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What Do You Do Because Sometimes You Know How?

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This morning I had my morning all laid out. I knew exactly what I was to get done. I was ready prepared and willing, until I turned computer and Tweetdeck served up this short note.

3 things that stop me from doing… “Over Coffee…”
(http://twitthis.com/8ln6i4) Inspired by @lizstrauss

Who would I be not to see something like that? What I found were thoughts that started like this …
I love to write and doodle. So why don’t I do more of it? What am I afraid of? And how do I stop the fears and get going again?

And my head and my heart answer, “Yeah, I know. I get those feelings too.”
I read that post. Then I read the next — the one with the beautiful painted in drawing, the one I only wish or dream I could make myself.
Who would I be not to respond?

Because Sometimes I Know How

Every writer gets stuck for words.
Every writer gets caught up
or lost looking for an idea to explore.
Every writer has an ego that pushes words out
and a critic that tears them down.
We all have time that we hope
and fear that will never write again.
If only I could draw and paint a lady so lovely,
But I write I write instead
because sometimes I know how.

What do you do because sometimes you know how?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Image: Barbara Hartsock
Work with Liz!!

How's Your Relationship with Yourself?

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The theme of SOBCon09 is the ROI of Relationships. To underscore the importance of relationships in business and to have a chance to make and celebrate a few while we’re doing that, I’ve opened up this series by successful and outstanding bloggers like you.

Communicating with Yourself
by Karl Staib

To get yourself to the next level of your career, the most important development is to be able to communicate with yourself so honestly and effectively that every choice improves your life.

Wow! Every choice?

Yes, every choice can add or subtract to or from your career.

I’ve made many mistakes with my career, but one thing I pride myself on is the fact that I never settled for less than what I really wanted. I wanted a career in teaching and I found it. I wanted a creative career I landed it. I wanted a people interactive career and I got it.

They all built on each other and helped me get to where I wanted.

I’ve found a job that requires teaching, creativity and interactivity. These are the tools that have aided me in my present career. Is this the end?

Probably not.

I’m ok with not knowing whether of not this is my final destination. That’s what honesty does for you. Chances are, you won’t ever see the complete picture. There is no way of seeing the whole picture from just one set of eyes. But you can add to the picture, step back and effectively pick your next direction.

Think of your career as a giant scroll that can never be erased, but the most important part is the last sentence. It’s this sentence that is the present you. Hopefully the happy you. If you aren’t happy then keep improving your story.

Never Stop

You must keep adding to the “story” that is your career. We all have so much potential to change the world. We can do this only through work. What? I can change the world in many other ways. I ask you to name me one way in which you can make change without putting in a little work?

You can’t.

You need to create motion to generate change.

Without action it’s just thoughts.

The number one reason why people are happy at their jobs is because what they produce resonates with their soul. They believe so wholeheartedly that they are doing good that it lifts them to a level of happiness that sets their hearts on fire.

I watched an animal show that highlighted Steve Irwin’s (Crocodile Hunter) pet hospital. One employee sleeps in her office to care for the injured Koala bears. She is so dedicated to saving these animals that she will forgo sleep to feed a Koala every two hours.

Finding this fire is not easy. For 99% of us this takes many years, but that means never settling for second best or third best. We need to keep adding layers that build our career foundation. With each layer we gain more perspective, strength and intelligence, which allows us to communicate with ourselves more honestly and effectively.

So ask yourself: What could I be doing to add to my personal development?

My two favorite methods are:

Meditation/Contemplation

Just sitting in a quiet room and answering the question, “What work am I doing now that I enjoy? And what could I be doing to add to my career?”
There are many methods that can help you build on your present career or switch to a new one. You can try anything, from volunteering at a local organization to creating an event that involves the community.

When you give yourself questions to answer, you can avoid the loop of thoughts that prevent you from fulfilling your vision of your “dream career.”

Asking Friends

Your friends are a treasure chest of information. They have formulated many ideas of who you are and why they like you.

Ask your friends, “What are my best talents?” and “Do you think I’m using them to my advantage?”

Don’t take these answers personally. Some responses might hurt your feelings. You are doing this to grow, so you must accept the idea that the situation might be a wee bit uncomfortable, but a valuable experience.

What other methods have you used to listen to your soul’s career needs?
What jobs have you had that you didn’t like, but later you understood how they helped build your career?

his own blog: Work Happy Now! If you enjoyed this article, you may like to subscribe to his feed, follow him on Twitter or

Karl Staib writes about unlocking and kicking open the door to working happy atWork Happy Now where you can read one of his most popular articles, How Does Google Create a Great Atmosphere?
His twitter name is @workhappynow

The Importance of a Compass … to Going or Staying Anywhere

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When Your Only Transportation Is a Bike

Steve Goodman wrote a song, “City of New Orleans.” I can’t hear it without thinking about the Rock Island tracks that went to Chicago alongside my dad’s saloon.

Behind my dad’s saloon was narrow leanto right next to the railroad tracks. By “right next to” I mean not more than fifteen feet away.

I can’t fully describe it to you. I only saw the inside once when I was a very little girl. It made me curious. I remember thinking “It seems like my hideout in my closet.” My hideout was magical. I didn’t realize that for a grownup this probably wasn’t.

It was made of some grayed-out wood, laminate — cheap stuff — shaped like a shoe box. It had holes I could see through — all the way to the gas station across the tracks. Inside was a cot, a table, a chair, a dirt floor. The door on the shack flapped in the wind and only had a weird wood thing that turned on a nail to hold it closed, kind of like what you find in a bad bar’s bathroom stall.

The man who live there, they called him “Seewall,” walked tall. He was always smiling. I see him at my dad’s saloon. Sometimes he’d be moving a mop. Sometimes he’d be running errands. Sometimes he’d be carrying boxes. Sometimes he’d be talking to me like Donald Duck and making me laugh. As shy as I was, as much as he owned the space he walked in, we were friends.

He’d given up riding the rails. His only transportation was a simple wide-tired bike. It had a basket for carrying bags and stuff. No bell or brakes or anything that cool bikes had. Every night a 10pm as a ritual, he would pedal around the saloon and take down the stairs in the floor behind the bar. It was safe there. To me it seemed like that bike had one home and he had another.

Most importantly, he was happy.

I was almost six feet tall and the man who lived in shack by the tracks was long gone, before I found out from my younger, older brother that his real name was something like Sewell Southward Sebastian Fleming, the Third. It’s a name that sounds like he had something before the Great American Depression. Some might say that the man lost everything.

He always acted as if he found it.

Guess a shack by the rails might mean something different to a guy who took on life as a true hobo. He always had access to his freedom. But he never went. He talked to me once about a compass. I never asked where his was. I just knew that he had one.

Have you found your compass? He said you need one if you’re going or staying anywhere.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Whoa! Could You Stop for 1 Second? Or Are You a Work Snob?

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You’re Not Doing Yourself or Anyone Else Any Favors

Hey, I know you’re busy, gotta get a lot of things done. But whoa!

But, could you stop for 1 second? It’s barely that –> . <-- long. Just stop. Don't do anything, before you read on.

–> . <--

If you don’t stop once in a while, you’re not doing yourself or anyone else any favors.

About Things Humanly Possible

When I first got into publishing, I was an adrenaline junkie. I loved getting things done. I prided myself on being able to find more seconds in an hour than anyone could. I could arrange, rearrange, multi-tier, multi-task, and multi-delegate the same page to multiple people while I was doing multiplication for multiple project quotations in my head. I could spin 23 plates on sticks and watch 18 fishing poles in the river, while I was juggling 6 balls in the air and talking on telephone. I even said things like, “I want to be known as the person who can do the impossible.”

It all embarrasses me now.

Because more isn’t more. Not one of those things got my full attention. I was good, they all got B work or better. But none them got my best. And in the end, they got the best of me instead.

When I finally got a job, where they wouldn’t let me do that, I learned the value, the fun, and the excitement of going deep and doing quality work. Less really is more. That’s when I found out what I was really capable of. That’s when I did the work that I’m still proud of, the work that lasted.

So if you’re

  • tossing off emails
  • overbooking meetings
  • missing details
  • forgetting things
  • Twittering while you’re talking on the phone
  • thinking you can do more in the same time than anyone

You might be what I was — a work snob — I thought I was better than the rest.
A work snob because every human can only do what’s humanly possible — even if they do it well. Slow down just enough to show folks how damn good you really are. Take a rest.

What are you doing to keep the human in you around?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

10 Blogger Best Practices: Guides as You Extend Your Reach

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How to blog series

Know Who You Are

All year long I’ve mulling on a thought I first considered when I was under 5 years old. I wrote about it on my first blog.

“Square peg in a round hole.” That’s what people used to call it.

Even as a kid I knew it was a silly waste of time to put a square peg in a round hole. That was just plain common sense To make the peg fit, it wouldn’t be a square peg anymore. It would hurt the peg, and the hole wouldn’t like it.

Whenever I try to make myself fit a situation, it’s like trying to teach a pig to sing — sounds awful and the pig gets mad. I turn into a louder, sort of a shiny green spandex facsimile of the real me. Is it a wonder then that people don’t respond well?

It’s really no surprise that trying to be something “other” doesn’t work with a blog either.

Relationships are a lot more fun with people who know themselves. Our blogs are reflections of how well we know who we are.

10 Blogger Best Practices

Here are 10 Blogger Best Practices for the social web. These 10 best practices guide me as I write and meet new people on the social business web. They help me stay focused on my quest and explain it when people ask. When I remember them, they serve me well. I hope they’ll serve you too.

  1. Know yourself. Know what you’re about and always walk, talk, and blog your own truth. You can’t write my blog post. I can’t write yours. More on that from this great speech about how Oprah found her voice.
  2. Find the people who explore thoughts the same way you do. They’re the ones who’ll enjoy what you write. Share what they say. Pass links to comments on Twitter. Use Twitter Explore to find people talking about common questions and ideas. They’re the one’s who will constantly inspire you. We always think that people who think as we do are incredibly smart.
  3. Talk about what you blog in ways that show you value what you have to offer. Talk about what you want to share in ways that make people proud to pass them on. Don’t fear the blog link that points to a blog post a friend wrote. I know you’d never use a blog link to attract attention from away someone else to you.
  4. When you meet someone new, be interested in who they are and what they’re about. Ask questions. Learn details. Find out their passions. Ideas come from being curious about what people are doing and why. Meeting someone new can be as revealing and invigorating as a rare celebrity interview.
  5. Step away from the podium. Forget what you learned in school. Writing on the internet is about conversation and listening, not presentation. Write for an intelligent friend who just doesn’t know what you do. Leave lots of room for questions and thoughtful interpretation.
  6. Whatever you blog, bring your experience to it. Tell how you learned it, how you found it, how you felt before and after you knew it. Tell the story of the information from your point of view. People come for the you in the information — the information without the you is in other places.
  7. Leave room for visitors to add to the conversation. Be complete but not thorough. You can start a list and let the folks who come add to it. If you end with a question, consider the question carefully. Make it intriguing enough that you would want to stop to answer it.
  8. Open doors and showcase others whenever you can. Connect people to information, to other people, and to answers to their questions. Serve the people who love what you do. The best promotion for your blog is promotion other people. Talk about the the people who visit your blog.
  9. Always be happy to see people who say hello! Call them by name and let them know you see them. Let them feel that they can move around freely. Make sense?
  10. Be you. Information is everywhere. It’s the you inside the information and the you that responds that will bring people back.

I’m about how relationships, conversation, and how businesses and communities grow. I help people understand the culture and sensitivities of the written word in the fast-paced Internet world and show companies how to connect with people. I’m always going to write more about how to use the social media tools to forge relationships than I’ll ever write about the tools straight out.

Knowing that makes it easier to extend my network. I can do what I love in service to people who think what I do is pretty special.

What guides you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Chris Brogan!

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Be the Original

My younger older brother was bigger than life He wa the coolest kid in the neighborhood. I was 8 and half years younger. I watched him all my life and I learned.

He was instant community. He was kind of like Tom Sawyer. He could smile around a corner.

  • He had 5 girlfriends before he was 10.
  • If he said “baseball,” the team formed before he finished the word.
  • If he said, “hockey,” the ice was cleared and smooth.
  • Kids called him “Bugs” and I never knew whether it was because of the famous bunny or the Las Vegas gambler. They were always too busy laughing to tell me.
  • He’s the one who had me trained to come when he whistled.
  • He still has a magnetic personality.

Grownups, teachers, kids, … everyone enjoyed his company.

Problem was some kids tried to be him.
Maybe we all did.

It never worked. Our voices were different. He was taller or his smile had a different tilt. We just became bad copies of my younger, older brother, instead of the really cool kids that we were.

So Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up trying to be Chris Brogan. He’s as magic as my younger, older brother … but only Chris Brogan can be Chris Brogan. Tell your babies to be an original.

Everyone has our own magic.

I know. I’ve been watching all my life.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Meet Chris Brogan close up at SOBCon09