Marketing Your Creativity

Heather Morrow & One of her Skeletons

I wish I could say that I don’t have anything hiding in my closet or under my bed that is not scary, but the reality is that I have both imagined and real skeletons in my closet and ghouls under my bed.

They might not seem so bad to you; however, hiding them increases their power and potential influence if revealed by someone other than myself.

Before tackling my skeletons, I wanted to talk about why this is important for your business and how coming clean can help your customers relate to you. Read the rest of this entry »

Heather Morrow & Dr. Martha Beck (2010)

In January of 2010, I had the honor of meeting Dr. Martha Beck and hear her give an inspirational keynote speech at the Craft & Hobby Association Convention.   If you follow Oprah, you might recognize the name — Dr. Beck (call me Marty) is an author of many self-help books and is a regular columnist in O: The Oprah Magazine.

At the time, I wrote a brief article for my Creative Souls eZine.  I have been working on getting myself back on center with organizing the piles of piles and I came across the notes I had taken that day in this tiny little notebook.  So, I thought I would share them to maybe inspire you to Follow Your North Star.

As I took these notes, I felt as if she was talking just to me.   Read the rest of this entry »

In the commencement address given at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs spoke about his life and all that he had learned.  This was shortly after surgery to remove a pancreatic cancer tumor.

You can see the speech here, but I wanted to talk to you about one point that really resonated for me.  He spoke of connecting the dots and how all of his experiences (good and bad) led him to where/who he was today.

Without dropping out of college; taking a calligraphy class; building the first Macintosh computer in his parent’s garage; getting fired from Apple – the company he had created; Read the rest of this entry »

After almost a month of training my new puppy, Buddy, I have come to realize that there are similarities between dog training and marketing yourself to your customers.

It drives me crazy to have dogs jumping around while their food is being prepared, so I train them to sit and wait to eat until I give the command, “Say Grace, Amen”.  Buddy LOVES food, so this behavior modification has been relatively easy.  The food is coming nowhere near the floor until he sits and waits.  Getting it down to the ground without him jumping up again took a bit more time, I did have to hold him for the first couple of weeks, but he’s already getting this down, too.  What it took was persistence. Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Leo Babauta.

A father and his son went fishing on a small boat, hungry.

The father helped his son reel in his first fish, and it was a beauty. “Great catch, son,” the father said.

“Yes, but I’m worried I’m missing out on better fish,” the son said. “What if I could catch a bigger, tastier fish?”

“Maybe you should try,” the father said.

And the son did, catching an even bigger fish an hour later. “A real beaut,” the father said.

“But what if there are better fish out there?” the son asked.

“Maybe you should try,” the father said.

And the son did, catching a bigger fish, then wondering if there were better fish, catching another, and so on.

At the end of the day, the son was exhausted. The father asked, “How did the fish taste?”

The son hesitated. “I’m not sure. I was so busy looking for better fish that I didn’t taste any of them.”

The father smiled contentedly, patted his belly. “Don’t worry. They were delicious.”

—

We are all of us like the son. We all worry, at some time or other, that we’re missing out on things.

It’s why we’re so busy — we take on so much because we don’t want to miss out. We take on dozens of goals and aspirations, because we don’t want to miss out. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, I went to the mall to buy a new pair of running shoes.  I have no doubt that I was entering the Foot Locker with some intention.  I am not crazy about shopping and only venture out to the malls when absolutely necessary.

As I entered the store, I was greeted with a warm “hello,” even though the store was busy.  I proceeded to the women’s running shoes and stopped to evaluate.  Within a minute, a sales clerk asked if I was looking for new running shoes.  I responded in the affirmative.   He then asked me if I preferred bright colors or more subdued.  I responded with more subdued and he nodded and briefly told me about only two of the countless models on the wall.

He then walked away, giving me the space to evaluate the two models he had suggested.  Given the space to make my own decision, I picked out a pair.  Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Ted Moreno.

I used to be one of those people who always had to have an answer for everything, you know, a “know it all.” Then one day someone told me “You’re not at smart as you think you are, and you’re not fooling anyone.” The nerve!! But it was true. So I stopped being a person that to have the answer and started letting other people come up with the answer. That was a lot easier!

Sometimes I still find myself needing to come up with an answer, figure it out, or worse, make something up. But lately, I’m attempting to cultivate the peace and freedom that comes from saying “I don’t know.” I’ve been giving myself permission to not know. And you know what?  I’m feeling pretty good about being a “not know it all.”

These days it’s almost a sin to not know. “What?” you often hear people say, “You didn’t know that?”

Seems like everybody needs to know everything. Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Have you ever set out to start a new habit or goal, but found your willpower lacking?

Many new ventures are foiled by the morning email habit, for example — we want to exercise or write or meditate, but we can’t resist checking out email for just a minute … and then we’ve gotten lost, down the rabbit hole.

How can we build the willpower to beat these bad habits? Read the rest of this entry »

Post written by Leo Babauta.

I’m often asked how you can start doing work you love — how you can make a living doing something you’re passionate about.

I don’t profess to have all the answers, but the answer for me has been fairly simple:

Do one thing really well.

People want a more comprehensive answer than that, but in my experience, if you learn to do this, the rest will follow.

Read the rest of this entry »