Blog - Page 77 of 108

Your invitation to get effective

This year Diane + I held two sessions of a live class that was crazy popular. But every time, we'd get a pile of emails from people saying: This week just doesn't work for me, will you hold it at another time? And as we want to say yes to every single person, we also have a pile of other ideas and projects we're just dying to do.

So we made it timeless. You can take the “class” anytime, anywhere, for as long as you like: it is now in one downloadable PDF.

The only downside: we love the personal question-answering, brainstorming, exciting work that comes from working with someone on their specific blog.

To get our fill, and to celebrate our new book, we're holding three live video one-on-one sessions this week:

Tuesday, October 9th, 1:00 pm EST (10:00 am PST)
We’ll be talking with Brooke Siennes of Sincere Sheep.

Wednesday, October 10th, 2:00 pm EST (11:00 am PST)
We’ll be talking with Sarah Wilson of The Sexy Knitter.

Thursday, October 11th, 4:00 pm EST (1:00 pm PST)
We’ll be talking with Melissa Gruntkosky of Pressbound.

You can watch, for free, right here.
If you want to share your comments or ask your questions, use the hashtag #effectiveblog

And if you want to make your blog more effective, get the workbook here.

Feel Good: Homemade Pumpkin Spice Soy Chai

As part of my Feel Good Experiment, I'm paying attention to what feels good, and that includes all those tiny wants. You know, when you're in the middle of something, but you think, I would really love a hot cup of tea. Well, now that I'm paying attention, I realize that I crave warm beverages a lot. All day. I want coffee in the morning, tea all day, and hot chocolate at night. But then I tell myself, Ok, just wait until you finish this email. Or, Get one later. And 8 hours later I still don't have my tea and it's time for bed and I say, Oh well, I'll get one tomorrow.

Homemade soy pumpkin chai & pumpkin oatmeal. Yum.

Putting off a cup of tea might not be a big deal…once. But my daily deprivation, my unfun do-this-before-you-get-what-you-want game is a sign of something bigger. It's a failure to really listen in to what my body wants, and it's a symbol of all the other things I don't listen to (stretching a cramped leg, getting that Dr's appointment, a feeling that this project isn't quite-right).

So a cup of tea is the perfect place to start listening in to what feels good. It's small, it's risk-free, it's delicious and warming. And taking the time to make a perfect cup (and then enjoy sipping it) is a lovely reminder that I'm allowed to feel good, that I'm allowed to bring more good things into my life.

Yesterday I posted the above picture to Instagram and got a few requests for my recipe, so here it is, my guide to make the perfect cup:

There are two steps to making this tea: make the pumpkin spice + brew the tea. The first step can be done way in advance – I make pumpkin spice in bulk every week and then add it to everything: smoothies, oatmeal, coffee, apple pie.

I started with this recipe, but tweaked it to fit my put-it-in-anything plans.

Pumpkin Spice for Anything:

1 cup of pumpkin puree
2 tsp cinammon
1 tsp ginger (I love it freshly-grated, but dried will work too)
1/2 tsp nutmeg (you might want more, but I don't really like it)
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 cup soy milk *

Mix it all up with a fork. It'll still be a bit thick, but that's ok, because you're going to add liquid any time you blend it in to anything. Seal it up and keep it in the fridge for a week.

*Important note about non-dairy milk substitutions:

I prefer almond milk (and hemp milk) for just about everything: baked goods, on my cereal, smoothies…but NOT for this. Other milks get weird when you heat them up…almond milk gets bitter, hemp milk starts to curdle and rice milk heats fine, but it's just way too thin for a creamy drink. If you're going to mix this in hot tea or coffee or oatmeal, use soy milk.

(Could you use milk? Sure…but why would you? The soy milk has a sweet nuttiness that really plays well with chai)

Making the tea

2 Tbl Rishi Tea: Masala Chai (loose tea)*
1 cup soy milk
1 cup water

;

Put the tea and liquids in a little pot and bring it to boiling. The directions tell you to boil it for 5 minutes, however! If you keep it all the way up at High for 5 minutes, it gets a little bitter. So I turn it down to medium (still boiling, but less angrily) right after if it comes up to boiling. Set your timer and enjoy the chai-y fumes.

While the chai is bubbling, scoop a big spoonful of your spiced pumpkin into the bottom of your cup. If your drinking cup has a narrow mouth, use a wide mouth bowl or measuring cup for the next step. I want the hot liquid to hit the pumpkin to dissolve it, so scoop the pumpkin into whatever you're going to strain your tea into it. While you're at it, get out your strainer.

When the timer dings, pull the tea off the stove and strain it. The pumpkin should dissolve nicely, but give it a quick stir just to be sure. If you've strained it into something else, pour into your mug.

There you go! Delicious pumpkinness!

And if you've got a little tea left over, pour it into your oatmeal.
(Go on and add an extra scoop of the spiced pumpkin to your oatmeal while you're at it.)

A few other ideas:

The spiced pumpkin recipes all call for sweetener. If your tea isn't sweet enough for you, splash in some maple syrup. The soy milk I used had some sugar in it, so I didn't need any, but when I add the pumpkin spice to coffee, I usually do.
If you don't have loose leaf tea, use a tea bag (I like these) steeped in 1/2 soy, 1/2 water, then mix in the pumpkin.
If you've got the chai liquid stuff, mix it with soy as directed on the box, heat it up, then scoop in the pumpkin. (I like the Oregon Chai brand.)
When you're all warmed up (or sipping this butternut soup), make a pumpkin smoothie! 1 frozen banana, 2 scoops of spiced pumpkin, about a cup of almond milk, 1 Tbl of flax seeds: blend it all up.

What's your favorite feel-good drink of the fall?

The Adventures

This week was quite an adventure. An all-day doctor's appointment, a funeral and burial (my husband's great aunt, beloved by his mother), and (on a happier note!) the Starship opening for new members.

The view

I'm addicted to apples.

Apple pie pancakes, from this recipe.

A typical work morning: coffee, oatmeal, to-do list and laptop.

The view from the library (my second favorite working spot)

Dyeing hemp laceweight for a wholesale order.

In the funeral procession.

The finds

I (finally) collected success stories from Starshippers and have been sharing them with the Early Boarding list. Sign up here to get a dose of inspiration.
Kim is making a TV show that teaches SKILLS, not just projects. Support it!
Ack! This is so cute I want to crochet all the Doctors!
Serendipity! The very day I declare my intention to feel good, Anna posts about her very same experiment!

What was your week like? What were your adventures?

One year ago: What are Right People

Two years ago: You're making it hard for me to give you money.

Three years ago: Autumnal To Do

How to experiment and feel good

This month, things are going to be different.
How often do you say that? This year, this month, this week, this next hour.
But how? How do you make an hour or week or month different?
Do you buckle down and try harder and push more?
Does that make you more productive? Or more tired?

I'm trying something totally different.

For this month's experiment, my premise is simple: do more of what feels good, and less of what doesn't.

Basic math, right? Add in more good stuff, and my life will have more good. If I listen to what I actually like (and not just what I think I should do), I'll be happier and more sure I'm making the right decisions.
But…what's good, what's bad?

What do I mean by feeling good?
Things that feel good…
-bring me joy
-connect me to others
-feed my enthusiasm
-build momentum
-are comforting
-nourish me

My theory is simple: If I say yes to more good-feeling stuff, my work and my days will be filled with good-feeling stuff.

I have to admit that there's a loud voice of midwestern pragmatist that tells me this a terrible idea. If everyone just did what felt good, our society would break down! People would be selfish! I'll be selfish!

But wait, is that true?
My experience with this is that when I do what feels good, it's often the kind thing, the gentle thing. Being truly selfish, or being rude or self-centered actually feels awful. For example, this week my husband's great aunt died. I'll be attending the funeral this week, and while it sounds hard and unfun (funerals are never easy), I know that going and comforting my husband and his family will actually feel good. Not happy dancing, giggling good, but deeply, profoundly right. Connecting with people always feels better than disconnecting (even when it's scary).

The trick is knowing the difference between what I think will feel good (or what I think I should do) and what will actually feels good.

Another example: people often ask to work one-on-one with me. And as much as I love talking to someone and getting to know them, the one-on-one relationship is just too short to be fulfilling + productive enough for me. What feels great is working alongside someone for a few months and seeing the growth in their business. So I've learned that what will really feel great is having them in the Starship, and helping them over time, so I can celebrate the Yays and help them through the Overwhelms. This goes against every bit of advice, and every bit of good sense. But it's true for me, and time has shown that it's good for the people I'm here to help. They get more momentum, which leads to more resutls, and in the meantime we both to know what'll work in the future.

But so far, I've been guessing. I've stumbled onto what works and what doesn't.

That's where the experiment comes in, to see if this is, in fact, something true, something I can trust.

My hypothesis: Doing more of what feels good will bring more good. Period.
The Parameters: At least once a day (before I start making my to-do list), ask myself: How can I bring more of what feels good into the day? And how can I get rid of what doesn't? I hope to remember to also ask myself this before making any decisions (Will I take on this project? What will I eat for lunch? Should I focus on this or that today?)

During the experiment, I'll be sharing the things that feel great, and inviting you to do the same.

Are you experimenting this month?

If this experiment thing is new to you, read How to Experiment right here. Join in by sharing your experiment (make up your own or join me in feeling good) in the comments. And if you'd like to to check in weekly (and ask questions) during your experiment with others, check out the Starship.

How to Experiment: Review

Happy New Month!*

The beginning of a new month means its time for a new experiment! We'll start the new one tomorrow, but today let's review how the last one went (Reviewing is Step 4 of Experimenting).

My experiment

I decided to experiment with asking myself one question every day, to see how that regular, focused attention would shift both the thing, and my relationship to the thing. My daily question was: What can I do to make the Starship more awesome?

What did you learn?

Wow! I know I have this realization all the time, but it's so true! When you turn the sunlight of your attention to one thing, it flourishes and grows. After over a year of steering the Starship, I thought I was pretty settled. I know why people join, I know what they get out of it, I know what works well. Or so I thought. Asking myself the question repeatedly, and forcing myself to come up with at least oneanswer every day allowed me to dig deeper, beyond what I thought I knew. Questions led to more questions, which led to more tiny experiments.

Some examples:

One day, I twisted the question a bit: How can I make the Starship awesome-er on the inside? And that got me thinking: Why do people on the inside like it? What do they get the most out of? How can I increase the stuff I know they love?
I started asking Captains, and then I realized we have some real success stories. People join and then reach their goals, grow their business and change in a zillion tiny ways. So that prompted me to interview those people, as an encouragement to everyone (those stories will appear in the Early Boarding Party)

I also recognized that relationships are the driving force behind everything good. It's the reason people come to the check-ins each week, it's the reason they work hard to have something good to share in the check-in. It's the reason they open up and ask their most-scary, most-stuck questions.

So of course the follow-up is: how do I feed those relationships? And how do I help connect new ones?
(I've got a whole list of answers that I'm working through, including more one-on-one time with me, offering taste tests to the Early Boarding List, more videos)

Conclusion

This is the best thing in the world. Take your thing, anything you love, from a product to a service to a relationship and ask “How can I make it awesomer?” every day. Allow yourself to see beyond the obvious, to see beyond what you “know.”

Change does not mean failure. Acknowledging that there are changes that can be made is NOT the same as admitting you did it wrong before. Everything in business is iterative. And things take time. So making changes is a sign of a sustainable business, not a sign that you messed it up before.
And if you did mess it up? Now that you recognize that and are making changes, this is good news, not bad.
That, that whole change is not failure thing, is maybe the hardest lesson for me, and I learn it a little more everyday.

This is the heart of any experiment:

Permission to get it “wrong”
Accepting there might not be a “right” way
Giving yourself space to be surprised
Embracing change as growth, not a sign of past failure

And now it's time to review your experiment:

What did you learn from this experiment?
Does that give you an idea of what else you might try?
Do you want to experiment with something similar to gather more data or switch to something totally different?

Share your results and review in the comments, or on the Facebook page.

*I had a very rotund 7th grade Ohio History teacher, Mr. Antonopolis, who would start every new month with that exclamation and an explanation that it was customary to greet each other this way in…some country, and I can't say it without thinking of him.

The Adventures

Each week is an adventure. And each week I take a minute to acknowledge it, right here.

Let's try something new this week, inspired by Ali.

This week, I am…

Delighting over pumpkin trucks.

Roasting tomatoes and garlic for the easiest pasta sauce (blend up with a bit of salt and fresh basil.)

Marking things off my list.

Perfecting a Pumpkin Spice cupcake.

Snuggling Andre + Beau.

Reveling in the farmer's market bounty.

Sipping coffee from my new pour-over coffeemaker. Pumpkin Spice Lattes at home? Yes!

And…
Anticipating Gone Girl (it finally came in at the library, I'm waiting for the weekend)

Sending this to everyone. ( #14 is our mantra.)

Winding endless skeins (625 yards each!) of hemp laceweight for a wholesale order (in Norway!)

Collecting success stories from Starship Captains. It is amazing what people have done in even 3 months inside. It's really making my week, every week.

Connecting in new and interesting ways. From videos with Kim to planning with Cairene to editing with Diane. It feels good to get out of my own head + notebook and see the world with someone else.

Exploring a new way of working. As I let go of old projects, I get to explore how I want it to be, with how I want to feel, and what I want to create. Every project, old and new, is up for renewal. It's both terrifying and thrilling.

What adventures did you have this week?

Share them here: comments.

Follow your bliss? Or make what they want?

It's all well and good to talk about bringing more of yourself into your business (and we'll be talking about it tons in today's workshop), but what about the other side of the equation? What about what your people want? How do you balance the two day after day? How do you decide what to make? What you love? Or what sells like hotcakes? We're always talking about this in the Starship, so I invited artist (and Starship member) Amy Crook to share her thoughts with us:

When I go to galleries, the pieces I really connect with are often abstracts. Online, it's usually adorably clever fan art. Sometimes I'm fascinated by technique or quite humanly envious of talent, skill, and “I wish I'd thought of that”-ness. Sometimes I just want to stand and stare at the piece for a while, especially with in-person art.

When I'm making art, I'm often inspired by my own materials and techniques. I want to play, to try this or that and see how it comes out. I want to create a piece of art that gives the same sense of connection to the viewer as those pieces I see in the gallery.

Or I want to draw something clever and adorable that connects with the fannish awww (different from fannish awe) in my audience. I want my characters to be recognizable but still a cute parody, and for the concept to be clever and original.

But what I'm really hoping for, sometimes, is that pull of DO WANT in my audience.

The problems arise when these two things come into conflict. When the art that makes my soul sing and my fingers fly, my brush swoop and heart soar, is art no one seems to want to take into their home and love and keep (naming it George: totally optional). When the idea that makes me grin like a loon goes over like a lead balloon with my audience.

When I put up what I think people want, or what I would want, and the crickets chirp and dollars totally fail to roll in.

The problem is, no matter how much pure inspiration goes into a piece, I'm not the “create for yourself” sort. Perhaps it's a flaw in my character, but I want someone else to appreciate my art, otherwise, what is really the point? I could imagine my art all by myself without ever having to lift a brush or pen, and save a lot of time and effort to put into accountancy or something.

The other problem shows up when the art that people want more of isn't something I want to make again and again, as an artist. If it's something that I've lost interest in, or was just trying as a one-off and don't want to pursue. Or worse, if it's something that I didn't actually like that much, but went ahead and shared because I needed to post something and sometimes someone still likes the ones that are too orange or too busy or too squidgy for me.

It's easy to say “be true to yourself” when you're not worried about making next months rent (spoiler: freelancers are always worried about this). Nothing about this issue is black and white, except maybe some of the art.

So how do you balance the things people want with the things you want to create? Does inspiration dry up or move on when a series or style gets no love or no sales? Or do you keep on trucking through the wastelands of commercially unviable creations, trying to find your way out the other side without giving up on the ideas that excite you?

I don't really have answers here, just questions. Thinky thoughts. Quandaries. What do you think?

(All of the images in the post are Amy's art. Click through to see details or buy it.)

3 steps to embracing your multitudes (for when you want to do and be more)

During the last week, my inbox and Twitter stream has been full of your stories about being More Than One Thing. Although there are a zillion ways to be more than one thing, and a million ways of working it out in your business, it seems that most everyone's stories fit into one of three patterns:

You wear a lot of hats. As a maker-seller, you design the product, make the product, do the bookkeeping, manage the marketing, and label each and everything. This is less about your you-ness and more about scheduling, being productive and making a map. Whether you sell scarves or apps, being a small business owner is all about juggling the myriad responsibilities and priorities.
You have so many interests, but your public “persona” doesn't reflect your gorgeous ginormousness. You might sell sewing patterns, but you also knit and do puppetry. Oh, and you love Battlestar Gallactica and vegan cupcakes. You feel the pressure to “just do one thing” in order to seem more “professional”…but it's starting to wear you down. While you want to bring your unique you-ness into your business, you struggle with knowing what you want to make part of your public persona. (This is the thing I have the hardest time with.)
You are known for making and selling one thing…but it feels limiting. You want to introduce a new product or line, but you're not sure how it fits in the other stuff you've been doing.

Do you recognize yourself in one of these?

(or maybe all three?)

The good news: it's normal.
As your business grows, you grow. As a maker, your creativity wants new-ness and excitement, and after a while, doing and making just one thing gets boring (and stifling). Feeling the chafe of wanting to be more than what you have been, to bring more of yourself into your business is a sign that you're that building a more sustainable business.

It's worth the initial struggle. When you create different streams of income, you've got a stronger business. When you're more you, you find new customers. When you try new things, your creativity is reinvigorated. Both Kim and I have stories of resisting and then, finally, embracing our multitidues and finding greater success, greater connection, more fulfilling work.

So where do you start? If you recognize yourself in one of the scenarios above…what do you do next?

It's a process.

It takes time to first just get comfortable, and then to get strategic about how to resolve it.
In my experience, the process can be something like:

1. Identify the multitudes.
Go through the above three scenarios and list out all the ways this is true for you.

2. Find something to start with.
Take a look at your list and notice: which one wants to be shared? Which part of you feels stifled right now?

3. Experiment.
Try incorporating just a smidge more of you in your next blog post, newsletter or even product description. And then take note, what happens? For real scientific proof (especially useful if this feels scary), conduct a real experiment.

What are your multitudes? What do you want to experiment with?

Kim and I are sharing real-world strategies for broadening your business by embracing your multitudes in tomorrow's workshop. We'll cover hire-me pages, juggling multiple income streams and managing multiple projects (we'll cover scenario #2 + #3.) If you're struggling with the “too many hats” problem, we create personalized solutions each week, inside the Starship.

The Adventures

The view

Knitting with the Doctor :: bunny-spotting :: cheering color :: bonding cats :: project life-ing :: packing up Monthly Yarn Mail ::

The Finds

My new class (live next week!) with Kim, is the most exciting thing this week. The class has generated great conversations on Twitter & in my inbox. Join More Than One Thing here.

Can we just agree I'm going to love everything Cairene writes? Her series on why it takes longer than you thought is spot on.

This week's jam is PYT and (my secret shame!) MmmBop. Go on, you know you want to!

Blogsy is my new favorite app; I finished this post on my iPad while waiting.

And just in case…

I've been getting a really stunning amount of interview/writing requests lately. If you blog or think or wonder about crafty businesses and you'd like to ask me questions (or ask me to write about it), get in touch, right here.

The Best + Worst advice for your business

Today Kim wrote about some of the worst advice she ever got, and it shocked me, because it's strikingly similar to what I considered to be some of the best advice I ever got.

A business advisor told me: Become an expert, and then share that expertise.

This is when I was only dreaming about making yarn full time, and I took her advice immediately to heart. I knew that what would matter to my yarn-buying customers is my expertise about eco-friendly yarn sources. So I started researching, writing, and just generally sharing what I was learning. And that landed me in my first magazine and my photos in a eco-focused knitting book, which gave me the confidence to pitch my first paid writing gig. And all that strengthened my business to the point where I could quit my dayjob and make yarn full-time. When I started getting questions about how I quit my dayjob, I realized people saw me as an expert in that, so I did lots more research (I was already obsessively reading every business book published in the last 3 decades) and started share that. Three years, and conversations with hundreds of creative businesses later, I wrote a book.

So, for me, this was great advice.

It gave me focus. It gave me a goal. And it gave me an effective content marketing plan (I always knew what to write about and what oppurtunities to pursue).

But a funny (unintended) thing happened.

I focused so tight, I narrowed myself. I put so much work into exploring my One Thing, that I cut off other things. I assumed that yarn people (or, business people) only wanted to hear about the one thing…so I filtered everything through that One Thing…to the death of the wholeness, of my complicated-ness.

It's that steely focus that made me SO terrified to start writing and talking about business, even when I really wanted to. It's that cold pragmatism that makes me so shy to share my utter geekiness. And it's that unyielding narrowness that made it hard, and yet so so necessary to write about the you-ness in your business.

I'm just starting to break free from self-imposed exile, and in doing so, I'm seeing that this isn't based on good business sense, it's fear. Fear to be myself, even among the people who love me best. Fear of boring you, annoying you, or just being misunderstood.

But I know I'm not alone in this. Every month I have a conversation with a crafter that says “I've really been thinking about doing x…but is that too far out there? Too unexpected?” The designer that wants to build software. Or the writer who wants to do puppetry videos.

I'm still figuring this out, but Kim is one of my heroes. She built an enviable career around crochet and editing, and then chucked it. And yet, her worst fears didn't come true. She still thrived. She still worked. She still got to pursue her passions.
And I look at other heroes, the artist who brings her fangirl-ness into her work. And I look at my own history. I thought, when I started talking about business to my yarn customers, that they would be bored…but I couldn't ignore my enthusiasm and followed it into a whole new career that I adore.

And you're not alone either.
If you're nodding along, if you've got passions, interests and just ideas that don't fit in with what you're doing now, let's talk about that! Join me + Kim next Tuesday (just one week!) while we discuss all this. We'll talk about how to build a business that can contain your multitudes, and how to handle all the sticky situations that come up (talking to your uncle at Christmas, or introducing something new to your customers). We've got adivce, stories, and answers and ideas for your specific situation. Join us right here.

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To get our fill, and to celebrate our new book, we're holding three live video one-on-one sessions this week:

Pumpkin Spice for Anything:

*Important note about non-dairy milk substitutions:

Making the tea

A few other ideas:

What's your favorite feel-good drink of the fall?

The view

The finds

What was your week like? What were your adventures?

I'm trying something totally different.

The trick is knowing the difference between what I think will feel good (or what I think I should do) and what will actually feels good.

But so far, I've been guessing. I've stumbled onto what works and what doesn't.

That's where the experiment comes in, to see if this is, in fact, something true, something I can trust.

Are you experimenting this month?

Happy New Month!*

My experiment

What did you learn?

Some examples:

Conclusion

This is the heart of any experiment:

And now it's time to review your experiment:

This week, I am…

What adventures did you have this week?

But what I'm really hoping for, sometimes, is that pull of DO WANT in my audience.

It's easy to say “be true to yourself” when you're not worried about making next months rent (spoiler: freelancers are always worried about this). Nothing about this issue is black and white, except maybe some of the art.

I don't really have answers here, just questions. Thinky thoughts. Quandaries. What do *you* think?

Do you recognize yourself in one of these?

So where do you start? If you recognize yourself in one of the scenarios above…what do you do next?

What are your multitudes? What do you want to experiment with?

The Finds

So, for me, this was great advice.

But a funny (unintended) thing happened.

I don't really have answers here, just questions. Thinky thoughts. Quandaries. What do you think?