And Buddhists who love death metal.

And even though I don’t channel Phil Collins this time, there is a celebrity appearance involved.

So check it.

Go big!
Go faster!
Take the leap!
Snag the spotlight!
Be a superstar!
Get famous!
Land yourself on the A-list!

It all comes down to the same thing.

Pushpushpush. Gogogo. Moremoremore.

‘Round and ‘round it goes

There’s no sign of the pushpushpush slowing down anytime soon.

Every day there’s another blog post or tweet or course or e-book or fill-in-the-blank telling you how to be big huge GINORMOUS.

Which is great if that’s your thing.

And, if it is, rock on.

I’m not knocking the idea of going big. And I’m not against taking leaps.

Not even a little.

My life has been very leap-ey. And I dig and appreciate that.

I also have clients who come to me that are ready to rocket launch.

And that’s exactly what I help them to do.

Cheating spineless lamer poseur

But what I think really sucks is the subtle (or not) implication that if you’re not going big that you’re fucking up.

That you’re cheating yourself. Or your audience. Or the world.

That you’re a lamer. Or, even more craptastic, a poseur.

That, somehow, if you’re not taking epic leaps every single day then you’re just a spineless looooooooooooooser.

So you basically deserve what you get. Which will probably be nothing. Because you suck.

So it’s not that I’m against going big.

I just think that acting like that’s the only option that matters is bullshit.

When leaping feels impossible

I work with clients every day who are scared out of their skulls and struggling like crazy.

People who are in pain.

And, despite that, they still hold on to hope.

Hope that they can get back to doing what they love.

Hope that they can get back to who they used to be.

Hope that when they get their thing out there in the world that there will be people who need it and want it and love it.

But right now they feel so far away from where they want to be that the idea of taking a leap seems insane.

Even thinking about taking one teeny tiny baby step is a stretch.

But somehow they do.

Deep breath. Inching forward. One foot in front of the other.

And that inching forward?

It’s ok. It matters. It’s worth something.

It can also be healing and extraordinary and life changing for someone.

She rocked that piano

Like my client who couldn’t look at, much less play, the piano for years after getting hit in the gut with criticism that came from someone she admired like crazy.

After our first session, she was able to pull out the piano bench and think about maybe sitting on it again someday.

After the third session, she sat on it.

She held her breath the whole time and didn’t move a muscle. But she sat on that bench.

A few months later, after the fourth session, she played.

She played!

For an hour. Non-stop. With tears running down her face and all over the keys.

Not even close to sucking

Then there’s my client who has this business thing she’s wanted to do since forever.

But she grew up hearing how much she sucked. And how dumb she was. And how she had better marry rich. Because she’d never make it on her own.

The first few times we talked? She couldn’t even tell me what her thing was.

Because she thought I’d think it sucked.

After a couple sessions, she gave me a tiny peek at it.

It’s brilliant. And she’s brilliant.

And now she’s inching closer to believing that she might actually be able to do this.

And that there are people out there who will love this thing up like crazy.

She’s not ready to go big. Or take a leap. Or stand in any spotlight.

But after almost giving up on this thing altogether, she’s moving forward.

You pick

So maybe we need to redefine big.

Because when someone’s been living with the kind of hurt that makes hope an endangered species, baby steps can be epic.

Playing the piano. Believing in your thing. Being willing to trust someone again. Letting go of the stories you’ve lugged around forever.

All of this is huge.

Even if it doesn’t look that way on the outside.

But that’s really the point of all this.

You have the right to define big for yourself.

You get to decide what’s epic in your world.

Because sometimes just being alive is an act of courage.

And what you’re doing right now is enough.

Photo credit – kevinthoule

Fabeku here.

This is a guest post from the ultra fab Chris Anthony from The Delight Specialist.

Check it.

The truth

I’ll start this by revealing something that I don’t think I’ve said anywhere else before.

In fact, when most of my friends read this, they’ll laugh and say, “No, he’s not.” But it’s true. I only learned this in the last few months, but it really explains a lot about me.

Here we go:

I am an extrovert.

(This is where my friends are laughing out loud and saying, “No, he’s not.”)

When I was very young – before my sixth birthday – I was about as outgoing as kids get. I must have driven my mom nuts – I’d walk up to random strangers and start conversations, and when she’d recovered me and decided I was safe, I’d wait until her back was turned and then do it again.

I thrived on personal contact. I was a tiny, curly-haired networking machine.

Then my sixth summer came along and everything changed. I won’t get into the details here, but I learned to fear personal contact. The interaction I’d loved most in the world I now saw as poison, and it took tremendous effort just to work up the nerve to say hello to someone I already knew.

It’s been a quarter of a century and I’m only just now figuring out that this isn’t the way that I’m supposed to be. I’ve learned the fake introversion so well that it feels natural – but it’s not.

The clues have always been there, but I’ve only recently realized what they meant.

When I hang out with people I like – even online – I get giddy and my inhibitions lower. When I have a great conversation with someone I feel energized for hours. And being alone, and staying to myself – the habit I got into to protect myself – just leaves me more depressed.

And finally, I realized what was going on. And it was all thanks to one MP3.

The track that changed my life

About two years ago, I was fiddling around with GarageBand on my new MacBook (a birthday gift), and I realized that one of the sample sets available was nature sounds, including the sounds of rain, wind, and thunder.

On a whim, I put together a 15-minute MP3 of a thunderstorm, complete with blustering wind and thunderclaps every few dozen seconds.

I used it for a while as white noise – mostly while I was working in the coffeeshop, where I was easily distracted by nearby conversations (this should have been a clue, but I was firmly convinced I was an introvert) – and since the thunderstorm worked so well, I made a few other tracks.

One was forest noises, including a babbling brook, to complement the thunderstorm.

The other was low-level background chatter – like the rooba-rooba of a coffeeshop, but completely indistinct, so that there were no recognizable words to latch onto. (As I recall, I used clips of German speech so that it would sound like English but I wouldn’t be able to understand it.)

I used those tracks religiously for a while, but they slowly fell away from my attention. The work that I was doing at that time required more distraction than just a thunderstorm, and I’d forget about them when I did other things.

Eventually they just faded from my attention altogether.

Then, about a month ago, I found the trio of MP3s while I was salvaging a hard drive from a dead computer. I started playing the coffeeshop conversation track for nostalgia’s sake while I did the rest of my salvage, and I found myself smiling for no real reason while I listened to it.

When I noticed, I started paying attention – being present in the moment and in the sound around me – and I realized that it was the sound of the coffeeshop that was making me smile.

I started wondering. What about the coffeeshop track made me smile? The other two tracks were comforting in a white-noise, sounds-of-nature way, but the coffeeshop spoke to me.

The revelation

I realized that the consulting I’d been doing had been what made me happiest – the connection with other people.

I realized that when I worked at the coffeeshop, I got more done and was happier at the end of the day.

I realized that physical contact and connection – which I’d not only avoided but actively feared since I was ten or eleven – really gave me an emotional boost.

All of this took me a few weeks to digest.

Finally, I asked on Twitter, a few days ago – “can extroversion and introversion be learned, or are you born extroverted/introverted?”

Even as I asked, I knew my answer. But most of the responses agreed with me – “you’re born one, but you can learn to fake the other.”

And it finally struck me. It’s the human contact that energizes me. I feel happiest when I’m making good connections.

If I stop letting my fear and nervousness overwhelm me, I’m gregarious and charming – just like I was when I was five years old. All of this introversion – all of the inward-facing attempts to be alone to regenerate – just left me more stressed out and depressed.

I’m an extrovert. I’ve just learned to fake introversion so well that I’ve fooled even myself.

Now I have a goal to work toward – get past the fear and nervousness, and climb into my own skin again. I can genuinely feel hopeful about my future, because I want to get back to where I’m supposed to be.

All thanks to an MP3.

Me (Fabeku) again.

I dig Chris muches. I mean, he is a Delight Specialist.

Best. Job Title. Ever.

He basically helps you to turn up the awesome in your business. Which makes it way easier for your right people to fall madly in love with you.

Chris lives with his wife, his son and tons o’ animals. And he wants to write music for aquariums and planetariums. (See. I told you he was fabulous.)

Chris is also teaching Delightineering 101. Which is him sharing his smartness and teaching you the how and the why behind delight. So you can learn how to rock the awesome for yourself, your business and your life.

This shindig starts on September 13th. And today is the last day to snag a seat at the early bird price.

So take a peek.

p.s. None of these links are affiliate links. I’m not pimping this stuff because I’m making money off of it. I’m pimping it because it’s the awesome. And because the world needs what Chris is doing.

Tweaked.
Acked out.
Kind of twisty.

And the suck really stood out.

Because that’s totally not my normal state.

I’m usually pretty flow-ey. Grounded. In the groove more often than not.

But today?

Not so much.

Mountains out of molehills with a side of stimulants

I knew I was in trouble when I started to sweat what kind of sound-ey thing I should do to start the day.

Drums or singing bowls? Singing bowls or drums?
Or maybe chanting? Or chanting and drums?

Clue #1.

I tried to drum.

But I was too distracted. So I went to make tea.

Because, you know, nothing helps anxious ack like consuming a mug full of stimulants.

Or. Or. Or.

Ok. I had tea. Now I’ll write.

No, wait. I’ll do email.

But first I’ll take a picture of one of my drums to post on Facebook.

Oh, and then I’ll make some notes about that idea I had yesterday. And then I’ll write.

Wait, where’s the cat?

Total. Lack. Of. Focus.

Clue #2.

Ohmygawd

By the time I finally opened my laptop to write, I was distracted.

Again.

By my left leg. Which was bouncing at a bazillion miles a minute. Non-effing-stop.

And I felt generally jitter-ey.

Clue #3.

Houston, we have a problem.

Oy.

Dude. I get it.

I get what the anxious is about.

I got it the second I woke up and felt the ack in my chest.

I have some new goodies brewing.

Big stuff that I’m ridiculously excited about. Stuff that I can’t wait to share.

But stuff that is new and awesome. And did I mention big?

I need to make some tweaks to put it all into place.

Inner tweaks. And outer tweaks.

I don’t have all the logistics totally sorted yet.

So there are clusters of dangle-ey question marks sprinkled in between nuggets of wild excitement.

And I’m feeling anxious about the dangle-ey bits.

Change of plan

But after a morning of going in circles, imbibing too much caffeine and risking a repetitive stress injury due to the aforementioned bouncing-like-a-meth-head leg it was totally time for a break.

Trying to ignore the ack was so not working.

So my new plan was to sit with the tweaked and the acked out and the twisty.

Because clearly they had something to say.

I wasn’t trying to poke the suck. Because that plan is at least as bad as trying to ignore it.

I figured I’d just listen. And see what shows up.

Time to chill

So I went to the studio, snatched eleven of my favorite singing bowls and plopped myself on the ground.

I closed my eyes and just tried to chill.

Me and the bowls.
Me and my breath.
Me and the ack.

Hmm.

I noticed that I was rolling the singing bowl mallet around in my hands.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

And my brain was still thinking about all the question marks.

But I started to play.

First the big bass-ey bowl that I can feel in my bones.

Then the pair of sweet bowls that sound like birds.

Then a short pause. And after that the really old bowl that sings forever.

Mmm.

Aaaaand we have cartoons

Turns out the ack is worried about the dangle-ey bits too.

Feeling rushed to get it all sorted out. To get every last question answered nownownow.

If the ack were a person, it would be a cartoon.

A little old man with a big head. And big glasses. And a sweater that fits too tight.

He paces back and forth and asks a lot of questions. A lot of questions.

There is also much hand wringing involved.

And no matter what answer I give him, he always says But what about?! or Yeah but?! And then he fires off another question.

He really hates not knowing.

Connect the dots

I was trying to pay attention to my cartoon compadre without getting thrown off by his Gatling gun questions.

When I’d start to get sucked in, I’d focus on the bowls.

So I just kept playing.

That’s when it hit me.

When I hang out with these shiny golden orbs of mad awesomesauce, I never know what I’m going to play.

I just grab a mallet and go.

And I never freak out about it. Even if I’m playing in front of an audience.

I don’t sweat it. I just play.

I just follow one note to the next note. On and on.

It’s like a game of connect-the-dots with sound.

And it all comes together in a big heap of gorgeousness.

Deep breath

So it’s ok not to know.

Wait.

I need to hear that again.

It’s ok not to know.

I don’t have to have every last dangle-ey bit all wrapped up right now.

I don’t have to sweat this.

Stuff is coming together. There’s so much awesome already in place.

And, really, it’s already looking amazing.

I just have to keep playing.

Connecting the dots. Following one note to the next.

Just like always.

And I’ve been wanting to show it to you forever.

But instead of taking a bunch of pictures, I figured a video tour would be more fun to do.

And it was.

Even though I kept having keeping-my-head-in-the-shot issues.

Anyway here’s a peek at one of my favorites places in the whole wide world.

Enjoy!

p.s. I know some of you aren’t video people. But I briefly channel Phil Collins. So it’s probably worth a watch.

Golden nuggets of gorgeousness!

A few weeks ago I was playing some singing bowls.

I grabbed six of my favorites and plopped myself down on the floor of my studio.

I was totally ready to rock out and soak up some bowl-ey goodness.

So I’m thwacking away. And the bowls are sounding sweet.

Then. All of a sudden. It sucked.

The sound totally went wonky.

Here I am eyes-closed, loving-it, in-a-gorgeous-groove and this crap nugget shows up.

It jolted me straight out of the deliciousness in a fit of WTF?!

Ack.

Turns out I grabbed a bowl I didn’t mean to grab. And it happened to be one that sounded like ass with the other bowls I was playing.

It was no big deal.

I figured out what happened. The wonky faded fast. And I was back to gorgeous in no time.

But the whole thing shook a little aha! out of me.

Suck happens

Sometimes I wish life was a steady stream of awesome. Free of any ack, ugh and ouch.

But suck happens sometimes.

That’s just how things go. I don’t have a lot of control over that.

But I do have control over how I handle it.

Which I get sounds like some garden variety self-help-ey lameness. A double decker of trite with a side of cliché.

But this bowl thing got me thinking.

What if I handled all suck the way I handled this?

The problem with perpetual poking

Until now, my suck-handling strategy has looked a little something like this.

Suck detected. Poke the suck. Pokepokepoke. Fixate. Freak out.

My usual m.o. has been to perpetually poke the suck while I try to sort it out. Feeding it with gobs of energy and attention and angst.

It’s not even close to the most helpful way to handle suck. Because it just creates more suck.

It would be like me banging that sounded-like-ass bowl a hundred times at full volume.

It just amplifies the ack.

So what if I give the suck some space instead of poke-poke-poking it?

Letting it fade

I got the suck with the bowls sorted so fast because I didn’t get keep poking.

I hit the initial wonky note. I let it fade. And I fixed the problem by grabbing the bowl I meant to grab in the first place.

The feels-really-important piece in this is the I-let-it-fade part.

I didn’t prolong the aural ack by repeatedly thwacking the bowl that I knew sounded bad.

I heard the bad note. And I let it fade.

I just gave it space.

And everything was totally fine.

I’ll be with you in a minute

So I’ve been playing around with a new suck-handling strategy as a part of this flow thing.

Now when suck crops up I do my best to give it space.

I step away. I don’t poke. I focus on something else.

Not in a la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you way. It’s more of a I’ll-be-with-you-in-a-minute kind of thing.

But it doesn’t have to be an actual minute.

It can be as long as I want.

Because part of my new strategy is giving myself complete and total permission to take as much space as I need.

Ten minutes. Six hours. Four days. Whatever.

I give myself the space I need so that I can come back to it in a way that doesn’t add to the ack.

Plus then I can deal with the suck on purpose. Instead of just knee-jerking my way through it.

Space FTW!

It’s really rad how well this works.

It doesn’t always make the suck go away all by itself*.

But it alwaysalwaysalways gives me the clarity I need to deal with the suck in a way that actually works.

In a way that doesn’t feed it. Or prolong it. Or get me tangled up in it.

It makes it cleaner. And easier. And way less sucky.

*But it is kind of amazing how many little things that could have turned into big things just go buhbye when given a little breathing room.

It’s contagious

Apparently this works for other people too.

This week a friend of mine stopped by. They needed to rap about some hard stuff they’re dealing with right now.

Great big hard life stuff.

We were yacking it up for an hour or so. Deep and intense chatter.

And I could see that my friend was getting totally knotted up in the hard.

They were just going in circles. ‘Round and ‘round and ‘round the suck.

So I suggested we take a break and drum for ten minutes.

Before we even had the drums back in their cases my darling friend knew exactly what they needed to do.

Rawk!

Digging it

I think I’ll keep playing with this space thing.

Because so far I’m really digging it.

It’s already made things so much easier. And less tangle-ey.

And it’s kind of an awesome alternative to poking the suck.

So now I’m really glad that I accidentally snagged that bowl.

How do you deal with suck?
What’s your first thought when you think about giving suck some space?

I’m curious. Let’s talk.

I mean, sure, it’s also filled with lots of crap and bunches of snooze. But some stuff is so ninjarific that it just begs to be shared.

Thus the advent of the Now That’s Ninjarific series.

Now I have a place to share the awesomesauce stuff I bump into with some of my favorite people ever.

Woot! Yay! And woohoo!

Some of the aforementioned grooviness is sound stuff. Some of it’s not. All of it’s totally ninjarific.

It sort of has to be to qualify for an installment of Now That’s Ninjarific, right?

The nose!

So last week I thought I was getting a cold.

Sore throat. Stuffy nose. Slightly ugh-ey.

By the weekend I was completely zonked on the couch. I barely moved between Saturday and Tuesday.

Couldn’t breathe. Head-to-toe ouchies. Completely wiped.

After trying every over-the-counter remedy known to man and getting zero relief, I finally went to the doctor yesterday.

(Thanks for the nudge Mom. You’re the smartness.)

Aaaaaand it turns out this “cold” was actually a pretty gnarly sinus infection.

Which actually explains a lot. Including this who-punched-me-in-the-nose? feeling.

All I can say is thank gawd for antibiotics.

Because I’m totally over feeling punched up.

And because I want to be in tip top shape for the shindig that’s starting in a couple weeks.

Anyway.

I’ve got a couple of really hawt blog posts that are percolating right now. Delicious stuff that’s related to flow. Stuff that’s filled to the brim with all kinds of aha!

I’ll be serving those up soonsoonsoon.

But, right now, everything is a hazy shade of NyQuil.

So I’ve wrangled up a few nuggets of ninjarificness for you.

Shall we?

Benjamin Zander brings it

I think Benjamin Zander is capital-B Brilliant.

His music is bubbling with mojo. And the book he and his wife wrote is one of my favorites.

So I actually squeeed! when I stumbled onto this TED talk.

It is about music. And connection. And impact. And possibility.

It is smart. And funny. And full of music that wows me to eyes-closed-mouth-open speechlessness.

And the question he poses at the end? HUGE.

Do yourself a favor and watch this. Really.

Extra mustard please

There’s a man named Daniel Mustard. People also call him Homeless Mustard.

He’s a homeless guy. Who lives in NYC*.

*He even has a map on his website that shows you where you can find him.

He also has a great big beard and a voice that’s full of soul.

My faboo friend Lisa B turned me on to his beard his tunes by way of this video where he totally nails a cover of Creep by Radiohead.

(Psst. This is NSFW due to language.)

Wow.

There’s something in the rawness of his voice that just rocks me.

Check out his other videos. His rendition of Boys Don’t Cry is awesome.

(Lisa B is awesome too. She’s @zenatplay on the Twitters.)

Kazoos + Metallica FTW!

When I was a kid I had a kazoo obsession.

It kind of bordered on unhealthy.

I had a ton of these instruments-of-mucho-kookiness.

Plastic ones. Metal ones. Wooden ones. Cheap ones. Expensive ones.

You get the idea.

My favorite kazoo was this fancy blue and gold metal number.

I actually engraved my name on it.

Because, in my state of extreme nerdiness, I figured people would stop at nothing to steal this piece of buzz-ey hawtness from me.

I carried that thing around with me everywhere. No matter where I went.

Because, when you’re 12, you can’t even conceive of an occasion when playing the kazoo might be inappropriate.

So imagine the exhilaration I felt when I found this video of Mister Tim serving up a piping hot dose of Metallica’s Enter Sandman on not one but four kazoos!

Need I say more?

I didn’t think so.

Your code. Their organ. Rawk.

I’ve mentioned Patti before in past editions of Now That’s Ninjarific.

Because she is the epitome of ninjarificness.

And when she tossed out the link to this morsel of gorgeous on Twitter, every nerdy bone in my body tingled.

CODEORGAN is the kind of thing that just makes me happy.

It is wacky. And devoid of any real practical purpose. But it’s fun.

Fun is good.

Apparently this thing analyzes the contents of a web page and turns the code-ey bits into playable tunes. Complete with synthesizers and fancy drum loops.

So you can listen to the music your site is making.

LOVE.

(Check out Patti on Twitter. She’s @pattidigh.)

Aardvarks and aural magics

You know about Heidi’s potions and Shannon’s life coaching, right?

Heidi creates these uber delicious alchemical concoctions. And she has an aardvark for a business partner.

Shannon tames fear and feeds inspiration. And, dude, she climbs moutains.

So it goes without saying that these two are already a hundred kinds of fabulous in my book, right?

But, in an act that kind of redefines fabulous, Heidi and Shannon have combined their superpowers to do one of the coolest somethings I’ve heard about in a long time.

They explain it way better than I could:

You know those potions that you love? Well, those very potions will soon be available accompanied by downloadable audios, custom-made for each potion, to help you ignite potion-magics inside yourself in the zippy, subtle and super-charged places where body and mind get it on and things can’t help but change.

Slather on the potion. Listen to the audio. Watch stuff shift.

Wildly helpful. Totally smart. Seriously awesome.

And they’re also giving away potions + audio awesome. So take a peek.

(Heidi is @curiousHeidiHi and Shannon is @shannonmw on Twitter.)

Your turn

In keeping with tradition, here’s where I invite you to share your assorted nuggets of ninjarificness with me.

Websites. Tunes. Books. Assorted sightings of fabulousness.
What’s really wowed you lately?

Go ahead and lay it on me.

Because, really, I need something to do while waiting for this amoxicillin to do its thang.

Flickr credit – madaboutasia

Dad + Fabeku nugget

Sunday was Father’s Day.

I started the day by burning a mix CD of my favorite punk tunes.

Not because it was Father’s Day.

Just because.

Then I read this post from Patti.

Which got me thinking about Dad.

Even more than I already was.

That long? Really?!

Patti said this is her 30th Father’s Day without her dad.

Which made me realize that this is my 16th Father’s Day without mine.

Sixteen years.

Really?

Wow.

My dad and I had a weird and wild relationship.

There was lots of fighting. And lots of ignoring each other. And lots of feeling more like enemies than father and son.

But there were some sweet times too.

Fishing. Except not really.

Like when I was a little kid and he’d take me fishing.

He’d fish.

And I’d walk all along the banks of the river. Turning over every single rock I could find. Looking for frogs and crawdads and salamanders.

He’d catch a fish. I’d clap and scream.

Then I’d go back to turning over rocks. And he’d go back to fishing.

Even though we were each doing our own thing, I felt like we were hanging out together.

Somehow it just worked for us.

BBQ + Buddhas

Then there was the trip we took to DC when I was 14 or 15.

I was crazy into art. And Dad wanted me to see the Smithsonian’s art collection.

So we took off. Just the two of us.

And we spent three days in DC.

Days full of mind-blowing art, Mongolian barbecue at this little dive joint and buying plastic Buddhas in Chinatown.

It was fun.

There was no fighting, no ignoring, no feeling-like-enemies.

So, yeah, there are definitely some good memories.

Even if, in real life, beyond the fishing and the Buddhas, we spent most of our time not talking to each other. And when we did it was usually more screaming than talking.

Prelude to the huge

Then, during my senior year in high school, something huge happened.

Like life changing kind of huge.

Dad had actually moved out.

He and Mom weren’t getting along. And after one of the worst fights ever, he left.

He was living in some dumpy rent-by-the-week motel.

When I saw it for the first time I remember feeling really sad that he was living there. Even though I was still seriously pissed at him about the fight.

But that wasn’t the life changing thing.

That was more or less just life.

*click*

One day Dad called the house and asked if I wanted to go out to lunch with him.

Wha?

We never went to lunch. Even when he was still living at home.

So I didn’t get it.

Then there was that still-pissed-at-him thing.

So I basically said no way and hung up the phone.

He called back and talked to Mom. She told me I should go.

So I did.

Bring on the bomb

Dad picked me up. We went to eat. After lunch we were just driving around.

That’s when Dad dropped the bomb.

He said, Do you know what I wanted to be when I grew up?

No, I said in my best teenage like-I-care voice.

An artist, he said.

What?!

I had lived with this man for 17 years. And painted since I was a pollywog.

And he never said one thing about my art. Or art in general.

He never lifted a brush. Or put a pastel to paper. Or even glanced at an art magazine.

Zero. Zilch. Nada.

And now he’s telling me he wanted to be an artist?

It was a total WTF!? moment.

All I ever wanted to do was paint, he said. But grandma and grandpa told me that was dumb. They said I needed to get a real job.

Blown away

Dad’s real job was a gig in mid-level corporate management.

He did well. And made decent money. But he hated it.

I think that’s why he was grumpy pretty much all the time.

So after hearing this all-I-ever-wanted-to-do-is-paint revelation I sat there totally open-mouthed.

Staring at Dad. Staring out the window. Staring at Dad.

Then he said, I know you’ve been thinking about college. And I know your mother and I have been hard on you about this.

But I want you to know that it’s ok to do what you want to do. Whatever it is.

I didn’t know what to say. I don’t think I said much.

But I was stunned.

Totally and completely blown away.

It’s like my whole world just went boom.

He dropped me off. I went inside. He went back to that dumpy little motel room.

Boom (part II)

Then he got sick.

Well got sick again.

He had cancer. It went away. Then it came back.

And a year later he was gone.

It happened so unexpectedly.

Going in for routine tests on Wednesday. Dead by the weekend.

I wasn’t even 19 yet. And Dad was dead.

My world went boom again.

Steaming pile of suck meet aha! moment

Fast forward six years.

I was living in North Carolina with my wife. And working a corporate job that I hated.

I had landed a mid-level management gig. Which sounded like a great idea at the time. But it morphed into a steaming pile of suck in a matter of months.

Tons of hours. Tons of stress. Tons of grumpy and angry and hard-to-be-around.

Then it hit me.

Holy shit. This is exactly what happened to Dad.

Whoa.

You can call me Gonzo

So I walked into the office and quit.

No two week notice. No tying up loose ends. No training a replacement.

I was effing gonzo baby.

I knew I had to do my thing. Whatever it was. I had to do it.

I didn’t want to be stuck in a job I hated for decades. And be miserable for the rest of my life. And die with some unfulfilled wish stuck in my gut.

So I jumped.

And I never looked back.

Life changing. Really.

Yeah, sometimes it’s been hard. And scary. And stressful.

And some people thought I totally lost my mind when I walked out on that corporate gig.

And said no to all of the offers they tossed out trying to keep me.

But I always think back to that conversation Dad and I had in the car.

I know that the whole life changing thing has gotten kicked around so much that it’s become a cliché.

So I try not to say it unless it’s true.

That day?

Totally life changing.

Gotta get it out

There are a lot of reasons why I do what I do.

But the catalyst for it was that extraordinary thing my dad said to me on an otherwise ordinary day.

Somebody – I don’t remember who – said, Don’t die with your music still in you.

That stuck with me when I heard it.

I feel like Dad died without ever getting his music out into the world.

I didn’t don’t want the same thing to happen to me.

That’s what got me moving in this direction.

And there isn’t one single time that I sit down to drum a drum or gong a gong or whack a singing bowl that I don’t think about Dad.

And about how insanely lucky I am to do what I do.

So this is me saying thanks Dad.

About how I’m saying eff fighting and experimenting with flow for awhile.

Basically my plan is to put my time and energy into things that naturally have flow.

And to give up the idea that if something is worth having, it’s worth fighting for.

Because fighting?

Exhausting. Hard. Messy.

And the idea of tossing out this worth-fighting-for thing struck a chord with a bunch of you taters. And I said we’d talk more about this.

So here I am.

With an update. And an invitation.

Originally I thought I’d do these updates once a week. For like six months.

You know, be all regular and structured-like.

But that didn’t feel very flow-ey.

So I’m going to do these updates when I feel like I actually have an update-worthy update. And I’ll keep doing them as long it feels helpful or interesting to both of us.

Coolness?

So let’s do this thing.

Update-O-Rama!

Tooth! Ouch!
Right after I decided to undertake this experiment I broke my tooth. And had to have oral surgery.

Awesome.

Because, you know, trips to the dentists are all about flow.

(And, really, even the oral surgery part was pretty flow-ey. Except when we got to the blindfold. Which is another story for another time.)

Anyway.

It went a little something like this.

tooth + hard food thing = tooth-go-boom

And a boom-ey tooth meant tons of ouch.

Like walking-around-squeezing-my-head-so-the-ouch-would-be-less-ouch-ey kind of thing.

Now I could pretend that I was all Zen about it.

Welcoming the opportunity to be present with my body. Grateful for a chance to practice not resisting the pain. Meeting myself where I was.

Except that would be total bullshit.

I was grumpy. I dropped a lot of f-bombs. And the Vicodin the oral surgeon prescribed left me laying flat on the couch in a puddle of drool.

So, yeah.

Lots of fight-ey stuff happened with this tooth thing.

But when the pain got dear-gawd-I’m-about-to-have-a-meltdown intense, I drummed. A lot. Or I hung out with these two tuning forks.

And the sound-ey stuff really helped the pain.

So even in the middle of mucho fighting I did find a leeeetle flow.

Must. Have. More. Space.
So Bridget and I have been putting this gorgeous thing together.

Lots of exciting. Lots of fun. Lots of busy.

And in that final stretch of OMG-we’re-almost-ready-to-share-this I did what I do a lot.

I got really, really focused on the thing.

It’s like tunnel vision x 100.

So there were a few days where I spent like 10+ hours glued to my chair, working like a wild man, barely aware of anything else around me.

Which is kind of oof.

Even when you’re working on something you dig like an old soul record.

And then, after we sent our thing out into the world with fist pumps and much love, I realized two things as the adrenaline was wearing off.

I was seriously tired.
And I had an acktastic backlog of stuff to do.

Brainstorming with Bridget and pairing up our superpowers is awesome. Fabulous, even. And not even a little fight-ey.

I just realize that I need to change the way I work on things.

I need to give myself more space. And build more space into a project’s making-it-happen phase.

Then there will be less glued-to-the-chair marathons and post-adrenaline rush backlogs.

So I’m filing this nugget of awareness under flow enhancers. Or something like that.

And it was really tempting to jump straight into fight mode to get caught up on everything.

To slog through a few more 10+ hour days.

But I didn’t.

We finished getting our thing ready to roll on Friday.

And then I took the weekend off.

I rested. And played with Sid the Punk Rock Kitteh. And hung out in the studio.

And I’m already caught up on all the backlog-ey bits. (Woot!)

Which, by the way, just proves my theory that saying eff cramming is pretty much the best productivity strategy ever.

It’s also a really sexy way to maintain your flow-ey mojo too.

Schedule shifts
Following the aha! moment about the sexiness of space, I started looking at my schedule some more.

I zoomed in on the time slots I use for scheduling sound sessions.

And I realized that I wanted to build a little more space into those too.

The sessions are technically an hour long.

But they really run about two hours.

Because there’s the setting-everything-up time. And the getting-into-the-zone time. And the getting-out-of-the-zone time. And the formatting-and-uploading-the-recordings time.

There’s a lot to do before and after each session.

And I always leave enough time before a session so that I can really get ready to rock it.

But I decided to give myself some extra space after a session too.

Which meant making a few tweaks to when I schedule the sound-ey stuff.

And I’m actually really excited about the changes.

Because I’ll have more room after a session to make a smoother transition from drumming drums and shifting stuff to whatever’s next.

Which means more flow.

Rawk.

Daily schtuff
Since starting this experiment, I’ve been paying extra attention to the stuff I can do every day to amp up the flow.

Like making sure I start the day by drumming. Or whacking a few singing bowls. Or doing some kind of sound-ey thing.

And not skipping this morning thing even when the day looks kooky busy.

And making sure there are at least two days a week where I don’t schedule phone calls or sessions.

Which gives me big blocks of time to record, work on faboo projects and sink really deeeeep into the juicy creative flow.

I’m also taking time at night to unpack the day. To put everything where it figuratively belongs. So that I can wake up the next day with a deliciously clear slate.

Because I don’t dig feeling like I have to untangle myself from yesterday before I can start today.

Totally unflow-ey.

Invitations! You have one!

So that’s my first update.

All in all, I think things are going gorgeously.

I’m going to keep paying attention. And keep tweaking.

But there’s definitely more flow goin’ on now than there was five weeks ago.

So yay!

And I’d totally love to hear from you.

How are you doing?
Where have you felt fight-ey?
Where have you felt flow-ey?
What kind of stuff is helping you to feed the flow?
Where do you feel stuck with all of this?

This is me inviting you to check in.

Rap about where you are. Share the yays and the arghs. Ask questions.

Whatever works.

And you can share as much or as little as you want.

It’s all good.

Talk to me. Fill me in.

(Yes, I’m talking to you.)

Stories are like flypaper

So we’ve already talked about the fact that you are not your stories, right?

About how you’re way more than all of that stuff that you tell yourself about yourself.

But I want to rap about stories again.

Because digging around in this story thing is a big part of what I do.

Because it’s important.

And because stories are a source of major stuck for so many people.

Stories are sticky. Like flypaper. Or quicksand.

They stop us in our tracks. And trip us up. And hold us back.

Stories have shaping power.

They can twist us and turn us and tweak us in all directions.

And when the stories we’re hanging out with are helpful, that rocks. But when they’re not so helpful, it sucks tons.

Bumpity bump bump

And, seriously, our own stories can be sticky enough.

All of that stuff that we keep telling ourselves all frakking day. Sometimes at full volume.

I suck. I can’t do this. I’m not as good as so-and-so. Their thing is better than my thing. I sucksucksuck.

But when we bump into other people’s stories about us?

Schweet jeezus.

It can get mondo sticky with the quickness.

Especially when the stories people have about us are the same as the ones we tell ourselves.

You suck. You can’t do this. You’re not as good as so-and-so. Their thing is better than your thing. You sucksucksuck.

Nightmarish scream-ey coaches

When I was a little tater tot I had a coach who told me that I basically sucked shit at sports.

And by told me I mean got in my face and screamed that I was the worst player he’d ever seen as loud as he could in front of like thirty people.

I already felt like I sucked at sports. So his you suck dovetailed perfectly with my I suck and left me with a story that I suck at sports. Which I’ve repeated endlessly ever since.

Plus I picked up some extra ack around how horrifying it is to be humiliated in front of large groups of people.

(Thanks coach!)

Boot meet ‘nads

And then when I was 15 I took a painting class with a local painter. After looking at my painting, he told me that I could be really successful in New York.

Because in New York bad art was good art.

I was an uber sensitive kid. Who was already shy about sharing his art. And I only took the stupid class because a friend begged me.

So this guy’s comment felt like a swift kick to the ‘nads that totally reinforced the idea that I was a freak show and that my art I was weird and awful and lame.

Get real dude

And I remember the time I talked to a friend about my plans to do this sound thing full time.

Their response?

That I was pretty much crazy because no one would ever pay me money to beat a drum.

And that I should seriously think about getting a Real Job instead of pursuing this particular flavor of madness.

In other words, get real dude.

Loud. Loud! LOUD!

Obviously the coach and the art teacher and my friend had clear opinions about me.

I suck at sports. I did bad art. Thinking I could bang a drum for money is kooky pants.

And they voiced their opinions loud and clear. With the emphasis on the loud.

But sometimes people’s stories about us are way more subtle than that.

Less in-your-face. More implied.

Like the little eye-roll-and-a-sigh thing a friend does when you’re talking about some ouch-ey experience.

Like your mom telling you that you’re the smart one instead of the pretty one. Or the pretty one instead of the smart one.

Like someone sending me an email telling me they don’t get the ninja thing because, uh, kids like ninjas.

This stuff is way less loud, but no less sticky.

Because they’re full of stories about us that totally suck.

You should toughen up and get over it already. You can’t be smart and pretty. You’re immature for liking what you like.

It’s all about the fit

And whether it’s loud and in your face or more passive-aggressive roundabout, it still feels like people are saying really awful, ouch-ey things about you when they hurl their stories your way.

But here’s the thing.

They’re not.

Because you are not their stories.

You aren’t the things they’re saying about you. Because they’re not even really talking about you.

I mean, I know it seems like they are. And they might even think they are.

But, really, they’re talking about three things:

• Their stories about the world
• How you do or don’t fit with those stories
• What kind of stuff that stirs up in their inner bits

So what feels like a commentary about you is really about how neatly you fit the stories they tell themselves about how things are.

Not about me. Rinse & repeat.

Like the painter who said my art sucked?

He had a very clear story about what art should look like and what it takes to be a successful artist.

And I’m pretty sure that also he had a story about how much it sucks teaching painting to 15 year old kids.

Totally not about me.

And my friend who said I was crazy for trying to do this sound stuff?

They had a story about how you can and can’t make money. And how it’s way safer to work for someone else than it is to do what you love.

I also know that underneath the you’re crazy thing there was a genuine concern for me. Wanting to make sure that I’d be ok and not end up broke and homeless.

Not about me. Again.

And the person who wanted to tell me they didn’t get the ninja thing?

They had a story about what people who do sound-ey stuff should look like. And ninjas totally weren’t a part of that story.

Plus this was a really obvious case of go fish.

But that’s still not about me.

Kicking up some inner ack

I didn’t fit the stories these peeps had.

Which created some ack-ey argh-ey stuff within them. Which they lobbed my direction.

But it totally wasn’t about me.

It was about them. And their stories. And their ack.

So even though it sounded like they were talking about me, they were really telling me what they thought was true about the world.

That doesn’t have to be true for me.

And, chances are, it probably isn’t.

Ack Handling 101

So what do you do when you feel like someone is dumping their ack in your lap?

Keep reminding yourself that you are not their stories.
And that they’re really talking about themselves, not you.
And that what’s true for them doesn’t have to be true for you.
Then go forth and find some other Fs.

And if you need some extra funk-be-gone mojo, crank up your favorite tunes and do some serious non-serious shaky butt.

Or do the AHHH thing.

Or drop a comment here.

Because I get how much this stuff sucks.

And sometimes having somebody else to remind us that the stuff other people say about us isn’t really about us can be helpful.

And I’m totally down with that.

Flickr credit – ThisParticularGreg