Here's a rehearsal clip of the stars of Christmas Unplugged - an a cappella holiday show put together by me and Jen Harris.
Pictured from left to right: Kasie Johnson, Jen Harris, me, Ryan Johnson and Steve Harris.
I have to confess feeling a little like a 5th wheel with these two wonderful married couples surrounding me with their beautiful voices. And this is Ryan's FIRST-ever public appearance. We're so proud of him!
We're doing 2 sets during ArtWalk in Flint this Friday at The Lunch Studio - 6:30pm and 8pm. Hope you'll join us (it's FREE!).
Last year, I was introduced to a concept that I've continued to grapple with from time to time. The picture below is taken from page 61 of Dr. Maria Nemeth's book "The Energy of Money". It's an illustration that one of her teachers once shared with her:
When my coach first introduced it to me, it made perfect sense. I spent little time trying to understand it, and a TON of time trying to figure out where I was on that path.
I recognized I spent a lot of time pretending, a little time being afraid, and almost NO time embracing who I really am.
Sadly, my own experience as a coach tells me I'm not the only person living this way.
These three identities: The Pretender, The Coward, and True Self show up at various moments (more…)
In this final segment of my interview with Sarah Robinson, we're talking about the Fierce Loyalty Accelerators, specifically, exclusivity and love. Sarah talks about how the accelerators aren't meant to be a stand-alone device to employ, but work in tandem with the Fierce Loyalty model to help you grow an intensely committed community of like-minded people (your tribe, your Noble Empire). Sarah also speaks candidly about why she chose self-publishing over the traditional route, as well as the results of working with a hand-picked street team to launch her book.
January's over, and I'm about 5% of the way toward my BHAG of recording 300 songs in 2013. That's 21 songs toward my ultimate goal of 300. Only 279 to go!
Anyone else would say "Holy crap! you've recorded that many songs!?! That's Awesome!"
Me? I have to remind myself to not be all "meh" about it.
Because I want to be at 300 - like, yesterday.
This is where it gets hard, and why so many people fall off the "new year resolutions" band wagon by the end of January. The novelty of the project has worn off. There's only so many times you can share what you're doing with people. And since I'm in earliest stages of the project, it's not like I have a huge catalog of music to point to so that I can say "Hey! Look how awesome I am!"
All that comes later - as we near completion of the project. After the hard work of DOING the work is complete (or at least much farther along). It's one of the downsides of living in an instant gratification economy.
I chose to record 300 songs because it's a point of deliberate practice for me. There are so many songs in the world, and this will broaden my musical horizons both as a composer and as a performer. Frankly, it's been way too long since I've spent focused time working on my music (8+ years, to be more precise), and it's a necessary effort for my development as an artist. Sites like fiddlersguide.com would definitely incredibly beneficial for my musical growth.
It can be lonely, grueling, thankless, grunt work as you go along. No one celebrates your do-overs.
I'm pretty sure Thomas Edison wasn't saying "Hoo-ah! That's attempt number 907 for an incandescent bulb that didn't work! Guys, this is freaking AWESOME!"
No, I'm pretty sure it was more like this:
"Attempt 907 didn't work. Let's get on with number 908."
And on life went in Menlo Park. No celebration, no fist-bumping, no toasting the talents of the insanely brilliant team working to make electric light possible.
Just doing the work. Until that 1,000th attempt (or thereabouts) when light was finally stable and constant.
No, I'm pretty sure before the sustained light brought raucous celebration, there were grumbles about quitting, wives that wondered what their husbands were doing all day in that lab (and if they were ever coming home for dinner), and a lot of head scratching as they were working through their problem.
Just the daily grind of trying to create awesome.
We don't often celebrate the process of creating awesome, just the awesome itself, once it's been created.
And it can be pretty lonely when your awesome creation takes time.
I try to remind myself that I have all year, and that I'm actually right on track to achieve my goal. I celebrate my "small wins", and then I come out of my studio and back into "the world".
It's here that I'm struck with the overwhelming loneliness that comes with doing great work.
I'm not complaining (much), really. It's more of an observation that I've seen a lot of creatives go through. We put our heads down, impassioned by the task of our great work, and then time flies. We're "left behind" in other areas because we're so intensely focused on what matters most in the moment.
Watching friends chatting on facebook about some song or another that I haven't heard yet because my head's been down, working on this project.
I was blessed to have my friend Jen Harris join me in the studio to record "Edelweiss". It was such a breath of fresh air in Michigan's wonky January weather to have another pair of ears in the room listening, singing, and suggesting our way through the song.
It was a creative revival for me that lasted just long enough to get a lot of joy, and hardly any frustration. My studio's a nice place for folks to visit, but I don't want them living there, if you know what I mean. Jen came in to rehearse on Friday, and we finished up on Saturday. Smooth like buttahh!
Then, something fascinating happened. Not only was I reinvigorated, but there was a positive "disturbance in the force" so to speak. People were talking about the work we did together, and that got other people excited about coming into the studio later this year.
Gone was the old ho-hum of recording songs. Suddenly, there was a freshness to the work I'd already done, as well as the work I was setting out to do. No longer was I feeling "meh" about anything. I'm wondering if Jen kind of planned it that way. She's a pretty smart cookie, I gotta say, so I wouldn't put it past her.
When we put our heads down and get focused, it can be easy to lose sight of everything around us. It's easier still to get mired in the daily grind of the creative process. The countless rehearsals, the re-touching, the practice sessions ad infinitum, ad nauseum, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...
We forget how important deliberate practice is, and how we need to bring ourselves to it fully.
Even when no one else is watching, when no one else is celebrating, when no one else seems to care an iota.
Because when all the practice is done, and it's time to perform, they ARE watching, and talking, and loving what you've done.
You've just got to put the work in first.
In part one, Sarah Robinson and I sat down to talk about her own business evolution, as well as her book, “Fierce Loyalty: Unlocking the DNA of Wildly Successful Communities”. This is part two of a three part interview, wherein we discuss Sarah's Fierce Loyalty Model (enhanced with graphics! Ooooh! Ahhhh!).
[Editor's note: when we migrated to the new site, a lot of great posts got lost. Slowly, I'll be digging them out, updating them, and reviving them for your inspiration. So if this post feels strangely familiar, that's why.]
This past year, I've been not-so-covertly working with Karl Staib on his twitter parties. He's been helping best-selling authors like Danielle LaPorte and Jennifer Louden sell more books and reach new audiences through a blend of teleclass and tweet chat that he calls twitter parties. My role is to manage the conversation on twitter and award prizes to the participants at intervals throughout the party, while he handles the interview and conversation on the phone.
Basically, I get to play fairy Godmother, talk to people and give away free stuff. Tough job, huh?
A while back, he did a twitter party for Barbara Sher, author of "Wishcraft". On the call, she was talking about a client who wanted to sing. Barbara told her to sing. When the client expressed her concern about her weight being an impediment to her singing success, Barbara simply told her to "sing fat". She followed that revelation with this comment:
Indeed. (more…)
Seth Godin shared this video in a recent post about his TEDx talk. While it's geared to the transformation of the education system (and specifically, his "what is school for?" manifesto he wrote earlier this year), it has a LOT of juicy tidbits for creative entrepreneurs to get us thinking about art vs. work.
What I love about Seth is his willingness to say what so many of us already fear, but won't say aloud: as a culture, we've been programmed for decades to comply to a system that was broken before, but now is decaying, dying, and actually harming artists. Our children are paying the price now, but those of us working in creative professions (or trying to) are also feeling the crushing blow that's hit us hard.
The artificial "system" we created to manage people and industrialize society left us without useful spaces to create, innovate, and inspire - unless we forcibly (more…)
In my conversations about building a noble empire, one of the regular questions I get is "how do you build a noble empire?"
This used to be a difficult question to answer. When we talk about the Five Tenets of a Noble Empire, we know that it takes a community to build an empire. We know that it is built on service, not servitude, and that we need connections to make that happen. But HOW do we get there? Other than letting nature run its course, which admittedly takes time, could there be a faster way to build your noble empire?
According to Sarah Robinson, there is. (more…)
We are truly blessed.
I'm was in the Nashville area this summer, enjoying a family vacation, and the weather is wonderful. The hotel, not so much, but hey, I'm not complaining. Seriously, when you can travel 600 miles from home and visit friends, recording studios, make new friends, and generally enjoy yourself, doing what YOU want to do, how can you complain?
I have an incredible opportunity with my blog here and at Direct Sales Classroom to really speak what's on my mind, and share what matters most to me. Even when I'm on vacation.
It got me to thinking about people who don't have an opportunity to share their True Voice with the world. People who are squelched, marginalized, and otherwise unable to live a fully expressed life, because of the powers that be in their neck of the woods. Today, specifically, I'm talking about the Congolese people.
See, there's this girl I knew in high school, who's become one of my grown-up friends. I even took my first Zumba class with her. Well she's been telling me about a project that needs a voice in the world. It's about these hard-working folks, and how you can help with just a few clicks of your mouse. (more…)
The 4th grader you're about to see has more intestinal fortitude than many adults I know. She is a great example of what we all do before taking the leap.
We try to talk ourselves into it. We obsess, we interrogate, we obsess some more.
We feel our nerves, sometimes we shy away from the edge, and we generally believe we're not capable.
Then, with the encouragement of a guide, a mentor, a friend, someone around us, we give it a go.
When we come to the bottom of our 20 meter jump, we realize that it was the anxiety at the top of the hill that made it feel so crazy. We confidently say that a 60 meter jump is nothing now. We can do it because we've got experience with the smaller jump.
But that first jump... it's a doozy!