spent more time on killing things off actively then letting them die on the vine, well, that’s energy well-spent.

Kill, kill, kill.

(coffee’s ready)

“Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.” ~Plato

Damn that Plato and all his wisdom, but doesn’t his quote perfectly describe the underlying law of the blogosphere? Living on friendly terms with one another. We’re wordsmiths with the potential to maim and injure with a mere sentence. Sometimes aim is taken and other times none, our words thrust forward onto an unsuspecting audience.

Do we have any idea how naughty we’re being in the blogosphere?

On Monday of next week, I jet off to New York City for the week to speak at Blog World East. The topic? The legal implications of blogging.

Stop the snickering. Who better to give a presentation on how to give a legally correct Bitch Slap than the queen slapper herself? I’m joining forces with Janet Cullum, a leading intellectual property attorney with Cooley LLC (and thank you to Jason Mendelson for the introduction to Cooley!) and together, we’re presenting an hour chock-full of “tsk-tsks” that are going to make your head spin!

Let’s face it: we live in a world where most everything we want is a Google search away. Images, facts, opinions…and in the middle of all of those pics and words, there are people. Real people. Some of them jerks, and boy – would we like to teach ‘em a thing or two. But how do we say what we want to say and find the images and words to back up our arguments without getting into legal hot water? It’s a minefield and most of us are wandering around unaware of just how much naughtiness we’re engaging in on a daily basis.

Between you, me and the tree, it’s possible I’m going to have a slow burn in hell for some of the things I’ve done on my blog in the early days. But if my readers know anything about me, I’m constantly preaching things like:

• Permission
• Proper attribution
• Copyright
• Rights for images
• and other legal, boring shit like that.

I’ll pretty much guarantee that everyone reading this post today has something LEGALLY wrong with a post they’ve written (ahem – digs toe in sand). Our session is built to serve everyone from the personal brand to the corporate marketing go-to and designed to:

• Help you avoid the slow burn from legal missteps (unless you just like margaritas because I’ll be making those fresh each day in my condo in hell)
• Understand in NORMAL PEOPLE WERDS the key legal issues you need to understand if you’re going to run any sort of blog
• Make ridiculous fun of people who have made some pretty heinous mistakes online (did I hear Cook’s Source from someone in the audience?)

So, Janet and I hope you’ll join us for a rollicking session of She Said, She Said at Blog World Expo East next week! We’re leaving 15 minutes at the end of the session for Q&A as well – ask a blogger, ask an attorney. God knows, if you’re looking for two kinds of people with thoughts and opinions on something, what better pair than a blogger and an attorney?

Some steps to get this on your calendar (whether you’re attending Blog World or not):

• Register for Blog World. Yes, REGISTER!
• If you can’t attend in person, you van always register for the Virtual ticket, giving you access to all of the recorded presentations (ours will be recorded!).
• Our session is at 10:15 EST on Tuesday, May 24 – use a sharpie and ink that shit onto your calendar.
• Use the Interactive Schedule Planner to get this session on your agenda for Tuesday.
• You can follow the conversation on Twitter with the following hash tags: #BWENY #BWEEAST (both for the conference) and #naughtyblog (for our session)

See you, physically or virtually, in New York!

I never cease to be amazed by what moves me. On Sunday night, it was a place on the couch, dogs sprawled haphazardly at my feet like clothes I’d stripped off in a frenzy and remote in hand, bouncing back and forth between “The Wizard of Oz” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”

When’s the last time YOU rewound “The Wizard of Oz?”

I always found it a bit strange that once the man behind the curtain is revealed, he turns into a wisdom-spewing sage. Yet on this gazillionth viewing in my 38th year, I found myself rewinding to hear again the quote I posted above.

“Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”

I smiled.

I’ve never been a practical woman. Believing in true love, fairy tales, the impossible – things that don’t really satisfy a pragmatist’s idea of solid foundations. I love shoes that make my feet hurt, dresses you can’t sit down in and breakfast burritos so big they require a knife and fork.

It occurs to me that everything I love is impractical.

The Math of Impracticality

I’ll preface this by saying that perhaps what will follow isn’t real math, but it’s my blog and I’ll call it witchcraft, alchemy or whatever the hell I want. I can only speak from my experience, but the things I tend to love are the ones that offer challenges, surprises and unbelievable joy and pain (and often simultaneously). If we break it down into and equation of Erika Math, it might look like this:

things we set out to do + shit we didn’t expect = life’s memorable moments

And given that memories aren’t always good, they are one thing for certain: remarkable. There’s nothing practical involved when it comes to being surprised or coping with unbearable pain. Then again sheer bliss is also completely impractical as well. Perhaps it’s time, along with a renewed perspective on unpopular, we begin to embrace impractical as well.

Practicality Has Its Place

Gadgets are practical. I’d give my left tit for a Roomba, which is uber-geeky AND practical. Basic black pants, shoes and skirts? Practical. Clothes hampers? Practical. Dictionary.com offers this: “inclined toward or fitted for actual work or useful activities.” That describes the bike rack on my car, not really anything in my life that I love.

Everything we value in life – all that we love – be it our business, our families, our children, boyfriend/girlfriend, relationships, hearts, souls and minds…can be broken. They’re fragile. They require attention, nurturing, love, kindness and humility to foster. While practical things can break, they’re replaceable. There’s no replacing the impractical, however.

Emotions? Impractical. Apologies? Practical.

Falling in love? Dear christ, certainly impractical. Breaking up? A matter of practicality for our hearts most times.

Taking the corporate job for the stability, predictability and camaraderie? Practical and comforting (and great parking). Launching a business to pursue what we love? Highly impractical, considering the availability of a paycheck with taxes taken out and benefits a few blocks down.

Practicality Isn’t Bad

It’s the water of our lives, the foundation on our house, the chassis of our car. But it’s the nature of impracticality – the shifting sand that moves beneath our feet – that makes the people who drink the water, architects who design feats of structural wonder on top of those foundations and that are the gas in our cars that get us from where we are to where we want to be. It’s never practical to dream of what might be – as for me, it’s what gets me through the bullshit some days. And how I love to dream. They’re my what could have beens and what ifs, and more often, my what could bes and what I wants. Being a highly impractical woman is what made me who I am today. While capable of glorious fuckups and subject to broken hearts and failures beyond compare, it’s the upside of impracticality that rules above all every day when I crawl out of bed.

I’ll continue to be impractical and put my hand on the stove to learn its hot. The shittiest days of my life are those where I let practicality rule, because I lose feeling. Go numb. Sometimes you have to walk around barefoot in the grass and step in the dog crap to realize…shoes are practical.

The laughter that comes from the person watching you wash the shit off your feet? Highly impractical. And memorable, too.

I left the breezy, sunny, early spring evening behind me and walked into the lobby of the auditorium. Tweens and teens running everywhere. I had to pee. I made a beeline for the bathroom and when the door swung open, I was met by a chorus of giggles and “Uh mah gawwwwwwds” dripping from a group of girls all trading and changing clothes.

And then I couldn’t breathe. Panic attack.

For the first time since Jason died last year, I couldn’t breathe. And it all came rushing back to me: I hated high school and hadn’t step foot in one since the day before I graduated in 1991.

I was always the girl whose glasses were a bit (okay, a lot) too big with lenses tinted too lavender (shut up). I thought silly t-shirts were cool. I never had the latest fashions and hated that I had to roll up my shirts so they were the same short length as all of the other girls. Girls who were cheerleaders and on the drill team – they were cool. Girls like me…weren’t. And it made school, from elementary all the way to high school, a living hell.

I coped with academics. I have a photographic memory (I see words), so studying wasn’t much of a challenge. I read fast, got bored faster and was the girl one grade below in the AP U.S. History classes that all of the popular kids wanted to sit next to on test day so they could copy off my paper. I played volleyball but was never good enough for anything other than the JV squad. I managed the varsity softball team.

I never got asked to Homecoming.  I also got pregnant late in the summer before my senior year and spent the first Friday of that school year playing hooky so I could get an abortion. The girl who never had a boyfriend until her senior year of high school fucks it up first time out of the gate. He broke up with me a week before the prom.

But holy shit, could I take a test and write a paper.

A’s were easy. Well, except when it came to calculus my senior year of high school. I was a wiz with proofs. Unfortunately, we only spent 2 weeks on them. And then I pulled a D for my first six-weeks. That’s also when the assistant principal told my mom that if she spent less time working and more time in the home, maybe I’d be different. I could mentally hear my mom telling him to go fuck himself.

My friends were the freaks. The goth kids who wore funky clothes and all black and we had an ongoing contest to see who could bleach their hair the whitest. And the day of the honor graduates reception, nobody expected to see me walk in. Sure, I was a geek, but I looked funny. I wasn’t popular. I was pretty forgettable. And that day, a classmate asked, “What are you doing here?” with regards to my audacity to show up for the (invitation-only) honor graduates reception. My reply?

“Graduating above you.” (And it was true.) 9th out of 360 students. But I was unpopular. I had lots of time to study.

The best day of my life was the day I walked out of that school, never to return, because I got to leave behind over 300 students who had followed me for the past eleven years. I got to go be someone I never had the chance to be: me.

And Friday night, it all came rushing back. The pop show was stunning (some amazing talent – whoa), but it was everything I could do to stay until the very end because I just wanted to be able to breathe again.

For eleven years, I found ways to survive. I thought it would end there, but it didn’t. I spent the next five (I took a year off) at college, wanting to fit in with all the cool actor kids in the Theatre department at the University of Houston. I eventually said fuck it and went to the scene shop and costume shop and never looked back, opting to build things instead of try to compete in the games for which I didn’t know the rules. And while I graduated with a solid knowledge of costume history and proper use of pneumatic tools, it didn’t end there, either.

I went to work, like most of us do after college. In my biggest year, I had seventeen (one-seven, 17) W2s at tax time. Nothing fit.

Now, this whole story isn’t to gather up attendees for a pity party thrown in my honor. I have a feeling that many of you are all to familiar with the tune I’m hummin’. Being where I am today, I wouldn’t trade 30-some-odd years of unpopular for anything because I learned an invaluable lesson: how to survive.

What Unpopular People Have That Popular Ones Don’t

We can identify opportunities and slink off into the background to tap into them. No one is paying attention to us anyways. And by the time you figure out what we’re doing, you’re already relegated to playing a game of catch up if you decide to play any game with us at all.

The unpopular kids don’t rely on the opinions of others in order to deem whether something is a success or not. It’s why we love science, competitions, academics and research. Information offers validation.

We’re resilient. You can kick us time and time again and we’ll find ways to hide, morph, adapt and thrive.

We’re made to be entrepreneurs. There was a kickass article in Forbes not so long ago that speaks right to this. When no one’s your champion growing up, something really cool happens over time: you find ways to get things done without a whole lotta help. We’re born bootstrappers and have a lot of time to strategize since we know we’re not getting asked to the dance. But we’re all about organizing our own little Bootstrapper’s Ball.

And Wouldn’t It Be Lovely…

If we changed the way we thought about being unpopular? As kids, we’re awkward and always on the offense because kids are mean little shits. We’d rather be a Freak than a Shitkicker, because any label is better than none at all. Someone is always going to dislike us. But some of us have better tools for dealing with that (perceived) rejection than others.

There will always be kids like me (like us) who don’t get asked to Homecoming and who get dumped a week before the prom. Even though in my case, I got dumped for two girls (yes, two, dos, 2) and I enjoy to this day the irony of him wanting me back after the threesome had lost its charm. And yeah, it would have been really nice to be asked to a dance. To be someone’s date (which actually happened once in all those secondary years). But given where I am today, I like the unpopular route.

I did a poll on my Facebook page asking: “What’s the one thing that’s made your business more successful? Is it blogging? Networking? Hiring great people? Lay it one me and tell me why.” Do you know that not one person said that it was being the prom king or queen or being “well-liked?” The top responses, hands-down, were:

• Networking
• Relationships
• Referrals

The first two are things that are second nature to The Unpopular. We have to make our own networks because we didn’t get them by simply buying the right pair of jeans. Our networks bring us relationships. Relationships are real, multilayered things that require attention and nurturing. Perhaps we pay better attention to our relationships because no one paid attention to us. But those relationships earn us business and then, the referrals come.

Symbiotic, ain’t it?

Finding My Breath

So, for the first time since dealing with Jason’s death, I was without breath on Friday night and wondering when I could escape. I’m glad I stayed as long as I did and even more glad I got the serendipitous chance to revisit something that apparently scared the living shit out of me. Come 11pm that night, my heart had stopped racing and I was laughing that being on a high school campus alone had freaked me out to completely. Whodathunk? I’m never above being scared, so long as I walk away with some benefit from it. The takeaway this time? What makes us and a reminder of everything that makes me. And moreso, what doesn’t (and never will).

Why is your business successful and what do you struggle with? We all have our demons and if you’ve stayed this long, you’re pretty well acquainted with one of mine. But I figure if I’m going to have my demons on the payroll, they’re going to do some work, dammit.

And it was very quiet.

I have two three-year-old dogs. Hippopotamus (55 lbs) and Penelope (12 lbs) have free run of the house and I leave the back door open so they can do what they will. When they’re quiet, it freaks me out.

I got up from my office chair and walked out into the living room to find Big Dog and Small Dog on the cream-colored mid-century modern vintage sofa with a organeish-pink smear in front of them. They’d scored a cup of sweet and sour sauce. <insert expletive here>

Today’s blog is sponsored by Shout and one of these. Thank god for polyester blend upholstery.

Silence. It’s the number one sign that trouble is brewing in your business. We bitch and moan about our inboxes filling up and incessant phone calls, but here it is: that deafening silence? A sure-fire bet that you’re about to be hosed. When the clients stop asking questions, when the new business inquiries stop coming in, it’s likely a function of something you’ve done.

Or more importantly, not done.

And to some extent, we’re all a bit afraid of the phone ringing and emails pouring in, because they we have to figure out how to deal with the noise. I’m no different – there’s an Oh Shit factor attached to every one of my communication devices. But here are some ways I’ve come to welcome and deal with the noise, because the longer I deal with it, the more it begins to sound like a killer Etta James tune than a jackhammer outside my window:

• Flag Football: There’s a flag football game going on in my inbox. If I can’t get back to something immediately, I flag it with the goal that I don’t close the computer for the day until I deal with my flags. And while sometimes that doesn’t happen, I can sort my inbox by flagged items at any time and see where I can eat crow and get back to people ASAP.
• Program Your Phone: I try to get every one of my client phone numbers into my cell phone as soon as possible. Why? Because sometimes I have to ignore a call and I’m diligent about returning calls. Know who’s calling. Call them back. This keeps the phone ringing and also makes use of valuable car time. On the road? Call a client to touch base. Say hello. It’s the human side of your relationships (and the side that is often the most fun).
• Get Help: Dear business owner – You cannot do this alone. How many times do I have to say this? Amber Naslund had a great post earlier this week about email management and I admitted that I sucked. One of my followers contacted me that she’s a wiz with organization systems. BAM. You’re hired. She logs into my computer via LogMeIn when I’m offline for the evening and is getting me sorted out. There are a lot of things that I outsource so that I can pay attention to the parts of my business that keep business rolling in. And yes, they cost money. But it’s a small price to pay for sleeping at night, going to the gym in the morning and having ME at my beck and call 24/7.
• Manage the Asks: I met up with my colleague Doyle Albee earlier this week and he talked about The Levels of Ask. (And my friend, I can’t remember the blogger you mentioned who pioneered the concept, but weigh in down below if you can.) Lots of people will ask for your time. Favors. Access to your connections. Resources. You have to weigh these asks and sometimes, the asks are out of whack with the relationship level. For instance: if you’ve just met or have never met me and want to take me to lunch…that’s a HUGE ask. That’s time and intellectually intensive. However, if you drop me a two-line email with a simple question, I’m probably going to respond even though I’ve never met you. Different level of ask. You can’t give your time to everyone though everyone (quite simply) deserves it, so managing the asks will help you feel less shortchanged and make you, ultimately, more helpful. And some people just don’t know how much of your time they’re asking for. What seems small to them (coffee/lunch) might be a huge ask in your eyes.

There are times I love silence at they are usually ones that come when I’ve closed the MacBook and I get to pay attention to The Real World. But that’s my personal time. Silence in my business? Never a good thing. It means you’ve left something on the counter in Big Dog’s reach and you’re about to walk out and find a hot mess on your sofa. Polyester blend upholstery or not, cleaning it up is a bitch. Do what you can to keep momentum. Keep the noise coming. And soon enough, you’ll hear the rhythm in the chaos. It’s soothing, I assure you.

The winner? Dennis Higgins. Hit me up via one of the usual methods and that signed copy of Jay Baer and Amber Naslund’s The NOW Revolution is in the mail to ya! Why Dennis? He brought a pretty obscure brand to the table and offered a clear and concise line of reasoning why he’s been a fan (and a long-time one, at that). I was even convinced to bop over and have a gander. Close seconds were Jonathan Vaudreuil (even though I despise *bucks) and everyone who mentioned Ash over at The Middle Finger Project (who will be appearing on Redhead Writing as a guest blogger, thanks to you guys, very soon).

Secondly, I’ve submitted to speak at Blog World Expo in New York at the end of May. My topic? “Building the Unpopular Brand: Five Reasons to Turn Your Branding Thought Process Inside Out.” Having spoken mostly here on the West Coast for the last year, it’d be super cool to get East, meet some new faces and get to The Big Apple once again. I’m also pretty stoked to finally meet my literary agent and a publisher or two on the trip (awwyeah – HUGS!). If you’re on Twitter of Facebook, why don’t you help lobby to get me on the roster? Already, the conference is graced with the likes of Danny Brown, Amber Naslund, Jay Baer, Jason Falls and CC Chapman…maybe I’ll be lucky enough to join their ranks!

Here’s how you can help:

Facebook: Become a fan of the Blog World Expo page (not for nothing, they have a great news feed and post all of the conference updates). Please don’t bomb their wall with any lobbying moves to get me on deck as a speaker. Supporting the conference in and of itself is GREAT.

Twitter: Why don’t you ask @BlogWorld if they’ll add @RedheadWriting to the slate? Tag your tweets with #BWENY. After all, if I’m going to be talking about brand building, best to show that my audience knows how to walk the walk and not just talk the same old talk, right?

If you haven’t registered for BWENY yet, Early Bird registration ends on April 14. Hop on that shit, would ya? And if you’re already attending, holla in the comments!

And the last thing we’ll deal with today: some sound business advice.

Dickheads are everywhere. They lurk in line in front of you in the express checkout line, standing there with 23 items in the fewer than 15 items line. In your inbox, they’re conspicuously absent because they haven’t replied to the email you sent (ahem) a week ago. They’ll take all of your time and for little money. They ask for “favors” (and not the kind you get at a birthday party). Dickheads will keep you up at night and in your personal life, they’ll make you angry, sad, cry and potentially punch walls and shun your dog when he comes over to give you soggy kisses.

Fuck those guys.

If you let them run your business instead of — oh, I dunno — putting on your big kid britches and running it yourself, the only person you have to blame is yourself.

There are two kinds of dickheads: those who will never change and those who got up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe you’ve been a dickhead lately (I was last month – the “wrong side of the bed” variety). Do yourself a solid: take a dickhead inventory for your business…and your life, while you’re at it.

Who could you do without?

The wrong-side-of-the-bed variety dickhead can be talked to and brought back to the light from The Dark Side. The other? They’re not worth your time, energy, worries, anger or anything you can pick up in the $0.99 store clearance bin. It’s time to jettison the dickheads.

The coolest part of being YOU is the fact that YOU are the only one who determines the people with whom you do business. No one else. If your employer is a dickhead, go find a new one. If your client is a dickhead, fire them. If your boyfriend/girlfriend is a dickhead, dump ‘em.

Build your business — and your life — so that no one makes you feel shitty or as if you’re wasting your time. Life’s entirely too short (a fact I’m reminded of daily) to fill yourself up with people who don’t give you anything but headaches. Dickheads will come along every day (and I don’t know about you, but they’re usually in front of me at a stoplight…texting…putting on mascara…) but you have one simple choice to make:

Let yourself be stuck or find a way to go around ‘em. Beatrice the Mini Cooper and I? We go around.