Fankle 1# – Tribal Authors

I’ve had a crush on Jonathan Fields ever since I bought his yoga video oh probably 10 years ago. I love a guy in a bandanna who is gently telling me what to do with my body. (coy blush)

Fast forward a year or so ago and we connected via Twitter over his first book, Career Renegade.  He didn’t contact me so I could help him — he wanted to see if he could help me! Major mensch.

Watching Jonathan develop his kickassiness via his blog this year has been so enlightening but you know what made me fall in love even more with him?  When a client o’ mine signed up for his Tribal Author Camp and then had a family emergency and instead of him saying, “Shine it on baby,” he gave her the recordings for the entire weekend. As we say around my house, “Good form! Good form!”

Jonathan interviewed me via video Skype last week on my Tribal Author Book Biz Plan – watch me admit that I don’t have one and talk about what I’m doing to keep reinventing myself.

Thanks bandanna man, I love learning from you.

Fankle 2# – She Does it Again

How does Cairene MacDonald keep doing it?  I want to be her when I grow up!  She takes ideas that could be so surface and pat and she digs into them and makes you see new ways of being.

Lots of my peeps at the Comfort Cafe are big fans. She was one of our Wise Persons last year (we have a call every month with someone, um wise, who teaches us something wise – get the theme?).

Picture this: I’m hanging out with my Lillian (she’s 15) and we’re talking about how she can’t decide whether to date this boy and how making decisions is hard for her in general (I’m talking even ordering in a resturant) I’m trying to explain to her “good enough is good enough” and how you have to leave the not quite right and be in the unknown so the right stuff can find you (can you imagine how annoying it is to have me as a mother?) and then

THIS POST ARRIVES IN MY IN-BOX.

Oh. How. Perfect.

(and no, not because she talks about me.)

Fankle #3

I’m all et-up (as my grandmom used to say) with retreats these days.  The Virtual Retreat and my live mini-retreats. I’m on fire with new material to help people end the dreaded deadly cycle of depletion.

Then I read Andrea Lee‘s last newsletter in which she says, “If you’re stuck in any way, or even if you’re not stuck but you want to amp up your flow of energy, ask yourself:

In what way could I be applying the things I sell, teach or stand for, to myself?”

I remembered I have canceled not one, but two, retreats this month.

I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

But I have so much to do!

I have to keep pushing through!

Oh my god, I will not believe that lie again!

So here is the word: Starting Friday at noon, 24 hours of total retreat time.

I will not be a liar who sells one thing and does another.

P.S. Next two live retreats are soon:

Wisconsin, near Madison.

Texas, near Dallas. Early bird price for Texas goes up February 27th. I’ve added local beloved yoga teacher Brandie Werner to our day – easy restorative yoga, yes ma’am!

Fankle #4 – Another Mensch!

Charlie Gilkey has been my coach and he is certainly my friend.

I love him because he is so smart and yet he still wants to talk to me.

I love him because he is so smart but gives away too much stuff (like me) and refuses to do sleazy marketing stuff (hopefully like me).

Let me admit right now: I am a planner whore — and I created a few myself back in the days when The Life Organizer was a date book.

Isn’t there something so Garden of Eden about hoping you will find the perfect planner?

Charlie thinks so too (or he’s a planner whore, too,  you’ll have to ask him) so he keeps creating these cool planners for creative types.

It’s all about chunking it down to the smallest action.

Action, people, action. Which might make some planner whores uneasy because you would actually not just be planning but creating.

Please check out Charlie’s hip and helpful planners for creative people.