Justine Musk's Blog, page 31

what marilyn monroe and peter the great can teach you about being fascinating

There is this idea from the 1990's that the most powerful brands need to 'own' a word.

For example:

Volvo: 'safety'

BMW: 'driving' (or 'performance')

Mini Cooper: 'oddly adorable' (okay, that's two words, and that might just be me.)

If you applied this to movie stars:

Marilyn Monroe: 'sexy'

Clint Eastwood: 'rugged'

James Dean: 'rebel'

Meg Ryan: 'perky'

Now, in 2011, we're all supposed to be developing our 'personal brands' and especially our 'writer brands' –

(Stephen King: 'horror')

– so does that mean we're each supposed to 'own' a word?

The idea behind this is that a simple, focused message will cut like a blade through the noise and clutter of today's marketplace and penetrate a person's mind

(because we're all numbskulls with the attention spans of gnats and can't handle complication or ambiguity).

One agency even came up with a phrase for this: one word equity.

And there is power in knowing what you stand for and conveying that in the most vivid and succinct of terms.

I was playing around with this, thinking of people I know and the words they 'own' in my mind.

I work out at Pure Barre, which promotes this rather brutal combination of pilates, ballet and yoga. Every time I see the name Rose on the schedule, I have to stand back and think: Just how badly do I want my ass kicked today?



Turns out I'm not the only one who thinks this. "I'm glad you're not teaching this class," I heard one young woman say to Rose, "because I want to be able to walk tomorrow!"

So Rose's word would be 'tough'. That's her brand. And it's an effective one: if you're a Pure Barre regular who wants a challenging workout, you seek out Rose.

But the problem I have with this idea in general is that, in the 1990's, people engaged with brands differently than they do today. A brand was a message pushed out to the masses, who didn't have the tools to talk back to it, or examine the truth behind it. Word-of-mouth didn't travel at the speed of light, and it didn't hop across geography or social strata like rabbits on steroids.

With the Internet, that's changed. A brand maybe isn't a word, or a message, so much as the conversation that grows up around it. You can't live for very long on the 'Net if you exist in one-dimensional terms.

It's not interesting.

And if it's not interesting, it doesn't engage you; if it doesn't engage you, it can't take on any depth of meaning for you. And if there's no meaning, there's no experience; there's no emotional resonance.

What engages people – mesmerizes them – is creative tension.

That's where the drama is.

That's where the questions live that can open up the conversation.

Michael Ellsberg gets at this in his excellent post The Paradoxical Secret of Obsession Worthy Branding. He talks about the importance of creative tension, or paradox:

It is the lifeblood of all great narrative. It's what keeps you turning the pages. It's what keeps your butt glued to the theater seat to see how it all ends.

It's when opposite forces collide that we become spellbound. We need to know what happens next. The human mind doesn't like an open loop, an unanswered question. It will obsess over it and obsess over it until it can resolve it and pack it away.

But the very characteristic of a paradox is that it won't resolve.

In his book THE ART OF SEDUCTION, Robert Greene refers to this quality as mystery and places it at the heart of charisma itself:

…a mystery expressed by contradiction. The Charismatic may be both proletarian and aristocratic (Mao Zedong), both cruel and kind (Peter the Great), both excitable and icily detached (Charles de Gaulle), both intimate and distant (Sigmund Freud). Since most people are predictable, the effect of these contradictions is devastatingly charismatic.

…Most of us feel trapped within the limited roles that the world expects us to play. We are instantly attracted to those who are more fluid, more ambiguous, than we are – those who create their own persona.

….Contradiction and paradox make you hard to fathom, add richness to your character, make people talk about you.



The key phrase there being: …make people talk about you.

If we return to the individuals I referenced earlier, we can see how their 'one word appeal' is maybe more complex than it seems. Monroe became a legend not just because she was sexy. How many sexy women are in TV, movies, billboards, magazines? How many of them do you go on to remember? Monroe's sex appeal was swaddled in contradiction. She was childlike and womanly. She was innocent and dirty. She was joyful and sad. She was ditzy and streetsmart. To this day, her memory haunts the culture.

Maybe you should try to 'own' two words.

The first word is public. It is the 'obvious' word. It's the word that comes to mind when people think of you (if they think of you); it's the word you hear people consistently say when they talk about you.

For example: a friend of mine sent me a news story because the headline "made him think" of me (and my blog). The word in the headline was badass.

The second word is private. It is the secret word, it is your word, that crystallizes — for you — some essential truth about who you are. It calls up a feeling in your body that makes you feel most like yourself.

You don't choose this word. This word has already chosen you. You just have to relax inside yourself and let it surface.

My private word is soulful.

What's interesting to me is the way that badass plays off soulful and creates a kind of dynamic: tough vs tender, confrontational vs vulnerable, swagger vs yearning.

Somewhere in that dynamic you can probably locate yourself, and maybe that's the power of it. Maybe that's why, out of all the words I've used, and different taglines I've experimented with, 'badass' seems to resonate.

Try it as a playful exercise.

Find your secret word, and then think of a word to counter it, to create an ongoing dialogue.

Think of how you – your 'brand' – embody both these qualities.

Think of how you use one word as your public 'face', while the other casts a shadow play behind it.

follow me on twitter

what marilyn monroe and peter the great can teach you about developing a fascinating brand

There is this idea from the 1990's that the most powerful brands need to 'own' a word.

For example:

Volvo: 'safety'

BMW: 'driving' (or 'performance')

Mini Cooper: 'oddly adorable' (okay, that's two words, and that might just be me.)

If you applied this to movie stars:

Marilyn Monroe: 'sexy'

Clint Eastwood: 'rugged'

James Dean: 'rebel'

Meg Ryan: 'perky'

Now, in 2011, we're all supposed to be developing our 'personal brands' and especially our 'writer brands' –

(Stephen King: 'horror')

– so does that mean we're each supposed to 'own' a word?

The idea behind this is that a simple, focused message will cut like a blade through the noise and clutter of today's marketplace and penetrate a person's mind

(because we're all numbskulls with the attention spans of gnats and can't handle complication or ambiguity).

One agency even came up with a phrase for this: one word equity.

And there is power in knowing what you stand for and conveying that in the most vivid and succinct of terms.

I was playing around with this, thinking of people I know and the words they 'own' in my mind.

I work out at Pure Barre, which promotes this rather brutal combination of pilates, ballet and yoga. Every time I see the name Rose on the schedule, I have to stand back and think: Just how badly do I want my ass kicked today?



Turns out I'm not the only who thinks this. "I'm glad you're not teaching this class," I heard one young woman say to Rose, "because I want to be able to walk tomorrow!"

So Rose's word would be 'tough'. That's her brand. And it's an effective one: if you're a Pure Barre regular who wants a challenging workout, you seek out Rose.

But the problem I have with this idea in general is that, in the 1990's, people engaged with brands differently than they do today. A brand was a message pushed out to the masses, who didn't have the tools to talk back to it, or examine the truth behind it. Word-of-mouth didn't travel at the speed of light, and it didn't hop across geography or social strata like rabbits on steroids.

With the Internet, that's changed. A brand maybe isn't a word, or a message, so much as the conversation that grows up around it. You can't live for very long on the 'Net if you exist in one-dimensional terms.

It's not interesting.

And if it's not interesting, it doesn't engage you; if it doesn't engage you, it can't take on any depth of meaning for you. And if there's no meaning, there's no experience; there's no emotional resonance.

What engages people – mesmerizes them – is creative tension.

That's where the drama is.

That's where the questions live that can open up the conversation.

Michael Ellsberg gets at this in his excellent post The Paradoxical Secret of Obsession Worthy Branding He talks about the importance of creative tension, or paradox:

It is the lifeblood of all great narrative. It's what keeps you turning the pages. It's what keeps your butt glued to the theater seat to see how it all ends.

It's when opposite forces collide that we become spellbound. We need to know what happens next. The human mind doesn't like an open loop, an unanswered question. It will obsess over it and obsess over it until it can resolve it and pack it away.

But the very characteristic of a paradox is that it won't resolve.

In his book THE ART OF SEDUCTION, Robert Greene refers to this quality as mystery and places it at the heart of charisma itself:

…a mystery expressed by contradiction. The Charismatic may be both proletarian and aristocratic (Mao Zedong), both cruel and kind (Peter the Great), both excitable and icily detached (Charles de Gaulle), both intimate and distant (Sigmund Freud). Since most people are predictable, the effect of these contradictions is devastatingly charismatic.

…Most of us feel trapped within the limited roles that the world expects us to play. We are instantly attracted to those who are more fluid, more ambiguous, than we are – those who create their own persona.

….Contradiction and paradox make you hard to fathom, add richness to your character, make people talk about you.



The key phrase there being: …make people talk about you.

If we return to the individuals I referenced earlier, we can see how their 'one word appeal' is maybe more complex than it seems. Monroe became a legend not just because she was sexy. How many sexy women are in TV, movies, billboards, magazines? How many of them do you go on remember? Monroe's sex appeal was swaddled in contradiction. She was childlike and womanly. She was innocent and dirty. She was joyful and sad. She was ditzy and streetsmart. To this day, her memory haunts the culture.

Maybe you should try to 'own' two words.

The first word is public. It is the 'obvious' word. It's the word that comes to mind when people think of you (if they think of you); it's the word you hear people consistently say when they talk about you.

For example: a friend of mine sent me a news story because the headline "made him think" of me (and my blog). The word in the headline was badass.

The second word is private. It is the secret word, it is your word, that crystallizes — for you — some essential truth about who you are. It calls up a feeling in your body that makes you feel most like yourself.

You don't choose this word. This word has already chosen you. You just have to relax inside yourself and let it surface.

My private word is soulful.

What's interesting to me is the way that badass plays off soulful and creates a kind of dynamic: tough vs tender, confrontational vs vulnerable, swagger vs yearning.

Somewhere in that dynamic you can probably locate yourself, and maybe that's the power of it. Maybe that's why, out of all the words I've used, and different taglines I've experimented with, 'badass' seems to resonate the most.

Try it as a playful exercise.

Find your secret word, and then think of a word to counter it, to create an ongoing dialogue.

Think of how you – your 'brand' – embody both these qualities.

Think of how you use one word as your public 'face', while the other casts a kind of shadow play behind it.

follow me on twitter

under a spell and behind the mask: how to create a compelling story arc

1

One of my favorite books on writing is Amnon Buchbinder's THE WAY OF THE SCREENWRITER:

Stories are answers to human needs.

…story's purpose is to nudge us towards greater consciousness. Story wants us to perceive beyond the surface of things. Story wants us to understand that life's mystery is a call to develop our ability to perceive and respond to it.

…The characters may speak, but the power lies in what is not said. A character's actions may be described, but the real subject is the motive behind it. A chain of events transpires, but the most important link may be kept in reserve until a crucial moment.

2

I like how Buchbinder uses the idea of "the spell" and "the mask" when describing character growth.

Stories generally involve a level of psychological transformation.

It is when her old self has "died" in some way – when she has broken the paradigm holding her back, where there has been a major shift in her thinking and thus in her character – that the protagonist can finally overcome the obstacles and claim victory.

Or, how Amnon puts it (and I shall paraphrase):

Something happened in the past that put the character under a spell. She needs to break that spell. What can she do in order for that to happen?

The spell "is a manifestation of the force of the past, the force of fate." It's a system of beliefs and perceptions, a paradigm, that might have served the protagonist at one point in her life. But life moves on, times change, and the paradigm must change too: instead of helping the protagonist, it is wrecking her life.

Surrender Dorothy



3

The person or event that casts the spell is often a key event early in the story.

For example: say your protagonist was sexually abused as a youngster. As a result she trained herself to dissociate, to detach from the world and turn inward. This was crucial to her emotional survival, but as she moves into adulthood her inability to be fully present in the moment, in the world, prevents her from forming the very thing that can save her: a healthy, intimate relationship.

The sexual abuse was the event; the abuser was the spellcaster.

The spell is her tendency to mentally and emotionally remove herself from the world around her, which makes it impossible to connect with other people.

She needs to "wake up" from this spell, to come to awareness, to learn how to be grounded in the present moment and trust someone enough to risk a full-blooded connection.

Buchbinder also talks about "the mask".

Since the spell that characters are under almost always involves a lack of awareness, it gives rise to a sort of false identity, which I call the mask. In most stories, we don't fully appreciate the mask as such, at least initially; rather, it seems to us to be the character's whole identity.

This was a great help to me in understanding my own character Gabe Maddox, protagonist of my novel-in-progress THE DECADENTS. Gabe is a successful and wealthy visual artist living in Los Angeles: a jaded, cynical, womanizing bad boy.

At least, that's how he comes off in the beginning of the novel (and a problem I'm dealing with right now is how to make him sympathetic enough in the opening chapters so that the reader won't hurl the book in disgust and possibly risk hitting the cat.)

Scratch the surface of that identity, though – or go at it with a sledgehammer – and you find a lonely and damaged romantic who wants authentic connection. Which you can't do if you are not living authentically. Gabe has to wake up to the truth of who he is, instead of who he believes and claims himself to be.

(Gabe was put under a spell in his last year of high school, when the love of his life and the sister of his best friend disappeared one night after a beach party. Years later, a serial killer confessed to murdering her on the eve of his execution.)

Buchbinder's idea of the mask helped me understand this seeming paradox of Gabe's character, and how the course of the story has to resolve it.

Because this is the thing about the mask: it is a false attempt to compensate for something that you lack, which means it swings you in the opposite direction of what you actually are.

If you're a coward, you act like Rambo.

If you're sexually inexperienced, you dress and act like Britney Spears.

If you lack confidence and a solid sense of self, you annoy the people around you by acting like Donald Trump. (And his hair.)

Etcetera.

3

One thing I've noticed in my lifelong quest to become a badass storyteller, is that you can't grow as a writer without growing as a person, and vice-versa.

You can't interrogate your characters' psychology if you're not willing to gaze into your own, without flinching or backing away, to the best of your ability.

All of us have fallen under spells. We break free of some only to fall under others. It's part of being human. Our lack of a certain awareness protects us in some way, until it doesn't, and then we can either push through the pain and blood and mess of true growth – or stagnate and break. The choice is up to us.

I used to wear the mask of a 'good girl' and a 'trophy wife' until I was disappearing in on myself; there wasn't much of a 'there' there, if you know what I mean, which left me starved for emotional connection (you can't connect with someone if there's no 'self' to connect with in the first place). I'm still waking up to the full truth of myself: too bold, outspoken, selfish, hungry and risk-taking to be a very good 'good girl' (which I consider a bullshit definition in the first place), too rebellious and ambitious (with what my therapist once described as "a fuck you spirit" and my ex-husband more poetically referred to as a fire in my soul) to be the trophy wife. The happy part is that I discovered this now, instead of twenty years from now or never.

What about you?

We all hold inside of us that ongoing war between who we need to be and who our world wants and demands us to be. The true self and the false. The truth and the lie. Who we are at core…and the spell that alienates us from that.

This is one reason why stories are important, why your need to write them is important (no matter what anybody tells you).

The goal of storytelling is to get at the truth, break the spell, heal the wound.

When we do this for ourselves, we can do for others. Storytelling shows us the way.

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the art of authenticity and self-disclosure in social media: do you need to get down + dirty?

1

"None of us are authentic," argues Chris Brogan, "because we all filter."

But is that what it requires to be authentic? A total lack of filter?

Do you have to reveal deep personal secrets – like the time your parents caught you masturbating and pretty much traumatized you for life, or that nasty little DUI from four years ago, or that inconvenient sexual fascination with your sister's husband, or the fact that you don't really like your kids, or that tendency to shoplift things just because you can, or that time you 'accidentally' flashed your neighbor (twice), or the secret wish that your ailing relative would just hurry up and die already…?

What if you don't have any deep dark secrets – should you make some up?

Just how much of yourself should you reveal?

Oh, and by the way, why should anybody care?

When we say we want the authentic, we mean we want the real and the true. We don't want a copy or an imitation or a lie. But 'the real' – 'my real' — has two levels to it: the 'fact' of it (at least according to me) and my presentation/ your perception of it.

Which is why I like this definition of authentic: something that is worthy of belief.

2

The irony behind Chris Brogan's post is that he is arguably one of the most authentic presences online. He is also one of the most successful.

This is not a coincidence.

And if you define charisma as 'the ability to inspire and influence a large devoted following' he's also one of the most charismatic.

This is not a coincidence either.

He isn't confessional, but he is – to me and many many others – worthy of belief, which is why we keep returning to his highly-ranked blog.

3

For your presence to be authentic, everything must align: your voice, your message, your values, your style of communication.

When we deal with each other face-to-face, only a small part of our communication happens verbally. The rest is transmitted through tone, expression and body language. If you say one thing but your body language says another, there is a disconnect. Our instinct is to believe the body language, not the words, so we tag you as insincere and inwardly close ourselves off to you.

Online, all I have is your voice. To spend time with someone's blog is to spend time with someone's voice, to develop a relationship with the sense of personality or identity that I construct around that voice.

The most 'authentic' voices instill within me a sense of confidence – a sense of belief – that who you seem to be online and who you are offline are so damn close as to be practically inseparable. Even though I don't know you, I still feel like I know you – not in all ways, certainly, but in the ways that are relevant to me and my reasons for reading you in the first place.

4

We don't establish honesty with the positive things we say about ourselves.

People have a kneejerk skepticism to those kinds of statements (after all, if you really were that thing in the first place, why would you have to tell me)?

Some of us might have learned that people even tend to be the exact opposite of whatever they work to sell themselves as (a self-declared 'family man' turns out to have a thing for call girls, Ecstasy and cocaine; a man who bills himself as 'good, kind, does the right thing' reveals himself as ruthless, cold and self-serving; a woman who always says 'trust me' should never, ever be trusted).

This is why the disclosure of something personal can be so powerful: not because of what you're telling, but showing.

You are showing yourself as open and honest.

You are opening up your inner life to me, so that I might recognize myself in it, and open up my life to you.

A connection is made that has nothing to do with selling anything, whether it's a product or a service or a pretty image of yourself.

I started to trust Chris Brogan, for example, when he conveyed through his tweets one morning that some of his 'haters' – and you're not anybody on the 'Net until you've got some – were getting to him. He was annoyed and frustrated and maybe even a little bit hurt. It's not like he spilled his guts, or any details. But what came through was a sense of him being human: vulnerable, like we all are, which lowers our guard and draws us closer.

5

The most charismatic people show us who they really are and what they really think in ways that are relevant to us.

Oprah tells us about her abusive childhood within a context of other people talking about pain and trauma and overcoming adversity. That's the conversation she's having with us, and she makes it all the more powerful by making herself part of it.

We want to know.



Simon Cowell tells the would-be singers on American Idol – and by extension us – what he really thinks of them. He doesn't try to look out for their feelings or perpetuate their (often unfortunate, sometimes even bizarre) illusions about themselves. He resonates with us because we're thinking the same things even if few would risk stating them so bluntly. And within the context of his show – a talent show – and given who he is – a music executive – his disclosure is relevant and appropriate.

We want to know.

Kelly Diels is one of the most authentic bloggers out there. She tells us heartfelt stories about her life – she practically owns the word 'heartfelt' – that relate to the themes of her blog: sex, money and meaning, right there in the tagline. If we weren't interested in these things, we wouldn't be reading her blog.

We want to know.



An authentic presence is a connected presence. It is in communication with you rather than at you. It is receiving and responding. It is tuned in to you enough to recognize your needs and what you might not even know you want to know (until you know it). It has something to say and a reason for saying it.

A presence that didn't know how and when to filter (and, thus, to shape its own material), that's merely in love with its own voice, would qualify as narcissistic – so self-involved that he or she is no longer fully joined to reality. In those circumstances, I'm not sure 'authentic' is even possible.

You don't need to show me all your skeletons.

But you might need to show me some glimpses, to open up the channel between us and let in the conversation we need to be having.

Are you authentic?

Are you worthy of belief?

Who else is worthy of belief?

Let me know in the comments below.

follow me on twitter

the art of authenticity and self-disclosure: do you need to get down + dirty?

1

"None of us are authentic," argues Chris Brogan, "because we all filter."

But is that what it requires to be authentic? A total lack of filter?

Do you have to reveal deep personal secrets – like the time your parents caught you masturbating and pretty much traumatized you for life, or that nasty little DUI from four years ago, or that inconvenient sexual fascination with your sister's husband, or the fact that you don't really like your kids, or that tendency to shoplift things just because you can, or that time you 'accidentally' flashed your neighbor (twice), or the secret wish that your ailing relative would just hurry up and die already…?

What if you don't have any deep dark secrets – should you make some up?

Just how much of yourself should you reveal?

Oh, and by the way, why should anybody care?

When we say we want the authentic, we mean we want the real and the true. We don't want a copy or an imitation or a lie. But 'the real' – 'my real' — has two levels to it: the 'fact' of it (at least according to me) and my presentation/ your perception of it.

Which is why I like this definition of authentic: something that is worthy of belief.

2

The irony behind Chris Brogan's post is that he is arguably one of the most authentic presences online. He is also one of the most successful.

This is not a coincidence.

And if you define charisma as 'the ability to inspire and influence a large devoted following' he's also one of the most charismatic.

This is not a coincidence either.

He isn't confessional, but he is – to me and many many others – worthy of belief, which is why we keep returning to his highly-ranked blog.

3

For your presence to be authentic, everything must align: your voice, your message, your values, your style of communication.

When we deal with each other face-to-face, only a small part of our communication happens verbally. The rest is transmitted through tone, expression and body language. If you say one thing but your body language says another, there is a disconnect. Our instinct is to believe the body language, not the words, so we tag you as insincere and inwardly close ourselves off to you.

Online, all I have is your voice. To spend time with someone's blog is to spend time with someone's voice, to develop a relationship with the sense of personality or identity that I construct around that voice.

The most 'authentic' voices instill within me a sense of confidence – a sense of belief – that who you seem to be online and who you are offline are so damn close as to be practically inseparable. Even though I don't know you, I still feel like I know you – not in all ways, certainly, but in the ways that are relevant to me and my reasons for reading you in the first place.

4

We don't establish honesty with the positive things we say about ourselves.

People have a kneejerk skepticism to those kinds of statements (after all, if you really were that thing in the first place, why would you have to tell me)?

Some of us might have learned that people even tend to be the exact opposite of whatever they work to sell themselves as (a self-declared 'family man' turns out to have a thing for call girls, Ecstasy and cocaine; a man who bills himself as 'good, kind, does the right thing' reveals himself as ruthless, cold and self-serving; a woman who always says 'trust me' should never, ever be trusted).

This is why the disclosure of something personal can be so powerful: not because of what you're telling, but showing.

You are showing yourself as open and honest.

You are opening up your inner life to me, so that I might recognize myself in it, and open up my life to you.

A connection is made that has nothing to do with selling anything, whether it's a product or a service or a pretty image of yourself.

I started to trust Chris Brogan, for example, when he conveyed through his tweets one morning that some of his 'haters' – and you're not anybody on the 'Net until you've got some – were getting to him. He was annoyed and frustrated and maybe even a little bit hurt. It's not like he spilled his guts, or any details. But what came through was a sense of him being human: vulnerable, like we all are, which lowers our guard and draws us closer.

5

The most charismatic people show us who they really are and what they really think in ways that are relevant to us.

Oprah tells us about her abusive childhood within a context of other people talking about pain and trauma and overcoming adversity. That's the conversation she's having with us, and she makes it all the more powerful by making herself part of it.

We want to know.



Simon Cowell tells the would-be singers on American Idol – and by extension us – what he really thinks of them. He doesn't try to look out for their feelings or perpetuate their (often unfortunate, sometimes even bizarre) illusions about themselves. He resonates with us because we're thinking the same things even if few would risk stating them so bluntly. And within the context of his show – a talent show – and given who he is – a music executive – his disclosure is relevant and appropriate.

We want to know.

Kelly Diels is one of the most authentic bloggers out there. She tells us heartfelt stories about her life – she practically owns the word 'heartfelt' – that relate to the themes of her blog: sex, money and meaning, right there in the tagline. If we weren't interested in these things, we wouldn't be reading her blog.

We want to know.



An authentic presence is a connected presence. It is in communication with you rather than at you. It is receiving and responding. It is tuned in to you enough to recognize your needs and what you might not even know you want to know (until you know it). It has something to say and a reason for saying it.

A presence that didn't know how and when to filter (and, thus, to shape its own material), that's merely in love with its own voice, would qualify as narcissistic – so self-involved that he or she is no longer fully joined to reality. In those circumstances, I'm not sure 'authentic' is even possible.

You don't need to show me all your skeletons.

But you might need to show me some glimpses, to open up the channel between us and let in the conversation we need to be having.

Are you authentic?

Are you worthy of belief?

Who else is worthy of belief?

Let me know in the comments below.

follow me on twitter

the art of authenticity and self-disclosure: do you need to tell us your secrets?

1

"None of us are authentic," argues Chris Brogan, "because we all filter."

But is that what it requires to be authentic? A total lack of filter?

Do you have to reveal deep personal secrets – like the time your parents caught you masturbating and pretty much traumatized you for life, or that nasty little DUI from four years ago, or that inconvenient sexual fascination with your brother's wife, or the fact that you don't really like your kids, or that tendency to shoplift things just because you can, or that time you 'accidentally' flashed your neighbor (twice), or the secret wish that your ailing relative would just hurry up and die already…?

What if you don't have any deep dark secrets – should you make some up?

Just how much of yourself should you reveal?

Oh, and by the way, why should anybody care?

2

I, for one, don't need to know about your relationship with masturbation.

I don't need to know every thought that flits through your head, every feeling that lurks in your deepest darkest heart.

Besides, what if you told me shit that was totally true, but for some reason I didn't believe in it?

If I found something about you to be false or contrived – your motivations or your agenda for making those confessions to me in the first place – can you still qualify as 'authentic' even though you weren't technically lying?

When we say we want the authentic, we mean we want the real and the true. We don't want a copy or an imitation or a lie. But 'the real' – 'my real' — has two levels to it: the 'fact' of it (at least according to me) and my presentation/ your perception of it.

Which is why I like this definition of authentic: something that is worthy of belief.

3

If I think you're authentic, then I believe in you; if I believe in you, everything else flows from that. I like you, I trust you, and I'm likely to follow listen and eventually do business with you (which is why authenticity is such a hot property on the web).

The irony behind Chris Brogan's post is that he is arguably one of the most authentic presences on the web. He is also one of the most successful. This is not a coincidence.

And if you define charisma as 'the ability to inspire and influence a large devoted following' he's also one of the most charismatic. This is not a coincidence either.

He isn't confessional, but he is – to me and many many others – worthy of belief, which is why we keep returning to read his highly-ranked blog.

For your presence to be authentic, everything must align: your voice, your message, your values, your style of communication.

When we deal with each other face-to-face, only a small part of our communication happens verbally. The rest is transmitted through tone, expression and body language. If you say one thing but your body language says another, there is a disconnect. Our instinct is to believe the body language, not the words, so we tag you as insincere and inwardly close ourselves off to you.

Online, all I have is your voice. To spend time with someone's blog is to spend time with someone's voice, to develop a relationship with it: with the sense of personality or identity that I construct around that voice.

The most 'authentic' voices instill within me a sense of confidence – a sense of belief – that my construction of you online and who you are offline are so damn close as to be practically inseparable. Even though I don't know you, I still feel like I know you – not in all ways, certainly, but in the ways that are relevant to me and my reasons for reading your blog in the first place.

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We don't establish honesty with the positive things we say about ourselves; people have a kneejerk skepticism to such statements (after all, if you really were that thing in the first place, why would you have to tell me)?

Some of us might have learned that people even tend to be the exact opposite of how they work to sell themselves (a self-declared 'family man' turns out to have a thing for call girls, Ecstasy and cocaine; a man who bills himself as 'good, kind, does the right thing' reveals himself as ruthless, cold and self-serving; a woman who always says 'trust me' should never, ever be trusted).

This is why self-disclosure can be so powerful: not because of what you're actually saying, but doing.

You are opening up your inner life to me, so that I might recognize myself in it, and, in so doing, open up my life to you. A connection is made that has nothing to do with selling anything, whether it's a product or a service or an image of yourself.

We're not interested in image; in any case, perfection only makes us feel inadequate and resentful.

I started to trust Chris Brogan, for example, when he conveyed through his tweets and blog posts that some of his 'haters' – and you're not anybody on the 'Net until you've got some – were getting to him. He was annoyed and frustrated and maybe even a little bit hurt. It's not like he spilled his guts, or any details. But what came through was a sense of him being human: vulnerable, like we all are, which takes away the potential-threat factor and draws us closer.

He was open in the sense that he was opening up to me (as part of his audience) in a way that I could connect with, because who doesn't have one of those days where a hater manages to slip through our defenses and get to us? And if he was being honest about this – about the fact that not everybody loves him – then that builds his credibility, makes me think he's being honest in other areas, he is who he says he is and does what he says he does.

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The most charismatic people show us who they really are and what they really think in ways that are relevant to us.

Oprah tells us about her abusive childhood within a context of other people talking about pain and trauma and overcoming adversity; that's the conversation she's having with us, and she makes it the more powerful by making herself part of it.

We want to know.



Simon Cowell tells the would-be singers on American Idol – and by extension us – what he really thinks of them. He doesn't try to look out for their feelings or perpetuate their (often unfortunate, sometimes even bizarre) illusions about themselves. He resonates with us because we're thinking the same things even if few of us would risk stating them so bluntly. And within the context of his show – a talent show – and given who he is – a music executive – his disclosure is relevant and appropriate.

We want to know.

Kelly Diels is one of the most authentic bloggers out there. She tells us heartfelt stories about her life – she practically owns the word 'heartfelt' – that relate to the themes of her blog: sex, money and meaning, right there in the tagline. If we weren't interested in these things, we wouldn't be reading her blog.

We want to know.



An authentic presence is a connected presence. It is in communication with you rather than at you; it is receiving and responding; it is tuned in to you enough to recognize your needs and what you might not even know you want to know (until you know it). It has something to say and a reason for saying it, otherwise it wouldn't be bothering you in the first place (because then it would just be an annoying presence).

A presence that didn't know how and when to filter, that's in love with its own voice, would qualify as narcissistic – so self-involved that he or she is no longer fully joined to reality, which means it's not possible for it to be authentic.

Don't show me all your skeletons.

Show me, maybe, some glimpses of a skeleton that will open up the channel between us and let in the conversation we need to be having.

Are you authentic?

Are you worthy of belief?

Who else is worthy of belief?

Let me know in the comments below.

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the art of discovering your innate genius, your badass gift to the world

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Here's an example of word-of-mouth in action: a friend of blogger and brand editor Abby Kerr told her about a book called THE BIG LEAP, by Gay Hendricks. Abby read it and blogged about it, which is how I discovered it, and now I am blogging about it to you.

Because I liked the section about superpowers (the same section that Abby highlights).

Your superpower is your unique ability

your special gift

your magical something that you excel at that is helpful to the people around you.

I would also add that it is easy. In fact, it is so easy for you to do, so natural, that chances are you probably don't even acknowledge it for the cool awesome thing that it is. You barely acknowledge it at all. You take it so completely for granted that, if you do think about it, which you don't, you would just kind of figure that everybody does it.

No no no no, my friends.

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This is why a book like Tim Rath's STRENGTHS FINDER– and the accompanying online test — is so bloody helpful. It's the outside perspective that can nudge you into a greater awareness – or even just an awareness – of the voodoo that you do.

For example: when I took the test, I discovered that my primary strength was something called Input.

Which basically translates to the ability to suck up lots of information and then break it down for others "with the force of your voice and the power of your presence".

Another top strength is something called Futuristic: I get excited by looking into the future and what I can see in there – and then working to manifest that.

Did it occur to me before I took the test that either of these things was some kind of 'ability'? Not on your freaking life. I read like I breathe, and I observe and listen to the world around me, and the rest seemed the natural outcome of that.

But when I'm engaging in these activities, or activating these abilities — or however you want to look at it – I am happy, in that unself-conscious, filled-with-the-moment, connected and invigorated way. Which is how Marcus Buckingham defines 'strength', and the marvelous Danielle LaPorte often emphasizes in her blog and forthcoming book.

A strength is not necessarily something that you're good at.

A strength is something that energizes you, inspires you, and makes you feel most like yourself.

A weakness is not necessarily something that you're bad at.



A weakness is something that depletes you, drains you, and makes you feel disconnected (and despairing).

(Right now, as I write this, I am happy. Later today, when I am walking around the construction site that is the current state of my new house, and attending to a bunch of house-related details, I will not be happy. But my companion, who is one of those methodical and detail-oriented types, will be overjoyed, which is why I am bringing him along.)

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Your strengths, according to Gay Hendricks, author of THE BIG LEAP, make up the larger picture within which you still need to find your superpower, your "innate genius". He invokes the image of Russian dolls. When you open one doll, you find a smaller doll nestled inside it, and when you open that doll, you find a still smaller doll, and so on, until you come to the final very cute very tiny doll: the deepest level, the essence, of you.

"Using that image," he instructs us,

think of your unique ability as a skill within a skill within a skill….Your unique ability is usually camouflaged inside a larger skill you possess. You may not even realize that your unique ability is what is driving your success in applying the larger skill…That gift is your greatest contribution to the people around you. It's the pinnacle skill of your working life. You can also use it to great benefit in your nonworking life….(There may be millions of people who have it. However, it's usually unique in your particular circle or work setting.)

He suggests that you start with the outermost doll: the larger skill that is our first, surface answer to the question, "What is your unique ability?"

For example.

My first answer: "My writing."

My ability to write, my ease and comfort with it, surfaced early in life, and was a key strategy in navigating the less-than-ideal terrain of my growing-up. I used it not just to escape, and to get through stressful situations, but also to thrive. Without it, I honestly don't know who – or where – I would be in my life right now; just the thought hollows my stomach and gives me a sick feeling.

All of which meets Hendricks' criteria for "unique ability".

But then you have to go further in.

Hendricks advises you to ask yourself a series of questions (a Russian doll set of questions).

Start with:

I'm at my best when I'm…..

And then proceed to doll #2:

When I'm at my best, the exact thing I'm doing is…

And doll #3:

When I'm doing that, the thing I love most about it is……

….and you'll know you're getting to your essence, your superpower, when you start to feel as if the face of the cosmos is smiling deep inside you and saying YES. THIS.

When I thought on it a bit more, and back to when I was younger, I realized that I often hit my best notes when I was on a stage of some sort: giving a speech or dramatic performance (I won awards for both) or even cracking people up at a dinner party. Which has nothing to do with my writing per se…and yet seemed connected.

Especially since the whole reason I started writing seriously, from fourth grade on, had to do with the attention it got me from teachers and peers. It was the experience of standing in front of a class and holding people spellbound. There is nothing more amazing than that.

So doll #2: I'm at my best when I'm connecting with an audience.



I thought about how it feels when I do that – when I'm doing it well. It's a sensation that goes beyond words – it feels primal, visceral, intuitive, instinctive. It feels like I'm tuning into the world, into the people around me, and receiving from them and then responding to that. It's a performance, but it's also a kind of dialogue, an improv: I mirror you to feel what you feel and be in your world, and then lead you where you maybe didn't know you wanted to go.

I brought this up with a close friend of mine. She's seen me through the demise of my marriage and nasty aftermath and, now, the re-invention of an identity and a life. She knows me very well.

"When I'm at my best," I told her, "I feel like I'm reaching people on an intellectual or emotional level, preferably both. Except that doesn't really get at the feeling of it. Because when I'm really at my best, I feel like I'm reaching into some kind of collective soul, and catching hold of something unspoken. And then I'm speaking it — leading it — in a way that other people can relate to."

"You're at your best when you're vibrating with this sense of resonance," she said immediately. "For you it's all about connecting and resonating with other people, with the culture, with the world at large. Your writing is the main vehicle for that, but you do it in other ways too." (She couldn't help adding, "That, by the way, is why you couldn't stay married to your ex. It was impossible to do that with him, it's not something he values." Point taken.)

The more I thought about this, the more it made sense. If you go back to Hendricks' point that your superpower is what you develop early in life to navigate the major challenge of your childhood, then I developed the ability to connect with people in a way that wasn't threatening to me; in a way that I could control (and even take a sense of power).

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I was so jazzed by this exercise that in an ongoing email exchange with a friend I tacked on a by-the-way, what's-your-superpower kind of question. (His response was a tepid, "I'll have to think about that." Boo.)

What's your superpower?

Think about it, and then say in the comments below.

Or email me at soulful@me.com.

'Cause I really want to know.

Don't you?

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the art of simplicity: figuring out the meaning of your novel, your wardrobe, your life

I'm moving to a new house come October, which requires a reckoning of the stuff in the old house. I am tired of stuff and want to own less of it.

I'm also reworking the logline for my novel-in-progress, THE DECADENTS. I'm preparing for the push to finish, and feeling slightly lost. The middle section can do that to you.

I want a stronger sense of the throughline of the book – that golden thread of story – and there seems no better way to do that than the hellish practice of writing a damn logline.

A strong logline is elegant. You have to reduce your novel to what it's truly about (which you can't do if you don't know, and it's way too easy not to know). You have to get at the soul, the essence, the meaning of the thing.

I was thinking about how you could apply this to your brand — or your identity — or even your life.

It's the need to remove "the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak," as a guy named Hans Hoffmann once put it.

According to The Pareto Principle — the 80/20 Rule — it's twenty percent of anything that is responsible for eighty percent of everything (if you pardon my very loose paraphrasing). Twenty percent of the things on your To Do list have the power to move your life forward. Eighty percent of the visible progress towards your goal happens in the last twenty percent of the time it takes to reach it (and vice versa). You wear twenty percent of the clothes in your closet. Etcetera. (This isn't exact, of course; the point is that most things in life are unevenly distributed. Like you didn't know this already.)

The challenge is to recognize the magical 20 percent that defines and advances us, and then to nurture it with focused attention so that it may grow.

But how do you know that you're making the right choices and taking away the right, unnecessary things?

And what will be left when you do?

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I had a long, lingering lunch with my writing coach at Restaurant in the Sunset Marquis, my favorite hotel in Los Angeles thanks to its rock'n'roll history and the sprawling oasis of its inner pathways and courtyards.

We talked about the primary elements of my novel. It's a complicated psychosexual thriller featuring multiple characters, entangled relationships. I told my coach, whose name is Rachel, how I want to streamline and simplify.

Please note that I don't want the story to be simple.



I want it to be elegant.

I was thinking of John Maeda's first law of simplicity, which he refers to as S.H.E.:

Shrink

Remove everything you can to make the object as small and light as possible.

Hide

Find clever ways to conceal the remaining complexity, so that what isn't simple still seems simple and is easy and lovely to use. Your computer interface, those icons that you click, would be an excellent example of this.

Embody

In order for something small and light and deceptively simple to convey value, so that we will still take it seriously, it needs to embody quality: fine craftsmanship, luxurious (but sensible) materials, beautiful design.

My novel involves what appears to be a multiple personality disorder, a reincarnation, and a murder from twenty years ago that is cycling around to happen again.

"But the core of the novel is the love triangle," Rachel declared.

I'm not sure that this was my intention when I began the novel, but Rachel was right. We talked about the three characters: Cat, Gabe and Mason. Gabe is supposed to be the protagonist, but something wasn't working. And as I talked this out with Rachel, as we got at the essence of the novel, the problem became suddenly, blindingly obvious:

Gabe doesn't have enough to lose.

Cat has a lot to lose. Mason has a lot to lose.

But Gabe?

"His career," Rachel said. "He could risk his career. That's important to him."

It was a good suggestion, but I can't appreciate something from the head; I have to feel it in my body; and 'risking career' wasn't doing it for me.

Rachel said, "What if he had a child?"

Those words invoked a little surge of excitement. I could feel the emotional stakes of the novel rising, rising, even if I wasn't sure how.

I just knew that the voice of the novel was whispering me in that direction.

The necessary was starting to speak.

at the Sunset Marquis

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I like how Guy Kawasaki talks about making the kind of product that turns customers into evangelists.

In order to create that buzz, that word-of-mouth, you have to make it so great that it compels people to tell others about it. The product and the marketing become one. The thing markets itself.

So simple!

Yet not!

Guy breaks down 'greatness' into D.I.C.E.E:

• Deep. A great product is deep. Its creators have anticipated what you'll need …As your demands get more sophisticated, you discover that you don't need a different product.

•

• Indulgent. A great product is a luxury. It makes you feel special when you buy it. It's not the least common denominator, cheapest solution in sight.

•

• Complete. A great product is more than a physical thing. ..A great product has a great total user experience—sometimes despite the company that produces it.

•

• Elegant. A great product has an elegant user interface. Things work the way you'd think they would. A great product doesn't fight you—it enhances you….

•

• Emotive. A great product incites you to action. It is so deep, indulgent, complete, and elegant that it compels you to tell other people about it. …You're bringing the good news to help others, not yourself.

I'm intrigued by D.I.C.E.E., how I could apply these ideas not just to my writing but my life.



If I could eliminate the distraction, if I could say no to everything that doesn't elicit a "Hell yeah!" kind of response, if I could give away or donate or sell books and clothes and furniture and possibly a car. If I was more careful about what I allow into my life – whether it's a thing, a project or a relationship – so that I can harness my resources and go deep, indulgent, complete.

Before any of this is possible, though, you have to make choices.

If you want to go deep, you can't go broad. You have to narrow in.

Cal Newport writes in his blog and his book that the secret to real success as a student is becoming a superstar at one thing instead of good at a few things or competent at many. Not only does the cultivation of superstardom set you apart from the pack, it can actually leave you more time to put toward other things (including the purposeful 'wandering around' so necessary for creative and personal breakthroughs).

This resonates with my own experience. By the time I graduated high school I'd established an impressively uneven academic record. I was an A student in certain subjects and a C student in others. I didn't have a long list of extra-curriculars – I think drama club was the extent of it. I was learning tae kwon do. I was a fast and accurate typist.

Yet somehow I landed a partial four-year scholarship to one of Canada's most prestigious universities.

At the time I – and others – thought it to be some kind of fluke, but now I can look back and recognize that I had three huge advantages: I knew from an early age what I liked to do and was good at (readin' and writin'), I had an obsessive nature ( I was reading and writing all the time) and lacked a dramatic social life (there was nothing to interfere with the readin' and writin'). (The dramatic social life would come years later.) While other kids partied or hung out at the mall, I wrote a series of novel-length manuscripts. At graduation, my high school invented a new award to recognize my writing. I had skipped a lot of classes, underachieved in certain areas (*cough*mathscience*cough*) but in this one zone I had put in enough hours to become, within that particular context, a freaking rockstar.

So why don't more people do this? Why, for that matter, didn't I continue to do this as I got older?

Choice is difficult.

Choice feels risky.

Putting-all-your-eggs-into-one-basket kind of risky.

I remember an eye-opening moment shortly after my ex-husband had filed for divorce and a friend of mine was commenting – kindly – on the general state of my life: "The problem is," she said, "you're not making choices."

Choice involves decisions which involves a decision-making process which involve thinking and evaluating and then a commitment. All of this is work, and although the brain is a wondrous thing, it's also lazy (if our ancestors took naps in the cave instead of wandering outside and getting eaten, you can maybe see the evolutionary advantages of this).

But – as Michael Ellsberg points out in his fascinating, forthcoming book about self-educated millionaires – the words 'decision' and 'decide' stem from the roots 'cise' and 'cide': to cut off and to kill.

Making a decision involves cutting off – killing – other possibilities.

We don't like to do that.

We like to think we have options.

Options are a lot like things: on some level we think that more must equal better. Safer. We find a comfort in keeping them around. We're afraid to give them away because one day we might need them.

But not deciding is of course a decision, and it involves, I think, a surrender of power, an abdication of responsibility to ourselves. We give up our power over our stuff and let our stuff own us: it clutters up space and prevents other, better things from moving in. We remain indecisive, we refuse to make the plunge to go deep and complete, because plunging into one pool demands a rejection of all the others.

And then we feel dissatisfied and ache to do something Meaningful if we could only figure out what this is, almost as if we're expecting it to be revealed while we're sitting in a restaurant eating a cheeseburger (imagine a waiter coming up to you and saying, "Here's your fries, dude, and here….is the MEANING of YOUR LIFE!!!!…Oh, and the check.").

This, of course, rarely happens.

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I once had the ability to buy a lot of very expensive clothing, and I made a lot of very expensive mistakes. I wanted to develop a signature style but had no idea how to do it, other than to buy something and hope that it suited me (only to realize, months or years later when looking at a photograph, that it didn't).

Finally I learned that the ability to know what to wear is all about knowing what not to wear. Style starts with a cool eye, an objective assessment of your body, and a sense of how you want to tell yourself to the world.

I'm lean – at least when I'm working out properly – but I'm also curvy. I've always liked the gamine thing, the Kate Moss heroin-chic waif thing (I'm not proud of this, but there you have it), but that requires a hiplessness that will forever be beyond me. I might like those boxy Chanel jackets – at least when paired with boots and ripped jeans – but thanks to my broad shoulders and narrow waist they make me look like a square with legs. And although my legs seem long, I've learned to elongate them so that they seem longer than they actually are in proportion to my long-waisted torso.

My body is my logline.

Trends may come and trends may go — and then come back again — but the proportions of my body remain the same. Learning how to dress that body has taught me what to say no to, what to reject out of hand, so that I may focus on playing up my strengths and minimizing my weaknesses. It gives me the confidence to go through my closet on a regular basis and ruthlessly edit its contents (a.k.a. "throwing shit out"). It gives me a set of 'rules', a framework, in which to make choices.

It gives me a perspective.

Which allows me to know what to take away.

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In painting they talk about negative space: the empty space around and between the thing that defines the thing itself. (An example of this would be the shape a cartoon character makes when it runs through a door.) Negative space can form its own interesting shape, sometimes more artistic than the thing it is defining. But it requires a shift in perspective: our focus on the subject must shift instead to what surrounds it.

From the something to the nothing.

The nothing is everything we choose not to do, everything we say no to…which enables us to say yes to something else.

This, points out Steve Jobs, is what focus is.

Focus isn't about the yes.

It's about all the stuff you say no to.

It's not about the great idea.

It's about all the good ideas you reject – sending out into the nothing – so that you can properly execute the idea you truly love.

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There's an episode of MILLIONAIRE MATCHMAKER where Patti Stanger (she's hilarious) confronts a fortysomething wealthy divorcee who declares herself to be "an actress, a model, a television hostess and a life coach." Patty declares her to be a woman with an identity crisis and throws up her hands: "Pick one!" she barks.

Our choices — or lack of them — define who we are.

They demonstrate our priorities. They reveal what's important to us (versus what we claim is important to us). Over time, our choices tell the story about our lives; they give that story a meaning. It might be vague and muddled and all over the place – or it might be

Deep. Indulgent. Complete. Elegant. Emotive.

It might be a word-of-mouth kind of life: a life that makes an impact, contributes, and inspires others.

You can own your life, or it can own you.

Whether you're creating a novel, a painting, or a life, you can work from the outside in or from the inside out. You can make deliberate and mindful choices, everyday, and absorb what these choices tell you about yourself. Over time, if you're paying close attention, a shape will emerge: the shape of the meaning of you.

Or you can decide what you want your life to be about, and build out your choices to deliberately shape that meaning.

I think what happens is a mixture of both: you take enough stuff away that allows you to see and hear what might been buried underneath all this while. You discover, or uncover, or recover your meaning even as you go about the process of creating it. Sometimes it takes us a while to figure out exactly what we're creating; we have to pause, and step back, and search for a working logline in order to get oriented again. We reveal the necessary even as the necessary reveals itself to us; and then, over time, the necessary reveals us.

We create, and are created.

What matters is that we give the necessary the space to speak.

What matters is that we are listening.

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the art of getting more traffic for your blog/more people who give a damn

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Attention = currency.

So how do I get more traffic for my blog? is akin to asking how do I get more money?

Traffic, like money, like happiness, happens best when you go after it obliquely. In other words: traffic is a side benefit that you get when you drive towards some other, bigger, better goal that has meaning for others as well as yourself. Going after traffic for the sheer sake of traffic could result in your own personal version of Enron: a blog based on pretense, distortions and meaningless data that ultimately collapses in its own house of cards.

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Every now and then some freak thing – usually a massive blog or site that for some reason links to you – will create a dramatic spike in your traffic.

It's thrilling for about thirty seconds. Then you find yourself asking: So what?

Does that spike translate into anything real? Do any of those people come back to you? Are they compelled to subscribe, or opt-in to your newsletter, or buy your books or your art or your digital products, or retweet your posts, or give a damn about your work in any way?

(During a spell of online procrastination, it's possible for me to surf many blogs and give a damn about none. The 'hit' that I signal on their site stats means absolutely nothing.)

What do you actually want people to do?

(I, for example, would like some of you wondrous people to buy my future books. You're certainly not obligated to; I enjoy having you here regardless; it just means that if you one day buy my stuff, I will love you that much more. Because I am shallow like that.)

I could dramatically increase my traffic if I posted topless photos of myself. (I like to think that this would happen.) But would it be the right kind of traffic, for the right reasons? I tend to think not.

So you have to know your ideal audience. If you're not sure you know your audience, think of the kind of people you would most like to hang out with (because remember that your tribe = people that you will be spending a great deal of time with), people who resonate with you and vice versa.

Now compress that sense of your right people into one single person. Maybe that person is a real person.

(I actually have a few individuals – and you know not who you are, but you are very helpful in this regard and so I thank you – that I hold in my head for this purpose.)

And from now on, everything that you write, you write to that one person. You think about if they would like it and how they would like it or why they might not.



It's perhaps one of the great paradoxes – in fiction as well as in blogging – that the more specific you are, the more universal your reach and impact. You arrive at the abstract through a mastery of detail, and vice versa.

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Then all you have to do is write great content. Frequently and consistently.

You need to find ways to make it enjoyable and meaningful for yourself, or else you'll burn out.

(You also need to find a way to make it complement your creative work instead of acting as a slapped-on piece of advertising for it, which will only waste everybody's time, or as a substitute, which defeats the general purpose in the first place. But that, my friends, is a whole other blog post.)

You need to make it enjoyable and meaningful for others, or else they won't 'hit' you again (or at all).

So you need to find that sweetspot where what works for you works for your audience. The most powerful writing happens, I think, when you actually become your audience; the two of you melt into each other; you write with passion and intensity because you think you're writing for your audience when you're truly writing for yourself. Or vice versa.

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What does it mean anyway, this phrase 'great content'?

If you're a writer, especially a fiction writer, you should know that blogging is different from writing fiction (I, for one, find it a hell of a lot easier, but it requires its own learning curve and process of trial and error).

Know that even though your blog is free, it is not free. You are asking people to pay with their time and attention (remember that attention = currency) and then with their own reputation (since you want them to share your stuff with their networks and spread you around, which reflects directly on them).

So it's not enough just to post your fiction on your website and expect strangers to come along and 'pay' for it when they have no idea why they should care.

You have to create meaning for them.

And then you have to promote that meaning in a clear and appealing way, through your headlines and your tagline (that line below your blog title that further defines what your blog is about).

In marketing they call this your unique selling point, or your differentiating point, or your 'hook', or whatever. Problem is, I think those descriptions don't go deep enough to describe what is essentially the soul of your blog – which is also an authentic alignment of you: your values, obsessions, identity, viewpoint, persona, message to the world (other than 'buy my stuff!').

And this is part of the challenge as a creative person: it's how to take the language of business and marketing that people use when they discuss this stuff, and translate it into a language that works for us, that serves both our readers and our art.

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Blogging is both a skill and an art.

When you are trying to reach people emotionally as well as intellectually – which is the only way you can turn them into devoted fans – which is why Apple is so fiercely loved, for example, while Microsoft is merely respected – you involve the creative powers of design and storytelling. You create an experience.

You need passion, but you also need the skillset. The technique. The substance to your style.

Aim high.

As the blogosphere becomes increasingly cluttered by people who are teaching and practicing the same 'best practices', the level of artistry you bring to your message, your 'meaning', becomes more and more important. The 'first movers' – and the advantages they continue to reap — beat you to this a long time ago. What you have left is what you can do.

6

There are two types of blogging (at least to my mind): authority blogging and personal blogging. I have done both and received attention for both, and I think the most effective – and personally rewarding – form of blogging combines a problem to be solved through the information you impart (the 'authority') — along with a sense of personality, 'voice', storytelling and soul (the 'personal') — that together create that sense of overall meaning I was talking about earlier (the 'unique point of awesomeness' that sets you apart from the pack).

And this is how I think you go about that:

1. Figure out your 'big gig', the obsession that keeps coming up in your art, the central 'riddle' that you are trying to solve in your life, the 'wound' that you need to heal

And

2. Address problems and questions in your blog that relate to that.

I took the idea of your personal 'big gig' from the book THE IDEAS HUNTER by Andrew Boynton. From an interview:

You talk about "finding your gig" in The Idea Hunter. What are some key questions people need to ask themselves to find the "Big Gig" in their life?

Finding the Gig is essential and the book points to ways and refers to some other experts (and their sources) to look at. To start, think about what you are passionate about. (Not what others want you to be passionate about) and then consider are you any good at it, and is there a need for it in society. Without all three conditions aligned—it's doubtful your gig will get you far. Knowing your gig is about blending your passion with your pragmatism.

He's talking within the context of business. But we all have our central themes, our obsessions, that rise again and again in our work.

We are driven to learn – to work something out – because we're coming from a related place of lack: from some inner void or wound that we need to heal.

When you recognize what that wound is, you can move in two directions: down, towards the increasingly pragmatic expressions of it, to the concrete problems that you can solve for your readers, and up, to more abstract musings re: identity and philosophy. Just remember that readers won't come to you — at least at first — because they care about your philosophy. They care about what you can actually do for them that immediately improves their situation in some way. Solve a problem. Teach them something. Make them laugh. Forge a connection.

My wound has to do with experiences of powerlessness, with episodes of bullying and emotional/verbal abuse from my childhood that I went on to recreate through certain relationships in my adult years. The question or riddle I am trying to work out has to do with questions of power, with matters of empowerment. This is how I find enlightenment and healing.

So I'm interested in how I can empower myself (and others) as a creative (who happens to be a woman)….and how I can do my bit toward social change, a rebalancing of power in the world's relationships with women and with the earth (since the two are connected).

Those are massive, abstract goals. What I have to do is follow them down – down – into their more immediate and pragmatic expressions, like "how do I find time to write?" and "where can I find a great workspace?" and "how can I best use social media?" and "what is author platform?" and "what does it mean to be both powerful and female?" and "how can I beat back episodes of depression that keep me from writing?" and "how can I best cultivate the network of healthy relationships that I need to function happily and productively?" and things of that nature.

Things that relate in a very personal way to me.

And since, to quote Jung, "That which is most personal is most common", these issues, and my explorations of them, just might have some relevance for you.

Or as Lara Dair expresses it in her book NAKED, DRUNK AND WRITING, "the more intensely individual a person's thoughts are, the more uniquely applicable to him or her, the more they will have meaning for other people."

Meaning, baby.

Meaning.

7

Here's the thing.

I believe that social media has the power to reshape capitalism and save the freaking world.

I'm not saying that it will.

I'm saying it has the potential….if we can only step up and learn how to use it.

(For further reading on this, I recommend the excellent books THE DRAGONFLY EFFECT and WE FIRST.)

As creatives, we stand in a unique sweetspot where we benefit ourselves first and foremost only if we set that desire aside to concentrate on a bigger picture. We promote ourselves through promoting a zone of ideas that help people improve their lives and make the world a little better.

I am not saying that you should create value for others just so you can capture it for yourself – although maybe that's a stage that many of us have to work through, like puberty on the way to adulthood.

I am saying that we are most effective when we shift our vision outward – or when we look inward in order to look outward, understanding others through understanding ourselves.

When we move from asking, How can I get more traffic?

to questions like: How am I best equipped to serve my right readers? How can I best contribute to the relationships that make up my 'platform'?

You cannot help yourself (at least in the long run) unless you genuinely help others – this is how interconnected and transparent we have become. The meaning you make for yourself is the meaning you make for the world. You are your audience, your Right Reader…and your audience is you.

We can see right through you, to where your soul is – or isn't.

why the world (+ your blog) needs you to save yourself

1

Attention = currency.

So how do I get more traffic for my blog? is akin to asking how do I get more money?

Traffic, like money, like happiness, happens best when you go after it obliquely. In other words: traffic is a side benefit that you get when you drive towards some other, bigger, better goal that has meaning for others as well as yourself. Going after traffic for the sheer sake of traffic could result in your own personal version of Enron: a blog based on pretense, distortions and meaningless data that ultimately collapses in its own house of cards.

2

What kind of traffic do you want?

It's about quality as well as quantity.

It's about calling your tribe, your Ideal Readers, your right people.

Every now and then some freak thing – usually a massive blog or site that for some reason links to you – will create a dramatic spike in your traffic.

It's thrilling for about thirty seconds. Then you find yourself asking: So what?

Does that spike translate into anything real? Do any of those people come back to you? Are they compelled to subscribe, or opt-in to your newsletter, or buy your books or your art or your digital products, or retweet your posts, or give a damn about your work in any way?

(During a spell of online procrastination, it's possible for me to surf many blogs and give a damn about none. The 'hit' that I signal on their site stats means absolutely nothing.)

What do you actually want people to do?

(I, for example, would like some of you wondrous people to buy my future books. You're certainly not obligated to; I enjoy having you here regardless; it just means that if you one day buy my stuff, I will love you that much more. Because I am shallow like that.)

I could dramatically increase my traffic if I posted topless photos of myself. (I like to think that this would happen.) But would it be the right kind of traffic, for the right reasons? I tend to think not.

So you have to know your audience. If you're not sure you know your audience, think of the kind of people you would most like to hang out with (because remember that your tribe = people that you will be spending a great deal of time with), people who resonate with you and vice versa.

Now compress that sense of your right people into one single person. Maybe that person is a real person.

(I actually have a few individuals – and you know not who you are, but you are very helpful in this regard and so I thank you – that I hold in my head for this purpose.)

And from now on, everything that you write, you write to that one person. You think about if they would like it and how they would like it or why they might not.



It's perhaps one of the great paradoxes – in fiction as well as in blogging – that the more specific you are, the more universal your reach and impact. You arrive at the abstract through a mastery of detail, and vice versa.

3

Then all you have to do is write great content. Frequently and consistently.

You need to find ways to make it enjoyable and meaningful for yourself, or else you'll burn out.

(You also need to find a way to make it complement your creative work instead of acting as a slapped-on piece of advertising for it, which will only waste everybody's time, or as a substitute, which defeats the general purpose in the first place. But that, my friends, is a whole other blog post.)

You need to make it enjoyable and meaningful for others, or else they won't 'hit' you again (or at all).

So you need to find that sweetspot where what works for you works for your audience. The most powerful writing happens, I think, when you actually become your audience; the two of you melt into each other; you write with passion and intensity because you think you're writing for your audience when you're truly writing for yourself. Or vice versa.

4

What does it mean anyway, this phrase 'great content'?

If you're a writer, especially a fiction writer, you should know that blogging is different from writing fiction (I, for one, find it a hell of a lot easier, but it requires its own learning curve and process of trial and error).

Know that even though your blog is free, it is not free. You are asking people to pay with their time and attention (remember that attention = currency) and then with their own reputation (since you want them to share your stuff with their networks and spread you around, which reflects directly on them).

So it's not enough just to post your fiction on your website and expect strangers to come along and 'pay' for it when they have no idea why they should care.

You have to create meaning for them.

And then you have to promote that meaning in a clear and appealing way, through your headlines and your tagline (that line below your blog title that further defines what your blog is about).

In marketing they call this your unique selling point, or your differentiating point, or your 'hook', or whatever. Problem is, I think those descriptions don't go deep enough to describe what is essentially the soul of your blog – which is also an authentic alignment of you: your values, obsessions, identity, viewpoint, persona, message to the world (other than 'buy my stuff!').

And this is part of the challenge as a creative person: it's how to take the language of business and marketing that people use when they discuss this stuff, and translate it into a language that works for us, that serves both our readers and our art.

5

Blogging is both a skill and an art.

When you are trying to reach people emotionally as well as intellectually – which is the only way you can turn them into devoted fans – which is why Apple is so fiercely loved, for example, while Microsoft is merely respected – you involve the creative powers of design and storytelling. You create an experience.

You need passion, but you also need the skillset. The technique. The substance to your style.

Aim high.

As the blogosphere becomes increasingly cluttered by people who are teaching and practicing the same 'best practices', the level of artistry you bring to your message, your 'meaning', becomes more and more important. The 'first movers' – and the advantages they continue to reap — beat you to this a long time ago. What you have left is what you can do.

6

There are two types of blogging (at least to my mind): authority blogging and personal blogging. I have done both and received attention for both, and I think the most effective – and personally rewarding – form of blogging combines a problem to be solved through the information you impart (the 'authority') — along with a sense of personality, 'voice', storytelling and soul (the 'personal') — that together create that sense of overall meaning I was talking about earlier (the 'unique point of awesomeness' that sets you apart from the pack).

And this is how I think you go about that:

1. Figure out your 'big gig', the obsession that keeps coming up in your art, the central 'riddle' that you are trying to solve in your life, the 'wound' that you need to heal

And

2. Address problems and questions in your blog that relate to that.

I took the idea of your personal 'big gig' from the book THE IDEAS HUNTER by Andrew Boynton. From an interview:

You talk about "finding your gig" in The Idea Hunter. What are some key questions people need to ask themselves to find the "Big Gig" in their life?

Finding the Gig is essential and the book points to ways and refers to some other experts (and their sources) to look at. To start, think about what you are passionate about. (Not what others want you to be passionate about) and then consider are you any good at it, and is there a need for it in society. Without all three conditions aligned—it's doubtful your gig will get you far. Knowing your gig is about blending your passion with your pragmatism.

He's talking within the context of business. But we all have our central themes, our obsessions, that rise again and again in our work.

We are driven to learn – to work something out – because we're coming from a related place of lack: from some inner void or wound that we need to heal.

When you recognize what that wound is, you can move in two directions: down, towards the increasingly pragmatic expressions of it, to the concrete problems that you can solve for your readers, and up, to more abstract musings re: identity and philosophy. Just remember that readers won't come to you — at least at first — because they care about your philosophy. They care about what you can actually do for them that immediately improves their situation in some way. Solve a problem. Teach them something. Make them laugh. Forge a connection.

My wound has to do with experiences of powerlessness, with episodes of bullying and emotional/verbal abuse from my childhood that I went on to recreate through certain relationships in my adult years. The question or riddle I am trying to work out has to do with questions of power, with matters of empowerment. This is how I find enlightenment and healing.

So I'm interested in how I can empower myself (and others) as a creative (who happens to be a woman)….and how I can do my bit toward social change, a rebalancing of power in the world's relationship with women and the earth (since the two are connected).

Those are massive, abstract goals. What I have to do is follow them down – down – into their more immediate and pragmatic expressions, like "how do I find time to write?" and "where can I find a great workspace?" and "how can I best use social media?" and "what is author platform?" and "what does it mean to be both powerful and female?" and "how can I beat back episodes of depression that keep me from writing?" and "how can I best cultivate the network of healthy relationships that I need to function happily and productively?" and things of that nature.

Things that relate in a very personal way to me.

And since, to quote Jung, "That which is most personal is most common", these issues, and my explorations of them, just might have some relevance for you.

Or as Lara Dair expresses it in her book NAKED, DRUNK AND WRITING, "the more intensely individual a person's thoughts are, the more uniquely applicable to him or her, the more they will have meaning for other people."

Meaning, baby.

Meaning.

7

Here's the thing.

I believe that social media has the power to reshape capitalism and save the freaking world.

I'm not saying that it will.

I'm saying it has the potential….if we can only step up and learn how to use it.

(For further reading on this, I recommend the excellent books THE DRAGONFLY EFFECT and WE FIRST.)

As creatives, we stand in a unique sweetspot where we benefit ourselves first and foremost only if we set that desire aside to concentrate on a bigger picture. We promote ourselves through promoting a zone of ideas that help people improve their lives and make the world a little better.

I am not saying that you should create value for others just so you can capture it for yourself – although maybe that's a stage that many of us have to work through, like puberty on the way to adulthood.

I am saying that we are most effective when we shift our vision outward – or when we look inward in order to look outward, understanding others through understanding ourselves.

When we move from asking, How can I get more traffic?

to questions like: How am I best equipped to serve my right readers? How can I best contribute to the relationships that make up my 'platform'?

You cannot help yourself (at least in the long run) unless you genuinely help others – this is how interconnected and transparent we have become. The meaning you make for yourself is the meaning you make for the world. You are your audience, your Right Reader…and your audience is you.

We can see right through you, to where your soul is – or isn't.