productivity

burning questions with Dyana Valentine

Rare beauty, busy-ddiction, and not holding it back

I'm so jazzed to launch my Burning Questions interview series with some wit and wisdom from the one, the only, (put your hands together for...) Dyana Valentine. Lady Dy came to one of my Fire Starter groups in LA this spring. It was a magical night in part to her shimmer and substance. Dyana is part Aphrodite and part Clarissa Pinkola Estes, with a heaping dose of the Grandmaster of Funk, George Clinton. And as my creativity coach, she's helping me tear the roof off the mutha f*cker (aka my next book.) Her claim: "Helping self-starters self-finish, one project at a time."

1. What are you trying to discover?
Ways we can connect and collaborate to make electrifying changes in the way business is conducted and life is lived.

2. What do you believe that you didn’t believe before? What changed your mind?
I never believed that relaxing into something would get you anywhere; that and that being calm could be productive. Oh, shit--where do I start? Every time I stop this autobahn-style schedule; rest for a day or so; take a day of silence--magic (and yes, I mean MAGIC) happens. Clients roll in; I have a productively inspiring dream; a new workshop springs out of a well-crafted, slow dinner at home. The evidence is there for the powerful productivity of peaceful energy--and so is the devotion to my busy-ddiction.

I still schedule myself within an inch of my truth, but on those remarkable days when I shut up and sit down--the beauty is there. Maybe I need to reexamine my belief that beauty is rare, huh?

3. What do you know the most about?
Photography, cooking, parsing large concepts into easy-lingo, connecting seemingly disparate ideas and making sense of patterns.

4. What book(s) are you always telling people to read?
Dan Roam: The Back of the Napkin
Malcolm Gladwell: Blink
Alice Waters: Chez Panisse Vegetables
Allan and Bargara Pease: The Definitive Book of Body Language

5. Inspiration flashback: When is the last time you thought, “Yes! That person has so got it going on!”?
Seriously: in June at the Fire Starter about YOU (mischievous sage, laser-lens witness). Melanie Orndorff (wicked smart idea mine); Jeni Herberger (stunner, visionary, ass kicker), Steve Gordon, Jr. (design a go-go, psychiatric nurse calming presence)

6. I’m going to give you a word. Tell me what the first thing that comes to mind when you read it... Ready? The word is: fecund.
Pregnancy, potential, creating conditions for miracles to happen; world-wide distribution; name in lights; striding across a stage with a cheek-mic rocking some prada-meets-patagonia superfly duds and TELLING IT.

7. What question are you currently living?
Knowing what I know about myself, my values and my goals: how dare I hold back?

Dyana, darling, You? Even more unleashed? I dare you.

find Dyana:
http://dyanavalentine.com/
on Facebook
on Twitter: @DyanaValentine

Next week's Burning Questions Interview: Chris Guillebeau, world traveler and founder of The Art of Non Conformity

 

copyright, bullshit, and good manners

So I get this letter a few months ago from the Intellectual Property Officer of Strategic Coaching. I posted a (great) article a while back called, "entrepreneurial time management: how i rock it," and they were ticked. "Copy written terms" and blah blah blah. I laughed out loud when I read it. For a few reasons.

Even the most daft entrepreneur knows that:

1) The internet is the global brain. Once an article is firing on the internet neurons, you've got to work strategically hard and deftly to have it buried - fortunately or unfortunately.

The instinctively wise entrepreneurs know that:

2) You GO WHERE THE LOVE IS. You pay very close attention to the people, customers, commenters, and buyers who are paying very close attention to you. You don't waste time trying to convert fringe audiences or to quiet outlying critics - it's an extremely inefficient use of marketing energy. You feed the tribe and keep on supporting them to be your freaking raving mavens.

The daft, wise and enlightened entrepreneurs know that:

3) Good manners are good karma.

And with that, I'm happy to share with you my response to those who are so tightly guarding their uh, copyright:

Dear Intellectual Property Officer and Entrepreneurial Time Management Team,

So let me get this straight: I write an excellent blog post extolling the virtues of your Entrepreneurial Time Management System, foremost siting Dan Sullivan as the creator of the system, linking back to his website, and also linking to a free article of his on www.entrepreneurship.org in which he outlines the system -- and you send me a litigiously-minded email full of copyright declarations, asking me to "take immediate steps to cease use of these concepts on your website, and that [I] refrain from so doing in the future."

Hmmm. I'm confused. Because, in my world, a glowing review such as the one I gave your system is golden publicity that you can't pay for. (more...)

 

the master of less: leo babauta

Leo Babuata just released The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life, and is the zen behind ZenHabits.net, a wildly popular blog on simple productivity. I couldn't resist asking him:

What do you want more of?
There's nothing physical I'd like more of ... in fact, I'm always getting rid of stuff as my possessions naturally accumulate. But there are two things I'd like more of: (more...)

 

creative quickies: the wonders of 15 minute time restraints

I’ve noticed a definite pattern in the countless jam sessions I’ve had with colleagues and clients ... the best idea gems often surface in the last few minutes.

A morning spent teasing out the best strategy... Two hours back ‘n forthing on what to name the campaign... And, just as you’re clearing away the coffee cups and packing up your sticky notes, someone says, “You know...what if we just called it Whazam and went direct to whozit?” Silence. Everyone looks at each other and someone exclaims, “That’s it!”

Those innermost feelings that needed to be spoken, the winning formula ... they often slip onto stage as the curtain is getting ready to drop, because we’ve stopped performing and relax into the creative high. It’s usually at the end of meeting when people start to joke and goof off. We save comfort and play for last.

CREATIVE QUICKIES ARE THE WAY TO GO: 15 MINUTE JAM SESSIONS
If the good stuff so often surfaces at the end, then the trick is to end it sooner. Quit while you're ahead. Short idea intervals work wonders. “Let’s jam on the story line for 15 minutes.” And stick to it. Then you can brainstorm on fund raising for 15 minutes. The pressure gets the energy rising. The bursts of creative focus will start to feed each other. It’ll all weave into a big picture. (more...)

 

The Power of Less, Leo Babauta

Simple but oh-so true.