I love doing online branding work with introverts. While they might approach the topic nervously, I know from experience as a Myers-Briggs INTP that online branding can be the easiest – and most powerful – branding that an introvert ever does.

What do I mean by introvert? Mainly, I rely on the Myers-Briggs interpretation that we draw energy from the inner world, more than the outside world. We can love intimate gatherings and conversations but we’re not likely to love traditional networking kinds of events. We also traffic heavily in ideas and concepts, or as I like to say, we are Idea Hamsters.

If you’re starting or revisiting your online branding and you are an introvert, here are some things to help you find the success you desire without going against your grain.

Know Your Facets
You knew I’d start with more research, right? Specifically, consider taking the Myers-Briggs Step II assessment. Most people don’t realize that there is more than one Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, but Step II is juicy. It breaks each of your four type preferences (I/E, N/S, T/F and P/J) into its various facets. Specifically for the I/E facet, it is broken down into:

Many people with a type preference for introversion learn in Step II that they are not introverted on every facet. For example, I’m consistently typed as introverted except for the Expression facet, where I lean toward extraversion. Hence, I love writing and blogging. If you’d like to see a sample Step II report. you’ll see how the facets relate to introversion and extraversion and how they are interpreted for the sample case. As a certified Myers-Briggs practitioner, I can provide the assessment to you and assist you in interpreting your results, if you’d like to explore this.

Understanding your facets will help you choose activities that will feel energizing and empowering to your natural strengths. Please don’t assume that I mean you have to pick activities only in the areas where you lean toward extraversion. Not at all. If you prefer Intimate to Gregarious, then you can be quite successful in finding more intimate spaces online to connect, like private groups that promote relationships, versus huge seemingly anonymous places like Twitter. Besides the size of the forum, it’s also the approach you would bring to it. So, continuing the example of someone who prefers Intimate to Gregarious, you can build wonderful relationship even on Twitter by seeking connections that are respectful and reflect the depth of your thinking. You might need a bit longer to find and trust those associations, but it’s absolutely possible.

Provide Relevance
Most introverts love ideas and concepts. We are often great synthesizers. Many of us have a strong bent for research and fact finding. Use those strengths to find information that your audience and potential clients will deeply appreciate and bring your talents for filtering and synthesis. The key is relevance. If you can be seen as a trusted filter by your audience online, then they will keep coming back for more of what you offer in the future.

Stand For Something
If you’re not comfortable in the spotlight, then use your skills for reflection to consider what you stand for. What motivates you to serve your clients? Why does what you offer matter to them? As Simon Sinek says in his wonderful TED talk, start with why. I would add: never forget your why. By knowing your why, it will always give you something to focus on that isn’t you and is much less likely to make you squirm when you it’s time to put your message out there.

Focus on Results
If I thought I had to spend every day talking to people saying “just trust me,” I would be in a constant state of hives. I’m much more comfortable sharing results that clients have gotten or, even better, giving them the opportunity to find their own results based on my process before we even start working together. I do this through my free Inner Brandifesto guidebook. Free ebooks can be an introverts best friend for marketing her business. You can share your ideas, your “why” and your relevance, all in one easy-to-deliver and valuable document.

Pass The Microphone
If you haven’t checked your online profiles lately, review them occasionally to make sure that they reflect your mission and share what you do feel comfortable revealing about yourself. Your Twitter bio and your Facebook profile can give great insight into your purpose and personality without you having to pick up a megaphone and repeat those messages over and over again. Use testimonials on your website and ask for recommendations on sites like LinkedIn to let others share their results with you. Strong testimonials are the perfect way to let others speak positively about you and to strengthen your brand.

What have I missed? How do you think that introverts can leverage their preferences online? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments and I’ll gladly answers questions there, too.

P.S. Want more for introverts? I was thrilled to contribute to C.A. Kobu‘s inspiring project, A Year With Myself, with an interview for the self-study kit (affiliate link) and a writing prompt called “You’re Just My Type.” Do pop over and subscribe for the weekly prompts and action ideas from over 75 collaborators.

Related posts:

1. Do You Need to Swiffer Your Online Presence?
2. How (and Why) to Be Yourself Online
3. Conversations with Smart People: Personal Branding with David S. Cohen, Part 1

I was just writing an email to someone about meditation and I accidentally spelled it “medication.”

Well hello, Dr. Freud.

Why do I avoid meditation when it seems to bring me instant relief? A huge lesson of the last three years for me is that success IS an inside job. Making time – no TAKING time – to hang out with my gut and my spirit and all the discomfort of my monkey mind is always the fastest path to sorting out the seemingly unsortable. My rational mind, as much as I love it, is limited in what it can solve. And if it begins e-m-o… then I can forget the rational path.

Sometimes I need a little, okay, A LOT of help to plug in the meditation mojo. This week Patty Lennon led me through an amazing meditation that sorted out a whole bunch of ick around something had been shockingly unconscious for me: shame. I was letting old behaviors and beliefs around money set up a nasty shame-filled outpost in my gut. When I could visualize that and (here was the cool part) with Patty’s help transform it into something quite magical, I started to feel lighter, healthier, and so much happier. I could feel my positive energy flowing again.

This week I’ll try thinking of meditation as medication: something that has been created for the sole purpose of bringing relief, restoration, and healing. I loved the taste of orange baby aspirin as a kid. Surely meditation can be equally tangy and effective, too.

Related posts:

1. Letting It Rip: A Choice Ten of 2011

Let’s just get one thing out of the way: I don’t like the word “boomer.” I’ve never gone “BOOM!” in my entire life. Demographically, I’m a boomer but personality-wise, uh, not so much. If you’ve got a better name for this demographic, I’d love to hear it in the comments!

It’s unmistakable though: whether we call ourselves boomers or not, women over 50 are starting businesses faster than ever. And I think that’s great news for our economy, for our communities, and for ourselves.

Here are my 50 reasons that women over 50 make GREAT entrepreneurs:

1. Time flexibility
2. Location flexibility
3. Expand your own education
4. Apply your own education
5. Travel for your business
6. Meet people from all over the world through online engagement
7. Volunteer with more flexibility
8. Add money to your kids’ college fund
9. Get paid for your skills
10. Sidestep age discrimination
11. Apply the depth of your life experience
12. Leverage the your lifelong contacts
13. Long time residence in a community gives you credibility and connections there
14. Kids’ schedules are not a factor or are less demanding
15. Existing savings can help you get started
16. You know what you want more clearly than ever
17. You care what other people think less than ever
18. You know life is short and there’s no time to waste
19. It’s a great intellectual challenge
20. It’s an opportunity for spiritual growth
21. You’re not limited by a salary cap
22. You get to be your own boss
23. You can’t get laid off
24. You can write off your gadgets, if you use them for work
25. You don’t have to work in a stuffy office tower
26. You want to avoid office politics
27. You can work while traveling
28. You can create residual earning opportunities
29. It’s never been cheaper to start a business web site thanks to WordPress
30. It’s never been easier to get PR thanks to social media
31. It’s never been easier to learn those technologies
32. You’re on Facebook anyway
33. You can contract for anything you need for less money than ever
34. You can be global from day one
35. Deferred compensation programs like retirement accounts are generous for the self-employed
36. Fill in the gaps of investment-based retirement income, especially when rates of return are low
37. Flexibility to be available for aging parents
38. Technology makes it less expensive to start a business than ever before
39. You know how to get up from life’s knocks
40. You have an idea that you want to see realized
41. You want to make a difference in your community
42. Creating success is empowering
43. You want to achieve your potential
44. You have more time on your hands
45. You’re tired of giving so much of your time to an employer
46. You want to stand up for your personal values
47. You want to give more to charity
48. You want to build wealth
49. You want to create a legacy
50. You know you really want to

Got more? I’d love to hear your reasons for starting a business.

image credit: opensourceway

Related posts:

1. Why Your Great Big Brain Won’t Run A Business
2. Little League Lessons for Entrepreneurs

It’s my blog’s birthday! This month makes three years that I’ve been blogging steadily, and happily it’s still one of my favorite things to do. While I’ve been doing tech and marketing consulting since 1995, this is also my third birthday as a business coach. Woo hoo! Pass the cupcakes!

Mostly, year three was exciting. I felt like I was hitting my stride. I felt confident, I enjoyed the experience I had gained, and I had the wonderful fun of meeting new people in the most random of ways through social media and referrals. It’s a strange feeling when someone writes or calls with whom I’ve never had a personal contact, but I welcome those contacts as a sign of  a healthy, growing business. My introverted nature got stretched.

Sometimes I felt like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory. The pace would pick up and before I knew it, things were a bit ragged around the edges. I learned a lot about focus and identifying what matters. I learned that, more than ever, my inner lizard thinking feeds on distractions. I got help from a strategic coach or two who understand how to help me stay focused so that things get good and truly done. I was happy that this culminated in creating The Planning Kitchen, a program that guides entrepreneurs through a learning and planning process that helps them find their own right focus.

My biggest lesson of the year: putting down is as important as picking up. It’s always been my inclination to keep adding things to my plate, personally and professionally. I kept trying to add things, but this year I’ve started experimenting with putting some things down and the results are teaching me a lot. Big plans are brewing for an even clearer expression of what I want my business to be. My priority this year is on making it sustainable and scalable – while answering a deep desire to do something worthy of legacy.

Most of all, I was thrilled to be of service to people who are doing compelling work and answering their own calling to be of service. I loved hearing client stories, and I did a lot of happy booty shaking when they came back with good news of new clients of their own. I midwifed strong brands, and celebrated when clients launched successful programs with confidence.

I’d say those are all good reasons for a party. Want a cupcake?

Related posts:

1. Happy New Year, Beyoncé
2. Beating the Business Bloat
3. Warning, I Am Two

One of my favorite questions to ask service entrepreneurs is “What are you NOT willing to do in your marketing?” (It’s one of the juicy questions in The Inner Brandifesto. You’ve got that right? No? Well, mozy over and get it here.)

The number one answer is, by far, anything that makes them feel pushy. And with a little poking beneath the surface, it’s usually something that has been “done to them” in marketing that they didn’t like, like a super long ugly sales letter or zillions of repetitive “Buy me! Buy me! Buy me!” emails.

When someone tells me what they don’t like, they are actually telling me everything about what they DO like. If they don’t like harsh, then they do like soft. If they don’t like being hammered with repetitive messages, then they do like having their time and their inbox respected.

So if you don’t want to be pushy – if you like soft, respectful marketing – can you be successful? If you look around the world of online marketing, you might seriously wonder.

Happily, the answer is yes.

Even better, it’s based on something that you already know how to do: love. You didn’t marry the pick up artist; you married the one who courted you. Sure, you may have had a fling with a bad boy (or girl) or two (or bought a product or three), but you didn’t seal the deal and build a long, happy life with Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma’am.

Online marketing is the same. Relationships take time to build, time to nurture and time to evolve. No, this isn’t the dominant view online. No, this isn’t the get rich quick method. But it is the way to build a healthy, sustainable business. And, even more importantly, it’s full of love for the people who authentically need what you have to offer.

So why is that other yucky stuff out there at all? Because it does make sales – for a while. But it requires you to hang out in the equivalent of seedy bars online to pick up new hook ups. It’s what’s called “churn and burn.” The churn is continually adding people to a mailing list and the burn is, yep, burning them (and probably losing their attention forever) with pushy tactics.

Are you feeling even ickier when I call it what it is? Why would *anyone* run their business this way?

In the always reliable wisdom of Tina Turner: “Who needs a heart, if a heart can be broken?”

That’s my hunch: these churn and burn marketers have been hurt. They’re afraid to put their heart on the line. They’re cut off from their feelings, and they don’t mind hurting others because their heart isn’t in the game. Their measure of success is “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Where is their client in that?

It makes me want to cry to see marketing that is, in fact, full of someone’s pain.

So, and I’m assuming you’re NOT that wounded-so-I’ll-wound-others person, what can you do if you want to grow your business?

Back to Tina’s marketing genius, let’s ask “What’s love got to do with it?”

Love takes a risk. Love offers but doesn’t grasp. Love comforts without smothering. Love brings its best. Love learns all that it can so that it can meet a need.

Or, from that other soul great, Al Green, the other side of love says: Here I am. Come and take me. Take me by the hand. Show me. Teach me.

That’s what your clients want to say to you as they fall in love with what you offer. They are saying “Take me by the hand, show me, teach me.”

What if that’s enough in your marketing? Extend your hand. Show them. Teach them. Take the risk.

With love.

Related posts:

1. The Love Test

One of the people who has most influenced me to dig deep and bring my best to my online adventures is Chris Brogan. I love his annual three words post – and I love that he asks his community to contribute. As T.S. Eliot said, “Talent imitates, genius steals.” So with an unabashed desire to channel Chris’s genius, I’m once again stealing his idea to share the three words that represent my intentions for 2012, and this year, I’m including those from colleagues who want to play along, too.

Invite is inviting people into discussion, community, classes, and deeper inquiry. It’s the opposite of “push” in marketing.

Value is helping others find and reveal their value in the world, too. It’s providing value in my programs and services. It’s valuing myself and my time.

Ease is doing what feels like ease and asking for help with what doesn’t (or dropping it altogether). Ease into, ease out of. It’s about allowing ease to be powerful *and* enough.

I noticed that if I put a fourth word on the front of these, the initials would form the basis of all of this: GIVE. That fourth word? Grace. That’s my constant prayer: to know grace, feel grace, live in grace… and to give gracefully.

It’s all about intention. Those are mine for 2012.

And now, it’s my great joy to share many from friends and colleagues in The Planning Kitchen, who are committing to their own intentions in 2012.

Martha Jo Atkins: shine

Lisa Bourdon: receive, fly, mine

Lesley Reid Cross: euphoria, movement, play

Mary Welty-Dapkus: destiny, daring, delight

Cheryl Dolan: perspicuous, perspicacity, perspiration

Diane Hunter: listen, lead, love

Christie Inge: resonance, intuition, love

Sue Kasson: ease, connection, warmth

C. A. Kobu: breakthrough, connect, flourish

Melani Marx: receptive, constancy, belonging

Honor Medina: honor, truth, action

Katie McClain: authentic, whole, loved

Koren Motekaitis: possibility, commitment, action

Florence Moyer: create, nature, connection

Helen Samson Mullen: trust, love, harmony

Theresa Robbins: presence, connection, love

Stacey Beth Shulman: just, keep, going

Mary Ellen Telesha: spirit, continue, joy

Julie Tennis: discovery, streamlining, income

Kellie Walker: community, creativity, connection

Audrey Wilson: practice, diligence, acknowledge

May 2012 be a year of living and working with intention and great joy! Happy New Year!

I’d love to read your three in the comments. Feel free to elaborate, especially if you’re listed above.

Related posts:

1. The Elegance of Simplicity
2. 50 Reasons Women Over 50 Make Great Entrepreneurs
3. Three Words for 2011

2011 was definitely the year that I let it rip here on the blog. On this last day of the year, here’s my round-up of some of the year’s highlights.

The Wee Portal of Branding and The Three Objections
This was, by far, the post that marked 2011 for me. If you only ever read one thing that I’ve written, this is the one. If you want one idea that will change your business for the better, this is the one. If you don’t have your own wee portal yet, please believe me that the people who need your services are seeking the little door that looks like them.

You Don’t Have to Put On the Red Light
I had to re-write this post three times before I published it. That’s how emotionally involved I got in the idea that our survival instincts can get the better of our marketing when the archetype of the prostitute gets triggered. Huge kudos to the smarties who added SO much to this post in their comments. The exchange is blogging at its best and is exactly what keeps me coming back to the my WordPress dashboard week after week.

Is Fear Ruining Your Brand?
This three-part series came to me in a rush of writing one Sunday afternoon. The topic of fear is just beneath the surface for everyone I have met who is running her own business. Managing your response when fear pops up is a key skill that every successful entrepreneur learns to navigate.

Warning: Your Dream Is Killing Your Business
If you asked me what I do all day, one of the things I would tell you is that I help entrepreneurs develop a client-centered focus. This post is a perfect example of how to shift the way you communicate in a way that will make you much more attractive and trustworthy to potential clients.

Thrashing and Grasping
This very short post may just be the one that saves your business and/or your sanity. If “compare and despair” is part of your regular routine, read this post.

Opportunity Sniffs
This post is a personal favorite. First, it’s got a cute picture of a dog. And it’s got three simple ideas that are the cornerstones of a strong brand.

Is Your Brand Hand Knit?
It seems to be an annual tradition that I write at least one post about knitting, my favorite hobby. This one will give you ideas about how to become a preference vs. a commodity.

How to Lose Money, Guaranteed
Want to stand out from the service crowd? Offer a guarantee. Want a simpler sales process? Offer a guarantee. Want more clients? Offer a guarantee. ‘Nuff said.

Winning vs. Legacy
After turning 50 this year, legacy is much more on my mind than ever before. During the World Yoyo Contest this year, I learned something important about legacy.

Claim and Proclaim
This post was purely personal, dedicated to my grandmother. She taught me everything about devotion.

Every one of these posts is dedicated to YOU. Thank you for being a reader, for commenting, for sharing, and for challenging me to show up every week. It’s been a fantastic ride in 2011, and I’m confident that the best is yet to come.

Related posts:

1. Take Ten Minutes and Call Me In The Morning

Looking for a last minute gift for your favorite entrepreneur? Every week in my newsletter I comment on a book that I’m reading or listening to. Here are my favorites from the last year.

Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck, Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen
This book, more than any other, convinced me of the importance of steady action, and yes, discipline. Every chapter has a strong takeaways like “the 20 mile march” about relentless commitment or “fire bullets, then cannonballs” about calibrating action. Collin and Hansen are masterful at distilling their research into key ideas and pithy phrases that will ring in your mind long after you finish the book. If your work involves any amount of risk (and whose doesn’t?), choose Great by Choice.

Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design, Carrie McCarthy and Danielle LaPorte
Want to know more about your personal brand – and boil it down to two powerful words? You won’t find a more compelling book than Style Statement. It is inspiring in its beauty and the exercises go deep. My style statement? Geek Funk.  What’s yours?

Do the Work, Steven Pressfield
Steven Pressfield’s genius is helping us identify resistance and providing the elegantly simple tools to bust through it. Pressfield’s experience as a successful screenwriter lends compelling examples and strong credibility to his writing. Do the Work is a quick read but one that will change how you work forever. I promise.

Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences, Nancy Duarte
Want one of the best books ever about telling stories? Especially for presentations? Resonate by Nancy Duarte is a “run, don’t walk” to read it recommendation from me. In my work using archetypes for branding, I think a lot about the Hero’s Journey. This book brings that same idea to creating presentations but the concepts translate easily to blog posts, programs, classes, you name it. The mind-blowing idea: your audience is the hero, not you. If your work involves communications of any kind, start resonating.

Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands, Marty Neumeier
I give this book away as fast as I can buy copies. It’s a fun read on positioning and differentiation, which are key principles of branding. If you’ve ever worried that what you are offering sounds too much like everyone else’s offer, then you’ll definitely benefit from Zag. The graphic presentation style of the book makes it a quick read, but one whose ideas will stay with you as your grow and develop your own brand.

Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers, Gerald Zaltman & Lindsay H. Zaltman
I inhaled this one. It’s another of those gamechanger books for me. Marketing Metaphoria explains a way that we can think deeply about what customers want and bring that to positioning and messaging via metaphors. If you are wrestling with how to connect with your clients, this book gives you another dimension to consider.

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Eric Ries
Uncertainty and financial pressures are constants for entrepreneurs. The Lean Startup gives you a guiding philosophy to help you rise above the noise: build, measure and learn. Instead of looking for the “big win,” lean startups learn how to create minimum viable products so that they can experiment with what gets traction and stay agile. I loved the way Ries deeply values human creativity and helps us all understand the dynamics of entrepreneurship.

The links in this post are affiliate links on Amazon and generate a small commission for books sold. In the spirit of the season, I’m donating 200% of all December commissions (i.e., I’ll match the profits personally). My recipient of choice this Christmas? Kiva.org to help Doris Kamara, a woman who like many of us wants to take care of her family and give her children a quality education. Thank you for helping me support Doris and letting me share my dedication to women all over the world who shine in their entrepreneurial vision.

I’m always looking for my next favorite read. What were yours this year?

Ever wonder how others have developed a strong, natural brand? I do, all the time. That’s the purpose of the new feature I am kicking off this week called Brand Story.

This week, I’m delighted to feature a very spirited client, Sue Kasson, who has created Zero Stress Selling. Sue worked in corporate sales and training for a long time before considering the move toward an entrepreneurial career. Sue’s is a particularly compelling story because she was a total neophyte in the world of online marketing a year ago. Now, she has written a book, has a clear online presence, and is helping other solopreneurs learn to have relaxed – and effective! – sales conversations based on her considerable experience and coaching skills.

Sue and I worked through the Branding From the Inside Out process over several months to elicit the elements that make “Sue Online” feel like the warm and professional Sue that I have gotten to know personally. One of the things that I deeply admire about Sue is her steady commitment to learning and incorporating what she has learned. She has been fearless about trying new things – even when that meant executing a big pivot from working on the generic topic of stress management into working on lowering stress around sales.

By focusing largely on the customer experience that Sue wanted to create and identifying her key archetypes for her business leadership, the Compassionate Ruler, Sue is building a brand that will serve her well for quite some time. Sue truly leads her clients through one of their worst fears – sales – with deep caring and gentle direction so that they can gain confidence and experience sales conversations as a calm, comfortable part of a business relationship.

Zero Stress Selling also embodies another favorite concept of mine: a profitable intersection. Sue’s professional career gave her great skills and experience in coaching and training corporate professionals in sales techniques. At one point her personal life brought challenges that led her to do some deep learning about stress management and alternative therapies. Sue discovered that intersecting her expertise in sales with her personal growth based on specific stress management techniques was truly the sweet spot for her venture.

I asked Sue to add her own perspective by answering a few questions.

Laurie: How does knowing your natural brand make it easier to promote your business?
Sue: It comes easily to me, and it feels very natural to speak about it, write about it and even live it.

Laurie: When did you know we had found your natural brand?
Sue: When I knew I could talk about my brand and my work without looking at notes first! It just was so “me.” My brand is empathetic, warm and restorative, yet confident, and that works so well for teaching coaches and professional service providers how to sell without feeling icky or being pushy.

Laurie: Was there a particular part of our work together that helped you land it?
Sue: You had me write down 100 words that I wanted my brand to feel like – that exercise we did really helped!

Laurie: How does knowing your natural brand influence the visual and verbal language of your brand?
Sue: When you know you are a safe, trustworthy place for your clients to be, it is easy to talk about not being nervous when selling your services or products and then having them try out the words they want to use in a sales role play. My clients feel safe because I use the visual and verbal language of safety and empathy.

Laurie: How have you “tested” your branding as it has evolved?
Sue: Funny thing, I have a chronic illness and I worked with you on a stress management brand before Zero Stress Selling. And the same words we came up for my Lose Your Stress Now brand – empathy, warmth, safety, restorative yet confident – also worked when I decided to go with my strengths of sales training and coaching. It was so weirdly funny, but it absolutely was right. So, I would say your brand is really who you are – your offerings change but your brand stays the same.

Laurie: How does your natural brand influence your offers?
Sue: When I think about being trustworthy and empathetic, it is easy to offer private sales role play sessions instead of doing them in a group. My clients feel safer doing them one-on-one. I always remember my brand – zero stress and confidence – when I write my offerings and talk about them to potential clients. It really makes my work easier.

Sue and I recorded an audio interview as part of launching her new website. Click here to get the interview and hear how easily Sue conveys her brand. Sue also has a helpful freebie that you might want to check out: “The 3 Biggest Mistakes You Make When Trying to Enroll Clients.”

Thank you, Sue, for letting me candidly share your story here.

I’d love to continue this conversation in the comments. If you have questions for Sue or me about the branding process or her business, let’s chat.

Related posts:

1. Brand Lab: The Drill Down Exercise to Focus Your Blog Posts
2. Brand Study: Telling Your Story a la Sunni Brown
3. Brand Lab: Focus Your Research with Fancy Hands

Last week, I got my proverbial butt kicked when I read Pam Slim’s post on “Beware of fancy formulas and slick shortcuts.”

She said, “Writers write. Coders code. Speakers speak. Consultants consult.” And I thought to myself, “And teachers teach.” That’s my calling. I love to teach. I love to see people light up when they learn something they didn’t know before – especially if it’s about themselves.

My greatest teachers have taught me where to find the light switch and invited me to flip it. That’s what I aspire to do, too.

For years I have wanted to offer a virtual planning retreat at the end of the year. I had even developed material and written the marketing info. Then… I’d get swept up in the end-of-year crazies and drop the ball. The same thing was happening again this year. I had a creative storm and then… then… <insert sound of ball dropping>.

Then Pam whispered in my ear, “Teachers teach.” I picked up that ball as fast as I could.

Now I’m flying my teaching freak flag and pushing my new baby, The Planning Kitchen, ’round the block for a stroll.

When we do something because we know we’re meant to do it, the most interesting thing happens: it becomes wildly exciting to take a stand. Belief comes bubbling. While developing The Planning Kitchen, declarative statements kept waking me up at night, intruding on my Shredded Wheat, and making me miss exits while driving. Soon, I realized there was a creed being born, too.

Here’s The Planning Kitchen Creed:

Has your calling jumped the broom into creed? Let’s talk creed in the comments.

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2. Just One Moment
3. Happy Birthday #3