So many of us here are leading double lives: between work and family, between a handful of jobs, between the demands of an internet-based business and everything else.

I too am leading a double life. I’m a birth doula.

I work with the Hudson Perinatal Consortium as a community doula. The program is funded by the state of New Jersey in part because doulas and continuous labor support have been shown time and again to improve birth outcomes (i.e., shorter labors with fewer complications and interventions and healthier babies) while cutting health care costs. Many women also find that doula support improves birth satisfaction and helps create empowering, positive memories of the labor and birth experience.

What’s a doula?

According to DONA, one of several national doula certifying organizations:

The word “doula” comes from the ancient Greek meaning “a woman who serves” and is now used to refer to a trained and experienced professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to the mother before, during and just after birth; or who provides emotional and practical support during the postpartum period.

A Doula:

• Recognizes birth as a key experience the mother will remember all her life
• Understands the physiology of birth and the emotional needs of a woman in labor
• Assists the woman in preparing for and carrying out her plans for birth
• Stays with the woman throughout the labor
• Provides emotional support, physical comfort measures and an objective viewpoint, as well as helping the woman get the information she needs to make informed decision
• Facilitates communication between the laboring woman, her partner and her clinical care providers
• Perceives her role as nurturing and protecting the woman’s memory of the birth experience
• Allows the woman’s partner to participate at his/her comfort level

After working in maternity care and childbirth advocacy for years, I now want to see the direct impact of my work improving another woman’s life.  And I’m very specific about the “woman’s life” piece.  Many childbirth advocates come to their work specifically aiming to improve infant care. I come to this work primarily driven to support women’s work, women’s reproductive choices, and ultimately women’s empowerment.

So too with my approach to virtual assistance.

The question I get all the time

“What’s the connection?”

It’s a fair question. Interestingly, none of the women business owners I work with as a VA have kids. (I suppose I should say that none have kids yet. My VA clients’ future childbearing plans aren’t part of my Get-to-Know-You call).  Together we think and talk about mailing lists, billing schedules, new webpages and ways to automate administrative tasks.

When I’m with my doula clients, we talk about comfort measures to get through the next surge and breathing the baby down. We talk about breastfeeding, oxytocin levels to promote mother-baby attachment, and Mother-friendly and Baby-friendly hospitals in the area.

Both types of conversations are about nurturing something you love into fruition, and strategizing like hell to make the process transformative and empowering. Both conversations require a commitment to stress reduction and taking good care of oneself.

And look, neither a doula nor a VA is the star of the show.  We do the behind-the-scenes work: we clean up databases, run errands, focus on what will make our client look and feel good.  We are the support structures that make the process more enjoyable, more fulfilling. Less stressful.  Healthier. And sure, life isn’t perfect; I’m not perfect; childbirth isn’t perfect. But it can be better.

Moms and business owners both experience shifts in their identity when life stretches to accommodate this big new piece. It can be stressful, frustrating, frightening, and overwhelming.

Doulas and VAs both offer resources, helpful pieces of information, support systems, advice and I’ve-been-there-before guidance and companionship. Personally, I thrive on opportunities to share what I’ve got in useful ways.

And, bonus, being a doula makes me a better VA. It helps me listen, empathize, communicate, lead compassionately and be present even when the shit hits the fan. It teaches me about the value of offering a calming presence and the importance of making sure my needs are met before I can offer support to others.

Likewise, being a VA makes me a better doula. It teaches me to problem-solve in creative ways, to use technology, online resources and online networking to get my clients what they need. It teaches me that my doula business is a business and therefore requires proper caretaking to grow and thrive.

What we do & who we are

Some folks are surprised when they hear that I’ve never experienced childbirth myself.  Right now I’m wrestling with my own ambivalences about parenting, even as I whole-heartedly support women in the process of becoming a parent themselves.

But is that so surprising? My VA clients are coaches, attorneys, and teachers. I don’t need to be a coach, attorney, or teacher in order to effectively help them with their work.  Similarly, when a client is having intense, painful surges, what matters is whether a doula can support her through them until her baby is in her arms, not whether she has a personal memory of what that experience is like.

So, ok, we’re all leading double lives. And maybe in the end, the mixing and mingling of those lives and roles ultimately makes us more whole people.

Acknowledging and appreciating these parallels transformed the way I think about my big picture. It makes me feel more confident, more in touch with myself.

(By the way, I have Lauree Ostrofsky to thank for gentle nudges and insightful questions that led me to this inquiry. Go find Lauree. She’s amazing.)

What double lives are you leading?

…while Great Works
of the traditional sort
are marvels of time and space,
life offers
far more opportunities
for the sharing of peanuts.

-excerpted from Colleen Wainwright’s poem “Dying to be born,” published in What is Dying to be Born?, Lianne Raymond

I love using self-care time to focus on long-term visioning.

(I call this “biz-care” when the visioning = daydreaming about how I want to nourish and grow my business.)

Occasionally that long-term visioning takes the form of clipping and collaging.

I love the process, but inevitably I don’t know what to do with old pieces. After all, a collage represents your hopes, dreams, and who you want to become. It’s hard to throw that away, even if they’re ages old and don’t warrant prime real estate space anymore.

Enter: hanging file collages.

The small layout makes it great for a quick afternoon collaging break. Plus, they’re super easy to hang on a cork board (two pushpins under the white nubbins), easy to swap out when you need a lift or a theme change, super easy to fold and file when they’re retired.

Easy peasy.

Just a quick note that this month I’m hanging out with the gals on Spring to take part in a month-long conversation about self-care.

I think quite a bit about self-care and how to support others’ self-care, and I’m coming to a deep-seated belief that no one masters it; we simply work towards a fuller consciousness and responsiveness to ourselves and our needs.

Check out my first guest video post on the 4 juicy bits of self care, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. The next video post will be July 22, and I’ll be offering a bit of self-care tough love.

A popular sentiment among some online circles these days is that the pursuit of balance is blasé.

I wrote about this a while ago. At that point, delicacy seemed the best way to go.

Yeah, sure, I thought, an interesting idea.

But would you know, it’s taken off?

I’m so done with the balance bashing.

In fact, I’m about to drop the F bomb. Repeatedly.

Recently I’ve  been reading laments over the human body’s failure thus far to evolve beyond needing sleep. (Seriously!) Without that pesky time waster, the thinking goes, we could be doing so much more work.

Because who needs a sense of self outside of wage earning activities? Who needs a social life? That’s for losers who obviously aren’t as dedicated or passionate about their work as The Rest of Us.

Apparently the desire for time away from work, interests in other pursuits and due time and attention to bodily needs is not compatible with success in business.

Nope, the thinking goes, seeking balance is lame, and moot, and irreconcilable with the pursuit of work that you love; work that burns in the pit of your passionate belly.

Fuck balance, or so the sentiment goes.

<Ahem> No, seriously, AHEM!

No one ever said that starting or running a business would be easy.

It’s a lot of work. A hell of a lot of work, in fact.

Some folks are totally capable of condensing that work into a focused, frenzied bubble that excludes everything else. Especially if there’s an opportunity afterwards to completely, totally unplug and fully recharge, leaving it all behind and escaping completely. Work hard, play hard, right?

But for me and my clients, a binary life is not an option.

Look, there’s a central question here that has everything to do with the dividing line, a boundary, between where your work stops and where you begin. That line exists when you close your laptop and decide to stop taking calls at a certain time everyday.  It exists when you decide that maintaining your friendships and physical wellbeing is important enough to coexist along with personal investments in business.

That boundary – porous and permeable though it may be – is necessary. That boundary is made up of self-care, and deciding that self-care is important is a vote for balance. No matter how much we love what we do.

So if checking out completely for however long it takes to recuperate from alienation from self and nourishment isn’t an option for many of us, then clearly erasing that boundary between self and work is NOT A GOOD IDEA.

Why?

Because it’s not fucking sustainable.

And because no matter how much you love your clients, the product you’re developing, or the service you’re about to launch, when you sacrifice everything that keeps you whole in order to give it life, eventually you will burn the hell out. You will resent it.

And does that mean that you just didn’t love your work enough?

Hell, no.

Does that mean that you just weren’t willing to give what it takes (or what some folks believe it takes) to succeed?

Hell, no.

Isn’t this the same logic that motivated so many of us to opt out of the traditional workforce in the first place to pursue something more… us? Something that reflected who we are?

Most of the fabulous, creative entrepreneurs I know decided to follow their hearts with their work in respectful homage of a sense of self.

And now that’s the work to which we offer ourselves up in sacrifice on the alter of productivity?

For fuck’s sake.

I’m convinced that work and not-work exist, as most things do, along a spectrum. At one end is work that you don’t give a shit about, a black hole of time and energy that isn’t meaningful in the long run, and you do it because you have to in order to survive.

That’s one extreme.

At the other extreme (which comes perilously close to full circle) time, energy, social life, and sense of self outside of income-generating activities collectively take a back seat to… work. Sound familiar?

I’d wager balance is even more important if we love what we do, because only then do we sustainably have anything to give to it; only then do we have the resources to embody that work and purpose. And when we love what we do, having those things to offer matters profoundly.

You cannot source and source and source your energy and creativity without stopping to refill the nutritious soil from which new ideas poke their tender little sprout heads.

It is not possible. The world is full of limited and finite resources, and we creative entrepreneurs are not exempt from this truth.  Oil, water, Social Security, youth, endangered species, ancient hardwood forests, coal, ozone, and YOU, homeslice.

When they’re gone, they’re gone. No matter how much of ourselves we invest in our business or how closely our business is tailored to our unique gifts and passions, we are not unconditionally, effortlessly renewable.

Once upon a time…

…a huge red golf umbrella lived a quiet life for many years in the corner of a mailing supplies closet of a small office.

No one thought about it; no one used it. No one remembered where it came from, or whose it was, or why a mystery bank, whose logo was screenprinted on the top, had given it to someone in that office. It lived nestled between shipping tubes, a broken 13″ TV with a VHS tape inextricably lodged inside, and a Christmas wreath that had been similarly exiled into the deep nether-corners of the closet.

That umbrella represented, to me, useless crappy clutter.

I was tasked with clearing out the closet and keeping only what was essential. A big dumb red umbrella, embarrassingly large for carrying down the sidewalks in Manhattan, was not essential.

(This isn’t ONLY about looks. In Manhattan, you share sidewalks with, um, people. Walking is a primary means of getting around in the city because cars are simultaneously a luxury and inconvenience, so when the weather is ugly there’s no brief dash from the office to the car. Nope, there’s just walking through the rain. And when it rains not only is the sidewalk’s width contested territory; with so many umbrellas, vertical space is now also at a premium. New codes of etiquette govern the squeezing by, lifting over, and appropriate closings of umbrellas around you to accommodate others and their umbrellas. You get the picture.)

The big dumb umbrella clearly wouldn’t do for any commute home; hello, it was big, and dumb, and would probably poke peoples’ eyes out and I’d probably get yelled at by other angry citydwellers for being so damn inconsiderate.

I didn’t want anything to do with it. Plus it was dusty. And ick. Just ick.

Ok.

Today was kind of a crap day. Not terrible, just crappy.

I’d been cooped up for way too many hours. Alone. I’d eaten only a bagel and some potatoes all day. And the weather reports said cold, so I dutifully put on a sweater this morning, but it wasn’t cold, it was just humid and rainy and gross. And my commute involves walking a mile and a half each way with a train ride in the middle. (Yes, uphill both ways whilst fighting saber-toothed tigers with only your bare hands. Commuting to New Jersey is that bad.) Plus, I had to carry home something awkwardly bulky. None of this was at all appealing. I was grouchy.

Right before I left the office, I saw the big, stupid, clumsy, dumb red bank umbrella leaning against a desk.

And, I have to tell you, a little voice in my head said, “Oh. That makes sense.”

It was late enough in the evening that many commuters were already gone, and the sidewalks and trains weren’t going to be as crowded. And the stupid bigness meant that it would shelter me, the big bulky thing I was carrying, and my purse that sticks out from behind my left arm.

Oh. Something I loathed for its apparent uselessness suddenly transformed into exactly the thing that I needed exactly when I needed it.

Isn’t that interesting, I thought as I plodded my way back to New Jersey.

Relevance, please?

How many other times has this happened? How many times have I completely failed to understand the value of something until I was in a moment that required precisely that thing?

And ok, forget things. How easy is it to take for granted:

• Unique skills or inclinations toward a craft.
• Someone’s piece of advice that got lodged in the back of your mind and annoyed the hell out of you until one day it slid into focus.
• The sum of your experiences, totally foggy and uninterpretable until one day you are the exact recipe personified to solve a particular problem.

Picture Harry Potter’s Room of Requirement – but already with form, waiting for the structure and the need to appear.

And with that perspective, the only response that feels appropriate is humble gratitude.

So, what do you think? Have you ever taken something for granted that ended up serving you in a surprising way?

Can I be candid for a moment?

I’ll just start at the beginning, and ask for forgiveness and empathy for the parts that aren’t so flattering.  

OK. I’ve always wanted to be the star pupil.

In Kindergarten, when Miss Liner picked me for the lead in the class reenactment of Cinderella, I distinctly remember feeling honored. Privileged. Chosen.

The leading authority saw something in me and she picked me. I was special.

Over time I learned how to replicate that feeling by being uniquely the best at whatever I was doing.

I learned to be a good student. Reasonably good, in fact. It’s a rhythm I fall into easily, readily: at the front of the class, right leg crossed over left, pen in hand, leaning forward, squinting thoughtfully.

I could be learning about indigenous trees to New Mexico or the history of feminist anti-racist organizing; I never hesitate to ask questions, to jump in headfirst. I talk to teachers after class, I write thoughtful and well-crafted papers, I get good grades. OK. (Thanks, my ego probably needed those acknowledgments.)

None of that is false. I love learning. I’m my most fulfilled and excited in an environment of growth.

But I’m learning to see and feel how limiting it is to be so damn ambitious all the time.

It means that I have to keep proving myself at the expense of fully experiencing whatever I’m doing.

The drive to be the universal prodigy means I sometimes can’t focus on what I’m doing because I’m busy wondering what the teacher is thinking.

It entails a mandate to always be “the best,” and inevitable shame and embarrassment when I’m not in the top 3% of whatever.

These days it brings some relief to let go of that.

To honor the reality that I’m not a natural-born prodigy in all things. And to let that be ok.

Because, hello, I’m still a really good learner and there are a healthy handful of activities, disciplines and pursuits that really do allow me to shine.

And if being a teacher’s pet and a would-be prodigy is actually a proxy for a need to be special or unique, then the toughest question is:

What if I’m not actually all that unique?

What if, despite everything Gen-Y’ers have heard all of our lives, in the histories of young women finding their own way, of society and the stars and galaxies and the ever-expanding universe that’s billions of years old – {deep breath}

All my hopes, my dreams, my desires, my business, everything I do or want to do; everything I feel or think I’m unique in feeling – what if all of that is unremarkably, supremely average?

It’s a little depressing. But it’s also freeing, maybe.

Because if that’s the case, seriously, to hell with it.

Screw needing to be the best. Screw being the star pupil. I’d rather enjoy my life. I’d rather spend my time deeply loving the people around me. I’d rather find joy in every little thing and let go of the need to perform and outperform.

To learn to be pretty damn good at something I love sounds so much more appealing and accessible than a mandate to be the best at everything I attempt.

So here’s to letting go; to finding pleasure and releasing expectations of changing the world, even as we work towards and still hope to someday accomplish just that.

 My favorite soon-to-be Texan Ana Ottman recently invited me over for a guest blog series thinking aloud about the intersections of feminism, lifestyle, and small-business ownership.

She didn’t have to ask twice.

 The third and final act was published this morning. Hop on over to Ana’s to check them out and I’d love to hear your thoughts!

1st: Working 9 to 5, What a Way to Make a Livin’

It seems to me that the American workplace has a ways to go before listing women’s social and economic empowerment on its resume … So what’s a smart, driven, creative young woman to do? What we’ve always done: take it into our own damn hands and work hard to make it better.

2nd: Progressive Prices and the Value of You

This week I want to spend time with just one piece of running a business, and how that piece can be a feminist economic evolution. Maybe even a revolution in the way women work.

3rd: Putting Woowoo to Work: Creating Lifestyles of Abundance

This time I want to think creatively, lovingly, about money and lifestyle.  The issue at hand is prosperity.  As women business owners, we want to not only do good, but do well for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

I want to have a conversation. I want to talk about what happens when your passion becomes your work.

When you’re one of the blessed, adventurous, enterprising, soulful few who find a viable lifestyle doing what you love.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I’m coming to this discussion with the belief that the experience of doing work that nibbles away at your heart just so you can pay the bills – um, sucks.

OK. It’s a necessary thing for most of us at some point. Hell, I’ve worn a hairnet and cleaned toilets and punched a time card. And look, sometimes you’re not head over heels for what you’re doing between 9 and 5, but there’s a family to feed, and the law firm has amazing health care benefits, and yougottadowhatchuyougottado. I’m definitely not out to knock folks in that boat, no way, no how.

But sometimes being in that place kinda sucks, because who you want to be can get lost amid the work you have to do.

At one extreme of the work & identity conundrum, your identity is hard to find with two hands and a flashlight.

It can feel like: who the hell am I under the dress code? Under all that discontent. Boredom. The nagging feeling of being a fraud. You get up, you commute, you work, you commute, you eat, you forget about work for a bit, you go to bed to get up early and do it all again. Until you retire. And then you die.

Wow. Yep, that’s totally a caricature and likely not at all the way happy workerbees experience it. But for some folks, that’s the way it can feel.

So we move into a different paradigm, into work that is rooted in our passions and looks more like the person we want to be in five years. Ooohh, the work that sizzles.

Danielle LaPorte says:

When passion is a priority – passion for family, vocation, for meaning – your energy intensifies. And when your energy is more focused, more “aimed”, you begin to care less about the things that don’t really matter. You avoid crappy jobs, you stop over-controlling your kids, you nag and complain much less – with everyone. You get the help you need to pull off the important things – whether you’re a CEO or an aspiring freelancer, and that support takes the form of a house cleaner, a VA, or a friend or mentor to jam with.

And then the quest for “balance,” with all the sexiness of a McCormick seasoning blend packet, is moot, because passion fuels really great work.

Again, the Gorgeous D-La:

If you want to do great things, striving for balance is a losing game. I don’t think remarkable artists, scientists, activists, entrepreneurs, or generous souls set out on their giving journeys with the aim to be measured and harmonious. Meeting your potential is inherently full of tension (creative tension.) Trying to be balanced about it is onerous and futile.
Getting “balanced” is not the remedy to stress. Passion is.

Ok, yes! With a caveat.

At this other extreme of the work & identity conundrum, your identity can also be hard to find with two hands and a flashlight.

When work, even beloved work, is allowed to consume your identity, burnout is not far behind.

You’re never off the clock. That laptop follows you on vacation.

The little things start to accumulate. You learn not to love your passion because it’s your work.

You realize that there’s a bundle of raw nerves in your stomach where the fire in your belly used to be. Shit.

Professional failures start to appear as personal failings.

And then you burn out. Snuffed, blown, and burned the hell out.

Look, here’s the thing.

Passion isn’t the only remedy for stress. It. can’t. be.

For those of us who err on the side of losing ourselves in work that we love, work that’s an extension of our creative dreams, the buffer is self-care. It’s recognizing when to let go. When to trust that the work — and your ability to handle it gracefully and brilliantly — will be there for you when you return.

There’s more to us than our work, no matter how much we love it. No matter how much it fulfills us, or how much passion we have for it.

If you temporarily need to be in an all-consuming creative process bubble, more power to you.

But people buy from people. I don’t hire a business; I hire someone I connect with. Ergo, keeping an interesting, compelling business running requires that people have the energy and creativity to do it.

You just can’t get there by running yourself ragged. And you just can’t fake it.

It’s easy to tell when you’re on the phone with someone who’s stressed and anxious and overworked. It’s palpable.

Here’s the point.

I don’t think that I’m disagreeing with Danielle here. She calls for “full on stillness, full on life.” But I am reiterating that for some people, the “full on life” required to reboot may be more subtle than passionate.

Sometimes quiet release and conscious disengagement serves me better than forcing myself to rally and be more passionate about relaxing.

Make sense?

In my most secret fantasies, I’m Melody Gardot, Nina Simone and Madeleine Peyroux.

Maybe I’m their collective diva lovechild.

In these fantasies, not only can I sing; homeslice, I give the gift of sensuous, sparkling soul-filled energy that spills out of my pores into music so compelling, so honest and raw that performances are experiments in human connection rather than a talent show.

Ok.

I’m actually the girl who cried in front of her high school French class when the assignment was to sing “Champs Elysees” in front of everyone. I’m the instrumental musician who envied her instrument’s ability to hit a pitch accurately. I’m a liquid courage fiend at a karaoke bar where I surreptitiously hold the microphone just a bit too far to pick up much of anything.

(Cue Peter Griffin: “wimpy wimpy wimpy, HEFTY HEFTY HEFTY.” Mostly I’m the former.)

In short, it’s always felt like a bit of a tragedy that I wasn’t born singing. But there it was, a bad, weak, shameful singing voice. So embarrassing.

Something happened a month ago.
Something completely unexpected.

I went to Kripalu for a 3-day workshop with Claude Stein, a startlingly talented vocal coach and songwriter. His workshop is called The Natural Singer. It’s for folks who sing or have always wished they could sing; it “fosters deep musical and humanistic breakthroughs by combining basic vocal skills with personalized performance exercises.”

And dudes, yes. Just… yes.

It turns out that Claude also teaches private vocal lessons in NYC, so badabingbadaboom, I’ve got myself a vocal coach. I’m taking voice lessons.  (!!!!!!)

Right now I’m working on Van Morrison’s Moondance and Ella Fitzgerald’s Summertime and I’ve even given short performances for select audiences. (Read: the man, the cat, the neighbors and the fried catfish stand outside my apartment, but whatever. They heard me; ergo audience.)

It turns out, actually, that singing is something you can learn.

(Holy crap. I know how to learn!)

And even more importantly, learning to sing naturally runs parallel to developing courage and fullness of self.

Relevance, please?

Here’s the thing: it’s not really about singing at all. It’s about declaring “here’s my voice,” getting your body, vocal chords, and breath on board, telling your brain to seriously shut the hell up for two minutes, and then going for it. Because, as Claude puts it, your voicebox is so close to your heart that singing is family to speaking your truth.

Here’s a bit of my learning so far, reduced down to thick syrupy goodness:

1. Energizing is the answer, and volume is everything.

Claude will actually tell you that “volume is *fucking* everything.”

To expand range into those high and low parts of your voice that even you don’t like listening to, he says you gotta get behind it, make it big, make it loud, make it operatic. Strengthen and stretch those places. Only by moving into the margins and playing at the limits of your range will the natural median and comfort range expand.

This is true in life too, right? To make it real, you kick your ass in gear, get behind it, throw caution to the wind and just go.

Moreover, every songwriter, every lyric and verse wants something from you. When you live and love every word that comes out of your mouth like pieces of chocolate so divine you don’t want to swallow – when you’re that invested in what you’re communicating, real connection follows.

2. For God’s sake, give yourself some breathing room.

What would happen if we put some breathing room around the concept of “failure”? What if we put some room around “success”? Or “mistakes”? Or “experiments”?

What if, instead of fidgeting, or laughing nervously, or excusing ourselves, we said, ok, this moment is awkward. In this moment, I feel silly. I feel exposed. I feel really fucking scared to sing in front of a room of other people. OK; may it be.

What about allowing for the “death of the ideal self”?  

What if I still sing off-pitch sometimes, and I’ll never earn money doing it, but I love singing – can I really call myself a singer? Huh. Hmm. Breathing room.

3.  Move toward the more rather than the absolute.

Part of what makes my vocal coach so impressive is that he doesn’t read music. For serious.

You say hmmmm, I’d like to sing “Yellow Submarine” or “Rehab” and BOOM he’s on it. Or, I dunno, here’s this little thing I’ve been humming, let’s turn it into a waltz. Or whatever. He plays by ear and by gut, and he figures out the music as he goes along.

I trained as an instrumental musician for a number of years, and I need sheet music like oxygen. Without having something to read, something that will tell me what to do and when and how, I’m a sick sad lost little puppy.  

But Claude doesn’t let me do that. I have to learn where to come in by feeling it, experimenting, listening, counting the measures until the bridge. It’s terrifying. It’s expansive.

There’s no absolute answer when you learn to sing this way. The solution: improvise. Trust your gut. Try to sing more in tune rather than perfectly in tune because there is no set standard for “right.”

For anyone who learned to play music in school ensembles and was taught to “play it right,” this is a huge shift. And for those of us who want answers, who research and strategize and plan before taking any sort of action – it’s a fascinating dare.

What if I just said “go” and didn’t give you a road map or a destination? It’s sexy, yes?  

That’s a long post.

I know, I know. But seriously, yo – this resonates immensely with my heart of hearts, so thanks for bearing with me. This is so exciting, such a massive, magical, miraculous shift in my concept of possibility.

Thinking about the prospect of actually becoming who you wish you were instead of pining away after your lost self is so powerful it makes me want to throw up and go supernova all at the same time.

Tell me, have you ever in your life experienced something like that? I can’t possibly be alone in this.

I thought that following my own bliss meant that I had to be flying solo.

In order to be working in an authentic, heart-led way, I had to unilaterally create something unique that made my heart sing. You know, something like metalsmithing. Or baking. Or painting. Or whatever.

The trouble is that none of those things are my gifts. I make a mean lavender cupcake from time to time, but is that my calling? All signs point to eh, not so much.

What really makes me sizzle is hopping on board with someone I respect, whose ideas are compelling, and helping them make it happen.

I’m not a coach; I’m not a marketing guru; I’m not a policy wonk or a PR junkie.

But I’m a really good researcher. I’m a really good resourcer. I write, synthesize, connect, problem solve, discover new doors and pathways, and communicate with my whole heart. And I have zero qualms with jumping right in and dancing a crazy dance. My clients know that I have their back, no matter what. That’s what being a trusted second-in-command means to me.

Relevance, please?

 All of that’s to say that I love this short video by Derek Sivers about starting a movement.

“A follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader,” he says. “When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first one to stand up and join in.”

So, what do you think? What’s the value of having followers? What does it take to be a good follower, and what does that mean in the context of running a small business?