about a weekend workshop I’ll be leading in April at a local arts intitution, as well as a once-a-week-12-week course I’ll be doing independently… Have been delightedly surprised by the # and rapidity and – well – sweetness – of responses I’ve gotten. Folks are psyched! And me, too. 6 years ago

someone said “you’ll be doing this one day.” I don’t even know the guy…

the instructor knows the couple that flew down to see me last week… in the same biz as them, and knew them when they were much younger…

we hit it off and he showed me some of his organizational model, and I showed him some of my work…

loved it.

lm 6 years ago

to lead several workshops at a conference this summer. Yes! 6 years ago

Prompt follow-up, I might add (she said modestly). 6 years ago

today was my second of three days of teaching this course… it has been amazing… learning by teaching… a great class of people… a friend who grew up across the stress, another guy who is a friend of a friend who is positive and engaging, and loads of other interesting people…

2 of us brought out guitars today and sang at lunch time… he likes to play, i like to play and sing, and we had a great jam… during the “exercises” i was requested to play background music on guitar… :) instructor/entertainer… kind of an interesting title… but it works…

a woman from Italy brought pasta, side note, she owns two Italian restaurants… needless to say the food was excellent…

At the end of the day I shared my vision of analytical people and people-people, and how at our place of business they are at odds some times… a cultural thing… i realized in the middle of it that i was being really passionate about it… and later i realized that i am still angry at my father for the way he used his logic to crush my Mom’s spirit… and i have a disdain for hyper logical people who believe their logic supercedes what a people person needs no matter the context…

if it’s dealing with a dangerous situation or building a house structurally speaking, then logic rules… but if it’s a choice of color, or a conversation, or what goes in the home, then the subtler arts should have a voice…

i am still angry at those who build a tower of technical skill from which they look down on others, and use logic to negate anything which comes from anything other than a sterile, sharp cornered, precise world…

no, it’s not anger… it’s more pity… but when i see them using their logic against sweet people who are good hearted and caring, it’s anger…

and, to wrap it all up in a little bow, my anger, or their inappropriate and often malicious use of logic, is not very effective…

shifting paradigm now… 6 years ago

marvelous and high energy … made me happy to do… great students… the folks at the venue where this was held were really delighted… plans for another one already in process!

YAY! 6 years ago

Answered an email from a colleague who puts on a conference at which I have taught in the past… letting her know where I am (moved across co8ntry since last time), update her, etc.

Meanwhile, the school at which I will be teaching next weekend is THRILLED at the number of registrants. Well… me too.

I’m good at this, I love doing it, my students always are enthusiastic (several returning ones coming from long distances to local workshop), and it’s just… I need to stay on putting out feelers to do this more regularly. 6 years ago

for the local workshop. And have been good about getting them follow-up material whenever they needed it (“they” being the venue sponsoring the workshop.) 6 years ago

is yet another scattering of seeds and possibilities… 6 years ago

a national group that has state and regional conferences… I have spoken at many, in the area I used to live in. Today I contacted one in the new region in which I live.

Usually I wait to be asked – let’s see if nudging it aloong a little helps. If it does, look out!

I could send 1 such letter every day or two, maybe… 6 years ago

and two people have already signed up! Posters/flyers have yet to be placed. This is quite amazing. 6 years ago

and have already done posters, sent emails, etc. Too cool! 6 years ago

a biggish-time gig I had hoped to get I got turned down for, BUT it appears to be leading to a medium-time gig, possibly a series of same.

Just have to stay on it and stay positive and keep tending that ol’ orchard (see previous entry). 6 years ago

“They” (being everyone from the Christians, ‘As ye sow so shall ye reap’, to the Hindus… karma… to the New Age folks… ‘manifesting’,) all say the same thing essentially: what you do comes back to you.

Thing is, the slight fallacy in all that is that it’s rarely an exact equation or in the time-frame or form you had visualized (because as much as we’d like to be, we are NOT in control).

The analogy I’ve invented to myself is this: say you plant an apple orchard. You choose good healthy hearty root stock, appriopriate to your climate. You nurture the heck out of those trees… manuring them, disking the ground between, making sure tehy’re adequately watered, pruning religiously, et al. They’re supposed to start bearing in three years.

Three years come and go, and, sadly – you harvest ONE apple and its taste and texture are decidedly blehhhh.

Naturally you find this incomprehensible and are totally disappointed.

The next week, the Fed Ex guy shows up on your doorstep with a case of organic Georgia peaches, no gift tag attached. Another couple of weeks, a similar box of ruby-red grapefruit. This goes on for awhile.

Then, eventually your ortchard bears fruit. Or maybe it doesn’t… but in any case, what you do has come back to you albeit bizarrely, mysteriously. As you sow so shall ye reap doesn’t mean you reap the exact fruits you planted – it just means you get fruit, of some sort, when you need it.

All by way of saying: some of the seeds I planted that germinated ARE coming up. Many aren’t.

But instead, some other stuff, unlooked for, has arrived. Two metaphorical Fed Ex packages, one small, one large.

• The small Fed Ex box: associaition of professionals in my field sent me a letter asking me to submit my info to their directory of those who do public speaking, workshops, presentations, etc. This will come out in the fall and go to hundreds of possible people and venues.

• The big Fed Ex box: I got asked to join faculty at an every-two-years conference in my field. The facility/ venue, is literally the stuff of legends, the pay is quite good (although they work you like a horse… a Percheron or other draft horse), but the work itself is TERRIFIC and energizing, and the networking oppoprtunities will be unequalled. This won’t take place until next summer (2007) (geesh, are the years not HURTLING by?)... but it oh so good. Good for my heart and soul and brain… on another, less important but still significant level, good on my resume!

This “experience hog at the trough of life” (as my late husband and I used to sometimes refer to each other, followed by making enthusoastic grunts and oinks) is dancing on her trotters! 6 years ago

follow-up… And when I get this phase of the “lollygag” project done, I will have several weeks before I need to buckle back down into its nextphase, and I can scatter and cultivate plenty of teacing seeds… 6 years ago

several of those I planted (see two previous entries) are starting to come up. The local art school one (3 workshops, late fall) and the university conference one (working on the speaker’s for next year’s confs.)

This is good.

I love doing workshops, and whenever I do I feel clearly that this is one of the things I was born to do. 6 years ago

Today I:

• emailed back to a conference center director who had emailed me in response to my proposal to him. I know this guy, I love his place and him, but he does move slowwwwly. But I’m staying on it.

• also emailed back to a local school… I’d set up a meeting with them it went terrifically well, they emailed me a follow-up on my proposal to them… I actually think we are getting READY TO ROLL on this one (the worshops would be in late fall). 7 years ago

... to a professor who selects panelists and presenters for conferences her university holds.

(This was a side benefit of one of my later goals, about making my office orderly… came across a note she had written me; while not the type of thing that required a reply, it was complimentary and left the door open for such. So. There we are!)

Baited hooks are probably not the best metaphor for vegetarians… but, you know. Anyway, an image of some happy uncaught fish. (I just want to invite her to invite me to swim in her school, after all).

Later on : yet another lead/ possibility, quite intriguing though less personal invitation than idea, surfaced on my desk, and I began follow-up on it.

Go, ff! You rock! 7 years ago

Long story, but I have been juried in three areas… workshop was for those of us so certified, about how to do just what this goal describes.

It was valuable and interesting and and and.

Maybe the best part was carpooling up with a woman, a colleague, who I knew slightly a long long time ago and with whom I have become reacquainted now that I’ve moved back here. We were muy sympatico and throughly enjoyed our round trip 1 1/2 hour each way excursion. Each of us have information taht can be helpful to the other, and just a good vibe of mutual respect and shared sensibility and humor. “networking” in the most natural way.

This is the main goal achieved today. A good one! 7 years ago

Follow-up email today to a colleague who had expressed interest in having me come and present at their conference later this year… also, signed up for a one-day meeting of people in my field (one of my fields) in this state… Was very well-known as a speaker in my former state and region, less so here, so this should be good.

Lastly, planting seeds to return and do another workshop at a terrific UU conference center I taught at a few years back.

All in all… a B+ in the action department on this. I’m planting seeds; I just want some of ‘em to germinate so we can move right along towards harvest.

fairly fearlessly forging forward… 7 years ago

Made a call to a speaker’s bureau I admire. They actually knew my work but are not taking more clients at this time… are going to email me some suggestions.

I also followed up with someone I met professionally and just adore… she has started an independent PR agency and was moving in the “getting speaking gigs” for her clients direction… I encouraged her, told her some more about this from my perspective, sent her a link to several relevent websites and said, ”... and I would love to be your first client” (in this division).

Moving and grooving!

Now to move on to TAKING my own advice instead of just lining up venues for teaching it. Nothing wrong with the latter, and in fact it IS one of my goals… but not the most important one.

Time to return to the source. 7 years ago

planting possible seeds for future gigs.

I’m just spread a bit thin at this point… most of my gig are in RESPONSE to queries from others who’ve heard me speak, not because I’ve marketed them directly. 7 years ago

I just need, basically, to do a brochure on this.

I have lots of ideas and thoughts and contacts on this, actually. I know I have this kind of energy to give the world (and get stronger and better at it as I receive back, for teaching always makes you better at what you teach, always makes you a student)... I just have to do it, and currently seem to be overwhelmed with outher projects.

(Well, duh… as my 43T list or even a cursory glance at my office would tell you!)

Okay, FF, take a nice deep breath and go back to work. 7 years ago

So, FF, when you going to do them? 7 years ago

a follow up email done, follow-up phone calls to be done later this a.m… 7 years ago

I set one up for myself on this goal, among others, arriving once a week. Today it arrived just AFTER I got back from a long, tiring, but oh-so-worth it drive to and from an interview-by-panel which will lead to many opportuntities to (she addressses herself) “that voodoo that you do so well.”

Made me feel good.

I had one idea for an intriguing gig. I am going to do some preliminary research and see if I can make it happen…

xxoo

cd 7 years ago

This may not get me more gigs/workshops, but it’ll streamline/destressify coming and going when I do. Hoorah! 7 years ago

today! Good for me.

I love being a guest lecturer / workshop leader; students always tell me it is life-changing. But since I’m not in an easily pigeon-holed category (not an academic, not connected with a particular institution, my stuff doesn’t have an easily defined career or self-help orientation) my “gigs” wither come because soneone heard me somewhere and wants me back, or because I went out and fo7und it. The latter is usually less successful.

I’m not sure how to do the amping myself. As I say, the best just come to me. 7 years ago

Got an invitation, not to speak or lead workshop but which could lay groundwork for same. Answer it, FF, and put out them there feelers! 7 years ago