Does Your Passion Show?

Even  if you knew nothing about my sister Nancy, you wouldn’t need the detective skills of Miss Marple to discover her passion. A visit to her charming apartment in Rome has all the clues you’d need. From the terracotta ornaments on the walls and shelves, to the books lining her bookcases, to the etchings on her walls, you’d quickly figure out that this is a woman devoted to the culture of ancient Greece and Italy. There’s even a sofa pillow embroidered with a slogan declaring My Life is in Ruins.

Genuine passion goes beyond interior decorating, of course. Nancy’s  passion has been at the center of her life for decades. Many lives, including mine, are richer for that. The first time I visited her in Greece, she took me to see the ruins at Corinth. We began walking through what looked like a rubble pile and Nancy started to describe the scene as it would have looked during the time of St. Paul. Suddenly the rocks and ruins came to life as I visualized the bustling city that once stood on that site.

Later this month, her book Symbols of Wealth and Power will be published. It’s a book that she’s been working on for twelve years. Her research for this has taken her to many museums and Etruscan sites. She’s also spent huge amounts of her own money to finance much of the production, purchase photographs and illustrations for the book. Unlike commercial publishing, academic books are not necessarily a profitable undertaking for the author. Why would she spend a dozen years working on a project with a slim possibility of financial reward?

There are all sorts of answers to that question, of course, but the essential explanation is that Nancy understands the difference between an expense and an investment. It’s a distinction that is necessary if we’re to succeed at anything that’s meaningful. Spending our time and money on nurturing and exploring our passions only makes sense, of course, if we have the courage to discover them in the first place.

Nancy’s fairly modest about her accomplishments, but when Symbols of Wealth and Power joins her earlier Greek Architectural Terracottas on her bookshelf, she’ll be planning her next project to share her passion with anyone who cares to listen. I expect she’ll continue investing in her passions for the rest of her days. Will you?

The Not-so-New Workplace

Anyone who’s visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s masterpiece of a home, has a favorite memory. While the gardens are spectacular and the house filled with clever inventions, I’m partial to Jefferson’s office which was situated so he could roll out of bed and get to work. Of course, in Jefferson’s time, homebased businesses were more common than long commutes, but still, he must have created the shortest commute ever.

 During the several decades following World War II, home offices all but disappeared as people went off to work in someone else’s office. Except for the freelance writer or artist who created a home studio, work meant moving to another location. 

 That’s all been gradually changing as more and more of us opt to work from home. About ten years ago, I began to notice that many model homes were including a home office, usually located near the front door making it possible for clients and customers to slip in and out easily. 

 I really knew a trend was brewing when I got a letter from a woman who said that she and her two small children had been given a tour of a friend’s new home. When they finished looking at all the rooms, her daughter turned to her and said, “Mommy, where’s the office?” Unlike most of us, the next generation may assume that work and living space just naturally flow together.

 Developers are taking that notion a step farther. Several new communities now have areas zoned for home businesses with the houses being designed with offices, waiting areas and, even, public restrooms. An article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune spotlighted another trend: living above the shop. The article featured several new apartment complexes which were designed with first floor commercial space and living quarters above or behind the shop area.  New towns, like Celebration, Florida, include both of these ideas with zoned home business areas and above-the-shop apartments.

 The home business movement has had another impact on our living spaces. When we live and work in the same place, it takes on a new importance. Consequently, people tend to care even more that the place they call World Headquarters is beautiful as well as functional. Has anyone designed a home office to resemble a cubicle? 

 Then there’s the health factor. Eliminating stressful commutes has a positive health benefit, but that’s not the only one. Homebased  businessowners also report that they find it easier to eat healthier food when they prepare it themselves and don’t have to depend on the company cafeteria or a fast food place. Home exercise rooms get more regular workouts from entrepreneurs who recognize the importance of taking care of the boss. And it’s not at all unusual to see a pet or two curled up in a home office providing companionship. 

 Best of all, this new workplace revolution is bringing beauty, sanity and health into the lives of millions who have redefined what environmentally healthy means to them.

Welcome to World Headquarters

Leigh was a single mother with a stressful job and two young children. After attending Making a Living Without a Job, she knew that self-employment was the answer for her. She quit her job,  purchased a vending machine route and tripled its sales within two months. Once that was in order, she started her next profit center, buying and renovating houses. Not only did she find that she was spending more time with her kids, she also got them involved in her business as much as possible.

One day Leigh and her children went to visit a friend who had moved into a large new house. The friend took them on a room-by-room tour of the house proudly showing off each room. When the tour ended, Leigh’s 5-year-old daughter looked at her  quizzically and said, “Mom, where’s the office?”

Leigh’s daughter is not the only one who assumes that a home should have an office. Glossy magazines now feature layouts of slick home offices. Builders of upscale homes are including an office in their plans. Trendspotters tell us that this work-at-home lifestyle is not a passing fad. (For some home office inspiration, check out these photos from the LA Times.)

Whether your work space is a studio, a rented office or a card table set up in a corner of your bedroom, efficiency is only one of the requirements. Your working space needs to be inviting, a place where you function easily surrounded by things you love and find inspiring.

It’s obvious that most of us do not duplicate the corporate cubicle look when we set out to design our personal working space.Gray and gloomy may be an appropriate backdrop for corporate workers, but home workers like to spice things up a bit. Color, personal objects, music, incense, fountains, and toys are apt to be part of the new entrepreneur’s decorating style. 

Chances are, you’re reading this on your office computer. So take a look around. Does your office reflect your power and vision, or does it resemble a junk room with a desk? Are there objects, pictures and words that lift your soul? Is it easy to find things or do you waste precious time going through piles of papers? 

 Does entering your office make you smile? It should, you know. This is your laboratory, your creation center, your idea place. So listen to Vivaldi, light some incense, get a fountain, paint the walls terra cotta, hang a poster from your favorite movie, or do whatever brings you joy. It’s a one-of-a-kind creation and you’re the beneficiary. Make it both beautiful and useful.

You and I have within us the creative intelligence to recognize the conditions that support our growth towards self-actualization, and we have the wherewithal to place ourselves in such an environment. ~ Stewart Emery

Want to help? Start here.

Marianne Williamson has said plenty of wise things, but one especially stuck with me. She pointed out that people who are involved in solving enormous problems tend to feel less helpless than those who don’t participate. I thought of those words last night listening to President Obama’s speech. Earlier in the day, callers on public radio were surmising about the speech and several of them said, “I hope he shows us how we can help.”

When the speech was over, I began seeing messages on Twitter and in my mailbox saying things like, “I’m ready to join the Peace Corps,” and “I want to do something now.” That led me to think about people who have found creative ways to solve problems and make life better right around them. Today I want to pass along a few of those stories.

A couple of years ago, Barbara Sher sent out a mailing to her list inviting them to send her flowers. She explained that her neighborhood florist was having a difficult time so Barbara came up with a creative way to help. She invited  her readers to order flowers from the shop to be sent to Barbara. I was on the phone within minutes of getting the mailing.

Barbara Sher lives in New York, but it’s not just cities that benefit when we support local small businesses. Another Barbara wrote a popular and fascinating book about a year long experiment  she and her family conducted. The experiment involved buying only food raised in their neighborhood, grown themselves or learning to live without. Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is her eye-opening account of that exploration.

Kingsolver is part of a expanding movement of folks who are determined to be locavores, dedicated to buying local food. Happily, that movement is spreading outside farmer’s markets as people look for other ways to shop locally. In December, Natalie Ermann Russell wrote an article called Local & Loving It which shared her plan to celebrate birthdays with gifts from her community in Virginia. 

While it’s not always possible to buy everything locally, more and more of us are looking in our own backyards first. When we do, we discover all sorts of entrepreneurs who are thrilled to have us as customers. Alice Barry has made exploring small town small businesses a weekend hobby. It’s a fun and inspiring way to spread entrepreneurial spirit. 

Want to build a better world? Your own backyard is a fine starting place. My sister sent me an article about Debbie Fox, owner of a jewelry store in Ventura, CA, who had seen a huge increase in the number of people bringing their jewelry in to sell. Often they left the store in tears, having sold family heirlooms in order to raise emergency cash. So Fox Fine Jewelry decided to give back to the community that had supported their business. The response was amazing. Take a moment and read the entire story.

Finally, there’s Jeff Lowenfels, past president of the Garden Writers of America. Fourteen years ago, he starting a project called Planting a Row for the Hungry. He urges gardeners to add an extra row of vegetables and donate them to a local organization that feeds the hungry. Here in Las Vegas, the Doolittle Senior Citizen Center community garden has donated 3,513 pounds of produce to local soup kitchens since it began participating in 2003.

Making a difference can begin anywhere, anytime, by anyone. Flowers, necklaces, vegetables. What have you got to contribute?

In down economies, the only thing that’s going to change things is changing things.~ Seth Godin

PS Did you notice how often President Obama used the word “entrepreneur” in his speech? We have our marching orders.

Opportunity Knocking? Buyer Beware

Last week, one of the nightly news programs did a story about a woman who left her career as a therapist to sell Mary Kay Cosmetics. It seemed to be a good decision for her. Not only did she love her new business, she was exceeding her previous income and expected she’d soon double her old salary. I flashed back to a story I’d read a few months ago in an in-flight magazine about a freelance writer who had also added Mary Kay Cosmetics to her portfolio of profit centers.

In the world of business opportunities, Mary Kay is one of the good ones. Not only does this company have a long track record plus great products, they’ve always been about more than just making money. Mary Kay  has also seen its mission as helping people reach their full potential.

Not all marketing companies are so inclined. As soon as the media began talking about rising unemployment rates, I knew that the scam artists would be coming out of the woodwork. Sure enough, Work at Home, Get Rich Now schemes began to flood the Internet (not that they ever went away) and airwaves. 

When I see these rip-off artists (and I have to admit they can be creative in their sleazy way), I always hope people will be smart enough to avoid their scams. Of course, not everyone is. Too many people, I know, are going to turn over their money to the folks I call the Business Opportunistas. 

Seth Godin wrote a warning called Get Rich Quick, which I urge you to read—even if you have no intention of getting involved. And I’ve got an article posted called Don’t Go There that also lists the signs that an offer is to be avoided.

Just remember that Bernie Madoff isn’t the only one who knew how to run a Ponzi scheme.

If money is your only hope for independence, you will never have it.~ Henry Ford

Good Stuff I Found This Week

It’s been a crazy week at World Headquarters in Las Vegas. Thought I killed my laptop (I didn’t), was working frantically to finish up new material for Making a Living Without a Job, and had a fun Better Than Brainstorming teleclass with Alice Barry. I still managed to collect some resources and ideas worth passing along. Here’s this week’s round-up of tips.

Save this link and you’ll save time and frustration when you need information or an answer. It’s a mind-boggling list.  HOW TO GUIDE: 60 Great How To Sites and Resources  

Love road trips? You can make the next one even better with this new idea I found on Springwise. Amplified Journeys  creates playlists for roadtrips geared to your drive.

Seth Godin always has insights worth considering and this week he had two thoughts that really got my attention. 

In down economies, the only thing that’s going to change things is changing things.

Like a dream come true. That’s the way Derek Sivers (founder of CDBaby) described his mission statement in building the company. “What could I build that would be a like a dream come true for independent musicians?”

If you don’t get Seth’s daily blog posts, I urge you to join his list and see what he has to say. 

For the past couple of years, I’ve been an admirer of Alvin Tan and his company Soul Acrobats. Tan creates workshops that help people move past their fears to discover their “impossibles.”  Take a look at Soul Acrobats gorgeous Web site, check out their short videos and read about their upcoming Mindset Workshop, March 25-29.

Good question to ask: what’s my starting point? My starting point was knowing I didn’t want to be an employee and I didn’t want to have employees. That’s never changed, although at the time I realized that, there wasn’t much info to help me accomplish such an oddity. So what’s your starting point?

Finally, if you’ve got an idea that needs some TLC, join me and Alice Barry at Follow Through Camp in Dodge City, KS on May 15 & 16. It’s going to be the ultimate ideafest.

Go make some dreams come true this week. Why not make it a habit?

What the Perpetually Miserable Can Teach Us

There’s a woman who goes walking in my neighborhood every day. What’s so noticeable about her is that she always looks furious. I have been tempted to holler at her and ask, “Doesn’t your body produce endorphins?” I know that wouldn’t be well received, however. She’s taken a strong position as one of the perpetually miserable among us and she’s not about to give it up.

I got thinking about such people one day after encountering a miserable looking woman as I was going out of the grocery store. I realized that she wasn’t just having a bad day; this was a permanent state of being for her. I also concluded that the miserable are really expert at maintaining their stance. Here’s what they do to keep themselves from wavering:

* Ignore or block out anything that might disturb misery. This is turning selective awareness into an art form. Good news is not given a second glance. When good fortune does sneak in, turn lemonade into lemons.

* Plant yourself in an environment that fosters misery. Bad relationships and dreadful jobs are great tools for keeping misery alive and well. The more insufferable the people around, the better.

* Recount tales of misery for anyone who will listen. No matter how long ago it happened, keep the pain alive. If there’s no one to talk to, mentally go back to the horrors of years gone by. Repetition makes anything stronger.

* Avoid new ideas. What the miserable already know is enough. Besides, new thoughts might cause confusion or, even, contradict cherished beliefs.

* Stifle any impulse to laugh. This is especially important when in a group where others give in to laughter. Let them know that you are not amused.

* Never empathize. If someone else wants to share their misery, just add it to your own bank of evidence, but don’t get sucked into feeling sorry for them. And under no circumstances show any empathy for the optimists that might slip into your world.

* Hoard. Do not offer compliments or any form of praise. And by all means protect money and possessions from others. Sharing is for idiots.

* Have a Misery Insurance Policy. The most effective is to decide that whatever you have is not enough. This guarantees you’ll remain miserable forever.

Recession? Not Everywhere

My editor asked me to add a new chapter to the updated Making a Living Without a Job to talk about the current economy. I finished the first draft today and as I was working on it,  thought about the response I’d received after I sent out a mailing over the weekend called The Security Factor. In case you missed it, the piece was partly inspired by Joseph Campbell’s observation that the insecure way is the secure way. With the constant media barrage of tales of job loss, this article challenged the notion of job security. 

What I hadn’t anticipated was the reader response. Almost immediately, I began getting calls and messages like the one I received from Liz de Nesnera who rang me right up to tell me that her voice over business was booming. 

There was only one message from someone who wasn’t self-employed. She wrote: 

I just had to write and tell you your article ANOTHER LOOK AT JOB SECURITY in the recent Joyfully Jobless News was amazing and wonderful!  As a person who stays stuck in a situation that I am not happy in, just because I need the job security, I was challenged by the article.

More common were messages like this one from Connie:

Thanks for reminding everyone that security lies within.  I live in California, am self-employed and last week I turned down work because I am too busy.  My friends are stunned.  I “lost” two clients last month and took on two more.  I do not look at any of my projects as permanent.  Some come, some go.  Some are planned, some are not.  When one door closes, one door opens.  Interesting.  I keep myself open to possibilities.  My only regret right now is that I am too busy to take your online seminars, but that will change when the time is right. Thank you for your constant presence.

Then there was this one from Angela:

 My business is better than ever right now and I have no fears about layoffs.  I work as a private math tutor and babysitter and had to adjust my “ego” because I can’t tell people I have some lofty position.  What I have is daily freedom, joy, and independence. 

I am no longer sacrificing my health in order to have what society has always told me I should have.  My boyfriend (he’s 52, I’m 44) is an independent massage therapist and  his business has never been better, either.  We keep saying, “Wow, there’s no recession for us!”  I don’t have a big retirement account and neither does he, but we feel so confident in our ability to “take care of ourselves” that it doesn’t matter!  Self-bossing is the best!

I was a public school teacher and he was a lawyer.  We both had many difficulties fitting into corporate systems because we wanted to improve them with our creative ideas and tell the truth about what was happening in those places.  Not welcomed by those systems!  Well, our creativity and noncomformist attitudes serve us very well now and we both feel we are uniquely suited for the services we provide.  Yippee!

That one made it into the book.

Can You Hear Your Callings?

During times of change and confusion, many of us dream about getting a clear directive. Perhaps a tape will mysteriously show up in the mail that bears the message, “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…”

Finding purpose in life that leads to a fullfilling mission is the single most difficult task facing most of us. As the Buddha wisely encouraged, “Your real work is to find your real work—and then do it with all your heart.” 

The problem isn’t that only a few of us are given a mission. The trouble arises from the numerous events and people who distract us from hearing what our mission is to be.

Many people quietly wrestle with the dilemma, thinking they are alone in not knowing. Others are surprised when they suddenly find that life choices they were so confident about no longer make sense or bring satisfaction. If we’re wise, we’ll embrace such times as opportunities to grow beyond anything we’ve previously imagined.

Whether you’re in the midst of such soul-searching or could just use a little clarification, in  Callings, author Gregg Levoy points out that following an authentic life is not necessarily benign. Levoy begins with the assumption that we all have callings in life, but many are not alert to the signs and signals directing them. So where should we be looking? Here’s what Levoy suggests.

“Expect that through the right lens, all our encounters will appear full of thunderbolts and instruction; every bush will be a burning bush. Such encounters might include:

* An offer to collaborate with someone on a project that draws you in an entirely new direction.

* A sudden crisis that calls on powers you don’t realize you possess but whose time has come.

* The loss of a job that pushes you over the edge you’ve been peering at for years.

* An illness or accident that reminds you of what really matters.

* A chance meeting with a stranger that sparks something in you.

* A tragedy that gives you your life’s work and determines what it is you have to say to the world from that day on.

* Any family reunion. However exalted we imagine ourselves to be in spiritual and emotional matters, we have only to spend a few days around our families to see how far we still have to go and what in particular we need to work on.

* Any strange occurance.”

Sounds to me like Levoy is saying that our callings are only clear if  we’re willing to take the cotton out of our ears. Are you listening?